Imagination - H
I'm not much of a reader. That's a bit embarrassing for me to admit when I live among a community of richly educated people and in a region where knowledge and erudition is highly extolled, the SF Bay area. (Did I even use those words accurately? I'd probably know if I read more. =P) In any case, what that means is that it takes a lot for me to get through a book even if it's for pleasure, and even if the book is good. Among other things, I don't have the patience to sit still and read. However, I decided to read through The Chronicles of Narnia recently, and I've been engrossed. I was inspired by a song I like that the songwriter said was inspired by one of the books, and so I thought I would read through the series. I've actually never made it through all the books.
Well, aside from the story line, reading the books has awakened my imagination a bit with regard to my relationship with God. It's not that the imagery syncs with my own thoughts about creation, for example, but it gives me ideas, I guess, about other ways to think about God and a relationship with Him or maybe even about life and our world. It makes me think that if we are created in the image of God and He is obviously a creative being, well, I don't quite see the creativity in my relationship with Him. I see order and discipline to the exclusion of creativity. I imagine that a whole new understanding of God would open up if we dabbled in our creativity a bit more. I imagine we would see more of the beauty of God and grow to know who he is much better than we do now. What does that look like though? To dabble in our creativity? Especially if we're not artists or creative writers or something of the sort? I don't quite know myself, but maybe we can start by using our imaginations when thinking about who God is, reading books like The Chronicles of Narnia which has proved to help me engage my imagination. Maybe we can listen to songs with poetic lyrics and imagery about God. This is another thing I've been doing...sort of on accident, which is to say that I didn't think of this and the go out to deliberately look for a CD with poetic lyrics. I guess it's just something God is leading me toward??
Anyway, that's my 2 cents for the day.
Well, aside from the story line, reading the books has awakened my imagination a bit with regard to my relationship with God. It's not that the imagery syncs with my own thoughts about creation, for example, but it gives me ideas, I guess, about other ways to think about God and a relationship with Him or maybe even about life and our world. It makes me think that if we are created in the image of God and He is obviously a creative being, well, I don't quite see the creativity in my relationship with Him. I see order and discipline to the exclusion of creativity. I imagine that a whole new understanding of God would open up if we dabbled in our creativity a bit more. I imagine we would see more of the beauty of God and grow to know who he is much better than we do now. What does that look like though? To dabble in our creativity? Especially if we're not artists or creative writers or something of the sort? I don't quite know myself, but maybe we can start by using our imaginations when thinking about who God is, reading books like The Chronicles of Narnia which has proved to help me engage my imagination. Maybe we can listen to songs with poetic lyrics and imagery about God. This is another thing I've been doing...sort of on accident, which is to say that I didn't think of this and the go out to deliberately look for a CD with poetic lyrics. I guess it's just something God is leading me toward??
Anyway, that's my 2 cents for the day.
posted by haed at 1:31 PM
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