How would you define imagination? When I asked my seminar participants this today, they used some of these words and phrases: Visioning. Dreams. Transcendent humor. Even Spongebob.
I followed that up by reading the creation story, Genesis 1:1 – 2:4, from the Message version of the Bible. While it’s really not what you want to use for serious Bible study or exegesis, I really like to pull out the Message once in a while for its fresh, earthy, and non-academic language. Through the scripture, it’s fun to watch, in your mind’s eye, the creation story unfold as God’s divine imagination becomes a reality. I like to think of God as an engineer (big surprise, right?). God imagined the universe, designed it, and then built it – speaking it into existence.
I can remember being young and climbing all over a fallen tree with my friends and my brother, pretending the tree was a spaceship. We’d land on alien planets, fire the lasers, and gather “crystals” (aka, bottles and jars we found in the dirt, filled with creek water) to power the ship. We would run around in the woods and play all day on those warm, summer days until it got dark and our parents made us come inside.
When I was visiting the Seminar Program in New York City last fall, one of the speakers, a theater guy, asked us to pretend we were in all kinds of interesting situations: walking through honey, hurrying somewhere on the coldest day of the year, on your way to your first date with the girl/guy of your dreams. At the end of all this, he asked a question that hit me like a ton of bricks.
When did we stop playing?
Whoa. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I/we haven’t completely stopped playing, but it really isn’t something that happens on a daily basis. I remember a few weeks ago, a few friends and I were hanging out, and we pulled out some Nerf guns (sorry pacifists) and ran around the house marking each other in good fun! For others, playing looks like finding creative ways to make running a mile more challenging.
This kind of playing is all good fun (depending on who you are) and can be a needed escape from reality, but others still have found more humanitarian ways to play and exercise imagination. At Capitol Hill UMC, we have begun a sermon series promoting the UMC Imagine No Malaria campaign. It’s all about visioning and moving toward a world where malaria, a disease that claims a life every 60 seconds, is no longer a reality. We want to eradicate it worldwide, just like we did in the US in the 1950s. Simple preventative measures, such as a $10 bed net, along with education on how and why to use it, can protect a family from malaria-carrying mosquitoes while they sleep, the time when people are most vulnerable to bites and subsequent infections. Think about ways you might get involved in this, or something else that inspires your passion and sparks your imagination.
As I write this, I come to this thought: aren’t the times we feel most alive also the times when we are playing, brainstorming, and letting our imaginations soar? I hope you get a chance to get outside and play today.
