From an article I’m working on towards a theology of the imagination, for a Christian journal. Fun trying to frame the essentialness of engaging our imaginations in our spiritualities or intimacy with God within that frame!

Been circling around this topic for some time, seeing the imagination as part of being human, rather than some special artistic aspect, and part of what we all engage with in our spirituality. Part of what is to be in the sanctification process. That our imaginations are also being baptized and sanctified, like the rest of us! That the transformation of the imagination is part of renewing our minds daily, and putting on the full mind of Christ! That, as Paul put it, it is part of not just seeing, but also perceiving the inner meaning of people, places and things, including ourselves! That the imagination is part of discernment, interpretation and understanding, as well as expression. It’s a way of knowing. So, it’s not just about making art, but much more, about being fully human!

Our becoming one integrated sanctified person includes our imaginations! But also even being able to interpret the morning news has to include our imaginations!

This might be boring for some, and is mostly preached towards the creative christian choir I’m sure, but I’ve been thinking lots about how to engage the creative dimensions of being human more practically in our daily relationship with God and others. In short, on the sanctification and theology of the imagination! One of my pet topics over the years! The imagination is part of being human, so still seems really important to me in our spiritualities.

The imagination is part of how we know things; part of being fully human, and part of what is loved and capable of loving others. It’s not just about art, but part of being fully human. Part of what we bring to the banquet of our intimacy with God.

We are meant to be seeing and perceiving! And bringing our whole selves into intimacy with God, including our creativity and imaginations. The poverty of imagination which we often see in the church, has many causes, but those “in Christ” are really without excuse in the area of creativity, as we claim to be intimate with the one who created the universe, and made us as His symbols or in His Image. We are poems (Ephesians 2:10) and we are poetry makers! Collaborators with Christ in creative communion. Even our stewardship of the earth is a creative collaboration, which requires an engaged imagination!

The imagination has to do with: how we know and interpret things; being fully human; and about integrating our whole selves in our active living relationship with God. We can’t throw out our imaginations in our relationship with Christ. Our spiritual perception is essential, even to knowing Him. Like Peter, if we cannot see Him well, we cannot even see, or hear whispered, our own names!

Creative engagement is essential to knowing even our own identities, much less others! If I cannot see you more as God does, I will not love you well. When we engage our imaginations in our relationship with God, we start to see one another, more through His Perception. This is one of the main reasons we want our imaginations engaged in the process of sanctification. It is part of renewing our minds daily. Our minds include our imaginations! To put on the full mind of Christ, includes our imagination!

“You will be ever seeing, but never perceiving,” Isaiah, quoted by St. Paul in talking to and warning his audience. To see without perceiving, is still a huge problem, especially in His Church. You see the events of the day, but cannot perceive and interpret them spiritually. Their inner meaning eludes us. Why? Our spiritual perceptions are dull. A sanctified imagination can interpret the heart of the matter, as Jesus could with people. He looked into their hearts and knew! So our creativity has to do with how we know things.

Jesus opened many blind eyes literally, and many eyes of the heart! St Paul was made blind physically in order to see spiritually! We lose our sight to find it!

It’s still the same lack of spiritual vision, or poverty of imagination which keeps us from perceiving and interpreting the real meaning of things. Paul taught us to abound in Love and be ever increasing our knowledge and the proper discernment of things. To have an ever awakening spiritual imagination!

You don’t know how to interpret this event spiritually, Jesus kept telling His own disciples or students. See differently, interpret from another, higher perspective friends. Fish are more than fish. Bread is more than bread. It’s a warning directed towards our perception of things. It’s a call to wake up our imaginations in Christ! I’m not talking about worship of the imagination like the Romantics did, this is just as bad as worshiping reason; I’m talking about yielding and engaging the imagination in our relationships with Christ!

Then, we will be seeing and perceiving the inner meaning of things, events and people, cities and nations! Then we will begin to be seeing more as we truly are seen. More face to Face. That’s the healing trajectory of our imaginations. And that’s the process of the sanctification of thole whole person, including their imaginations. That’s the journey we are meant to be on!

A baptized imagination, as CS Lewis called it, is part of how we know things as they really are! Our spiritual perception is crucial to being able to interpret! We are meant to be ones who see and perceive the inner meaning of things and events. Let’s engage our imaginations in our spiritualities! CS Lewis spoke of having his imagination baptized as he was reading George Macdonald’s works. To have our imagination and creativity engaged in our relationship with God should be the norm, especially for Christians!

The imagination has three purposes: it helps us interpret things, it is part of being fully human, and is a place of communion with Christ’s actual Life! His inventiveness and vision. We need more of all three. As we bring our imaginations into His Light, we are putting on the full Mind of Christ. The mind of Christ, was never meant to mean only our reason. We engage with Him in the healing of the imagination, and are able to express more from that intimacy. It includes our imagination and spiritual perception. Our creative center is meant to be part of our relationship with God.

