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Journeying With Scripture – Part Two – Use Your Imagination

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What is imagination? Can/should we use it when reading the Bible?  This post is the second in a series about “Journeying with Scripture”. It is an opportunity to explore further how and why we read the Bible. It will also uncover some of the thinking behind the Bible study books “Journeying With Abraham” and “Journeying With Nehemiah” and how they might differ from other approaches.

For some, “imagination” might seem to refer to fiction or ideas that have simply been made up as opposed to “reality” or “truth”. Christianity accepts that God needs to reveal Himself to us for us to have any grasp of who God really is. So, isn’t using the imagination resorting to making up our own ideas about God?

If we were starting from a position of no revelation or choosing to ignore all revelation of any kind then imagination would risk being nothing but a human construct, fabricating its own “god” in whatever image suited us. However, we don’t start from a position of no revelation or encounter between God and us. God has spoken and revealed Himself. But, isn’t the use of our imagination still liable to undermine that revelation?

When God reveals Himself to us, it is done in ways that we can at least partially comprehend. Yet, so much of this revelation falls short of the fullness of who God is. For example, God is not a man – so Jesus both reveals God to us and at the same time can’t reveal everything. God in all fullness is beyond our capacity to understand.

Much of the understanding we do have utilises metaphors (e.g. God as Father, Rock, Fortress, etc.). Metaphors encourage the use of the imagination. They put two things together and invite us to explore the resulting picture. An act of the imagination is required to connect the two – metaphors are by their nature not usually completely literal or logical. Yes, they may engage our rational faculties, but they also require creative thinking.

Escaping the boundaries

Creative thought is an essential part of being human; it is how we solve problems. Scientific research and discovery may appear to be totally absorbed with rational thought, yet it too requires leaps of the imagination. We imagine a solution beyond our current position and this helps guide our endeavours. We imagine new possibilities and then begin to create them.

Empathy is understandably a highly prized characteristic. Like creativity, it demands (whether consciously or otherwise) acts of imagination. We see circumstances, relate them to our own experiences and imagine assumed connections. Often these connections are absolutely correct. So, the imagination is not simply for creating an artificial reality or lies, but for helping us perceive truth.

When it comes to reading Scripture, empathy is a useful skill to have. It can enable us to enter into stories and begin to understand why people react the way they do. This is not just true of narratives, where we might sympathise or empathise with the main character or other players in the text. It can also help make sense of letters and Psalms, for example. If we can in some sense discern why Paul is upset or frustrated or why the Psalmist is singing for joy, then this helps us to connect with the text for ourselves.

Empathy may also help us to discern the unusual or unexpected turns in a story. If we can imagine how a character would probably have felt or wanted to react, then maybe the fact that they don’t do so becomes more apparent and hits home more. We can sometimes perceive more clearly  what it is that is unusual about the person or story and what we might learn from them.

Imagination is also important when it comes to our future hope. None of us has seen what is beyond this life, nor does the Bible give detailed, clear descriptions of life after death. But, our imagination, which extrapolates from the data we do have, can help us perceive that which our faith then clings on to. The little snippets that Scripture does give us about resurrection and the life beyond are sufficient to fire our imaginations and kindle hope.

None of this means that imagination is an infallible tool. It can go wrong – we can imagine things which are unhelpful and not true. However, rational, logical thought can also lead us up blind alleys or down into the dark as well as out into the light. Imagination is not an inferior part of who we are. It can be used together with other skills to help us grow towards the truth.

If imagination is so closely linked to creativity, then it wouldn’t be all that surprising if in some sense God wants us to know Him through our imagination. It may be that the ideas, the possibilities we imagine are planted in us by God. After all, surely it is only someone who can imagine a better world that works towards one?

How about you? What role does your imagination play in your life of faith? Do you see a need to listen to your imagination or do you mistrust it?

© Joe Lenton, July 2013

 

Praying with Scripture – Part One – Form & Creativity

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Over the coming weeks I hope to post a few ideas about praying with the Bible. Today’s focus is on the topic of form and creativity.

Are you creative? Chances are, if you are made in the image of a creative God the answer is “yes”. Perhaps you might not think of yourself as creative because you think it means “arty”, but there are many forms of creativity. What form our creativity takes reflects who we are as individuals and our personalities. Some are better with words, others with pictures, others with music, still others with food, carpentry, flower-arranging, finding novel solutions to problems, etc. Prayer is an intrinsic part of the Christian life and it can be enriched by finding creative ways of praying.

The Psalms provide us with a wide variety of forms. They have long been recognised as prayers that may be said or sung. This suggests that we might bring music into play in our prayers – turning them into songs, perhaps, or using music as a backcloth to set a mood, for example. Even if melody or harmony is not used, we might still find rhythm helpful – whether it is a rhythm behind the words, like a poetic “meter”, or the rhythmic repetition of something akin to Psalm 136 (“…His love endures forever” at the end of each line).

The variations of poetic forms in the Psalms might provide creative inspiration for new forms of written or spoken prayers. Some use an “acrostic” pattern – starting each new line with the next letter of the alphabet. Others take us through a transformation from dark to light moods. There are no set rules about how a Psalm must always be written – the authors have exercised their creativity. By imitating them in this regard, we can find new ways of praying familiar themes. This can help relieve boredom in prayer and bring a freshness to our thinking.

It doesn’t have to be poems, though. Creative form can vary greatly. Paul’s letters often include sections that are prayers of some sort, e.g. Romans 16:25-27. We might even wonder if the stories of Jesus collected into John’s Gospel are perhaps a kind of prayer – “these things are written that you may believe (and go on believing)…” (John 20:31). Is John offering his narrative/”biography” as a “prayer”?

Sometimes we just want to speak to God quickly and naturally; we don’t always have time to try something else or aren’t always feeling in a creative mood. Yet, occasionally, it might be worth spending some time crafting our words carefully, focussing on bringing out what we really want to express. This can be a gift of worship to God – a bit like a letter or poem to a loved one. It can enable us to express emotions and ideas more deeply and personally. It might also be something that could help others with their prayers – our creativity is not just something between us and God. Others can benefit from our prayers, perhaps by being inspired to be creative themselves or by connecting with the experience and emotion of our words/pictures/music.

Have you ever tried to write a prayer down before? If not, why not have a go? Try writing it like a letter or a poem, for example. You could take a particular passage such as a Psalm and have a go at doing your own version. Especially if you are finding prayer a bit hard or dull at the moment, I would encourage you to use something of whatever creative skill God has planted in you to enable you to connect in a new way.

A few prayers based on Scripture can be found on the Going Deeper With God website. The prayer based on Psalm 145 is particularly relevant to this post. These prayers are not offered as models showing “the right way” to do things, but as examples of one person’s attempts to connect creatively in prayer. I hope they may encourage you.

http://www.goingdeeperwithgod.com/Prayers.php

© Joe Lenton, July 2012