This world is bent on taking away our imagination. In our modern society, we are continuously entertained by TV screens, work, much more. We often use the words, “I’m too busy for ______.” We are creating a method of being busy that is hurting our wholeness that have results of a lost imagination. When we keep ourselves and our families busy, we are stealing from ourselves the gift of boredom.
Boredom allows us to imagine, to dream, and to play without boundaries. “In fact, according to MacQuarrie (2014), “daydreaming is crucial to our mental health, to our relationships, and our emotional and moral development. It promotes the skill parents and teachers care so much about which is the capacity to focus on the world outside our heads.”[1]
Stimulating the imagination requires us to be inspired. The greatest inspirer is the most creative of all—God. Jesus used creativity in storytelling to encourage the vision of what the Kingdom of Heaven would be like now. He used imagery to bring pictures within our minds, which helped us understand the message he was conveying. In the construction of the Temple, the artisans were there to construct the imagination of God’s heart for the people of Israel to visually see.
Our imagination is being stunted, which keeps us from seeing God’s vision for ourselves. The creation of this world is full of amazing creativity and beauty. Part of our wholeness can see God’s sight, his Kingdom here and now.[2]
Creativity sparks our imagination—it takes us into another world. The experience we receive from being creative brings forth an element of joy within us.
Abstract painter, Sean Scully, shares the painter’s experience of “painting a feeling…the schism of painting what you are looking at and painting what you know in some other way, physically.”[3] Art provokes in the process of creation, emotions, thoughts, and memories. For the observer of the finished artwork can also provide within the same effect. The provocation of art stimulates mind, excitement, and imagination.
Part of our identity in Christ is becoming whole within his creation. In Samuel McNerney’s A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You are Not Your Brain writes,, “our cognition is influenced, perhaps determined by, our experiences in the physical world.”[4] We embody our experiences with the physical world; it influences our development of how we view ourselves and others. Our experience in the physical world becomes limited if we are not relating to the creativity and imagination of God.
Genesis 2:7, “ Then the Lord God formed a manfrom the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” God made us from the earth, and we are connected to the earth. In ancient Israel, the practice of the midwife at birth was to place the child on the ground immediately after birth. This action also provided an open airway for the child producing their first breath. “Earthing affirmed the widespread belief that before entering the womb of its human mother, newborns gestated in the soil, rocks, trees, plants, flower, rivers, and springs (Ps 139:15; Wis 7:1-6; McKenzie 1907: 253-82).”[5] This belief of our connection to the earth science affirms. The Journal of Environmental and Public Health states, “Reconnecting with the Earth’s electrons has been found to promote intriguing physiological changes and subjective reports of well-being.”[6]
The reality that humanity will continue not to be whole until it connects to the earth. Modern society is continuously disconnecting humanity from nature. Humanity is suffering the consequences of our disconnected lives by losing our identity in the creative imagination of our Creator.
Stimulating our imagination is connected to our spiritual disciplines. Silence, stillness, and solitude are similar to what MacQuarrie says, is boredom.[7] This recipe that spiritual formation has been using silence, stillness, and solitude is the yeast that rises our imagination towards God’s. In these moments of quiet, we get to see, hear and know God’s thoughts for us.
The art of prayer allows us to have the space to hear the story that God is telling. In the process of prayer, we let go of the concerns and regain trust in God. We see God at work when we can reflect, listen, and imagine with God. This act of prayer is the maker of wholeness.
Scripture is one way that we can know how God sees us. The poetic words, descriptive writings that paint a picture, stories of wonder and hope, Kingdom language expressed to us from God in human form-Jesus, this all ignites our creativity. When we engage with scripture, we start to see God’s full intention of our purpose here on earth; we see God’s creativity, and connectivity of nature is the expression of his love.
The ultimate gift that God has given us to ignite our
imagination is nature. We can see the work of God in creation. Observing nature, you see the characteristics
of God of wisdom, love, hope, humor, and so much more. When we engage in the
care of the earth, we enter into the relationship of knowing God within his
intention of a connected world. We reconnect into God’s imagination when we
step outside.
[1] PSYCH 424 (blog). “Boredom Encourages Imagination” Penn State. October 30, 2016, https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2016/10/30/boredom-encourages-imagination/
[2] Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. (Navpress), 87
[3] “Sea Star: Sean Scully at the National Gallery” The National Gallery, on YouTube, April 19,2019, https://youtu.be/wanKTC4uDNM
[4] Samuel McNerney, “A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain,” Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc. (blog), November 4, 2011, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/a-brief-guide-to-embodied-cognition-why-you-are-not-your-brain/?redirect=1
[5] Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, Social World of Ancient Israel 1250-587 BCE, (Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993) 72
[6] Gaetan Chevalier et al., “Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth’s Surface Electrons” Journal of Environmental and Public Health, Vol. 2012, Article ID 291541, 8 pages, doi: 10.1155/2012/291541
[7] PSYCH 424 (blog). “Boredom Encourages Imagination” Penn State. October 30, 2016, https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2016/10/30/boredom-encourages-imagination/