Bringing our creativity home, or into The Life of Christ, is about bringing more of the whole person into relationship with our God. For, Jesus is Lord over the whole Person, the Father Loves the whole person, and God is One. These are the three foundations of a theology of the imagination.

Spiritual sight, helps us know what is true and Real. It is part of being fully human, and is part of what Christ died to know and be in relationship with! Let’s include our imaginations in our relationship with Him, for His Name’s or Identity’s sake!

If a theology of the arts rest on: Jesus Lordship over the whole of Reality; God’s Love for the whole person; and God’s Oneness; then, to know all three we must engage our imaginations in our active living daily relationship with God.

Watched a great documentary on this poet, who i got to meet on one of my birthdays. Interesting thinker and teacher. We talked Jesus and death, on the day i met him, and he dedicated a poem to me. I really liked how he incarnated his poems, and that he had lived them before he wrote them. Incarnation before expression! I can only teach what I already have embodied.

A mixed bag, as we all are, but he kept seeking an “upper story”, as Francis Shaeffer would call it, in life. And like Allen Ginsberg really helped heal language itself, from what Heschel called the deterioration of language. Special man. Nice to see they finally made a decent documentary on his life. I liked his distinction between our true inner life and the personas we wear to interface with others. And his “Morning Poems” is still just great poetry of being.
And I loved his contagious love of language itself. As Abraham Heschel taught, language is deteriorating, and we need to be part of healing and entering into words themselves, and finding God through them again. This guy was at least concerned with the inner life of language. And was a great performer of poetry, made it relevant again, as it doesn’t seem to have been since.

I have no problem with vertical thinkers, as long as they are open to what they meet there! We all run into Love eventually, if our hearts are truly open. I liked this guys thoughts for other writers also about finding their true voices and not resting on persona, or masks. Our first persona is what we differentiate to be. Then we wear one from our parents as well. Poetry is proof of the inner life.

Dream: I’m going to Korea with han su and teresa. i immediately like it; the buildings look like ones i grew up with. the soil is green and there are birch trees; han su knows the whole island

It takes a day to lift a burden.

Love is an entryway to everything which matters.

I like being the oil on the joints, so to speak, to be at the hinges or watershed spaces; i get pleasure in the in between places even of the generations (it’s my generation’s role-to interpret from the seams, so to speak, we’re a watershed people, and rejoice in the parts already starting to, and about to, touch! To muster us on, towards unity! To shout the praises of the in-between, the already not yet, but almost yet….poetic faith glue, us!). Synovial fluid i think they call in the human body, keeps the joints lubricated! Regardless, i love that space where different parts of the body come together in new collaborations, new types of connections! So when friends come together, it gets me excited! And when i get excited I express a lot.

I’m really liking this years theme of my global friends getting to hang out with my parents! Makes me happy. I’m blessed in that my parents are also actual spiritual parents (seems rare these days, when your actual family is also spiritual family; thankful for that in life!), and it means the world to me when friends get to meet them.
Thanks guys for thinking to shout out to me yesterday! It’s was a sudden bouquet in my heart to see you all together across generations of His Purposes each engaged in your own chapters of the endless story! I love that you got to tap into our local Moravian heritage as well Pete Greig! Grew up two blocks from there-rich history which keeps giving as you know through the global prayer movements!
I love global family! What a sudden bouquet of friendship and family grew in my heart overnight. Woke up happy. Thanks guys! I love it when special ones connect and converse-especially across generations!
I like being the oil on the joints, so to speak, to be at the hinges or watershed spaces; i get pleasure in the in between places even of the generations (it’s my generation’s role-to interpret from the seams, so to speak, we’re a watershed people, and rejoice in the parts already starting to, and about to, touch! To muster us on, towards unity! To shout the praises of the in-between, the already not yet, but almost yet….poetic faith glue, us!). Synovial fluid i think they call in the human body, keeps the joints lubricated! Regardless, i love that space where different parts of the body come together in new collaborations, new types of connections! So when friends come together, it gets me excited!
So good seeing yawl together. Plus, it made my mom happy, and i love my mom! When my mom’s happy, the angels sing!
If you all don’t know Pete Greig and his life’s work with the global multi-denominational and ecumenical body-wide prayer movements (24/7 etc) going on over the past many years, starting in Europe but rippling out everywhere, you should, it’s inspiring what’s up, taps us into current spiritual history, and has broken down many types of walls (as prayer tends to!), in a time where that’s most needed!
He’s also a great story teller and man of faith. This movement’s made safe spiritual harbors for formation and incubators for social justice, not walls, which is my current bumper sticker for our times! “Clean your harbors, tear down your walls!”. And my mom likes him, which is a good sign.
Plus, i love promoting my friends without branding them! Look him up, he’s much more famous and functional than me (he’s British!)–easier to find also! His first book “Red Moon Rising” rocked and was true; this new one, which i haven’t read yet, because i can’t find a copy, I’m sure it’s also got some holy heat on it! Look forward to sitting with it.
Had a dream once, that i would get to bless or see all the generations on earth at once, or at least see and love three like Joshua did! And get to see how they fit together (that’s the fun part!)! Great dream.
When global friends and family come together, which keeps happening this year, across generations and cross body, makes me think that dream may come true! Thanks guys, nice to see you all together-blessed my soul! Let’s keep being in and telling the endless Story, each pronouncing our lines in Love! Together we make and become a sign.

From all my studies so far in life, Love appears to be the key to every door.

I’m really liking this years theme of my global friends getting to hang out with my parents! Makes me happy. I’m blessed in that my parents are also actual spiritual parents (seems rare these days, when your actual family is also spiritual family; thankful for that in life!), and it means the world to me when friends get to meet them.

Thanks guys for thinking to shout out to me yesterday! It’s was a sudden bouquet in my heart to see you all together across generations of His Purposes each engaged in your own chapters of the endless story! I love that you got to tap into our local Moravian heritage as well Pete! Grew up two blocks from there-rich history which keeps giving as you know through the global prayer movements!

I love global family! What a sudden bouquet of friendship and family grew in my heart overnight. Woke up happy. Thanks guys! I love it when special ones connect and converse-especially across generations! I like being the oil on the joints, so to speak, to be at the hinges or watershed spaces (it’s my generation’s role-to interpret from the seams, so to speak, and rejoice in the parts already starting to touch! To muster us on, towards unity!). Synovial fluid i think they call in the human body, keeps the joints lubricated! Regardless, i love that space where different parts of the body come together in new collaborations, new types of connections! Plus, it made my mom happy, and i love my mom!

Had a dream once, that i would get to bless or see all the generations on earth at once, or at least see and love three like Joshua did! Great dream. When global friends and family come together across generations and cross body, makes me think that dream may come true! Thanks guys, nice to see you all together-blessed my soul! Let’s keep being in the endless Story, each pronouncing our lines in Love! Together we make and become a sign.

Being a hyperbole:

“I am a hyperbole,” My wife said today from a conversation we were having about often feeling in life, that we were both, as Abraham Heschel put it in talking about the prophets, “one octave too high”. Maybe God has to exaggerate Himself sometimes to be heard.

Alas, it’s true, we are hyperboles, yet sometimes it seems God uses hyperbole to express Himself-hence artists and saints. Sometimes you have to yell to be heard, to be bigger than life to find and express Life.

Certainly St Paul both was, and used, lots of hyperbole! Ok, at least we are in good company! Although it’s still hard for me to hide in a cafe when i just want to read, never mind sneaking into the back pew of church to pray! Maybe artists and prophetic people are always hyperbolic. Well, at least we are hyper alive!

Maybe all people of and after God, are meant to be exaggerations of the obvious.

Reverend Shoehorn’s word:

I was working on a traveling preacher character today for a little film I’m working on. Basing it one of my uncles who was a traveling preacher—an itinerant revivalist, they used to call it. Anyways, interesting the sermon i came up with that he wanted to preach. It was all about a new re-formation, or deeper re-formation!

From a new reformer (I’m calling this preacher Reverend Shoehorn) i came across today, he was talking about the new reformation going on now….that is inside of people. His little homily went like this:

“The new reformation!

The re-formation was just a start of a deeper formation of Christ in people. In our times, He wants to go deeper, baptizing people more fully into His Name, and therefore, our own true names or identities. The result will be authentic spirituality. So people won’t have to stumble over the unnecessary stone of the forms of the church. This is Grace really. For if He is more at the Center, then we build the outer more creatively, less legalistically.

This makes the outer forms more authentic perforce (many are working on the outer before the inner, He’s working in reverse-inside to out- but He wants to go more deeply in, which will transform the outer expressions), but also has a greater clarity of simplicity in authenticity. This movement will be marked by simplicity and diversity of expression.

For to be more deeply in His Name, is to express more fully our true names! Our names are written and hidden in His, as He taught St Peter!

Also the deeper we go into His Name, the more we will feel united with those in His Name, so ecumenism will take care of itself!

To be baptized more deeply into His actual Name is the call of our times, in the midst of increasing tumult. Christ wants to come closer, eclipse and come into more of us. Make us more fully human, while simultaneously making us more “not, but Christ”. Show us our true names, while we lose them! Exciting times of opportunity to go deeper and enter another level of re-formation, a depth formation, for those who want to be more fully in Him! Let’s!”

Anyways, i enjoyed discovering this character’s sermon today through the creative process, and starting to develop what he wants to say about the spiritual climate now! Fun way to explore. I learn so much through my art process. Plus, what he had to say felt true about now.