Tag: Imagine

Lessons from a 3 Year Old

This past week
For hours each day
Dinosaurs, and
Farm animals, and
Knights, and
Dragons, and
Castles
Came alive on the floor of our living room.
Transformed from plastic into real
By the imagination of our 3 1/2 year old grandson.
He could see it all.
I could not.
But I could watch.
And, I did.
His eyes.
His emotions.
His concentration.

I, too, imagine something different
Than what I see and experience right now
On my living room floor
Or in the world around me.
In words I use on a regular basis
I imagine a world where all have enough and all have a place.

Jesus talked about what he called the Reign of God.
And told those who would listen
That it was
Or could be
Right here and right now
If we could only see it.
My grandson saw dinosaurs come to life on our living room floor.
In some way today
May I bring to life what my imagination sees.

The Future Today Creates

Together or apart?
Enough or not enough?
Good or bad?
Include or exclude?
Community or disunity?
Grateful or selfish?
Respect or indifference?
Lifting up or putting down?
Faith or fear?
Reverence or disregard?
Open or closed?
Bridge or wall?
Mine or ours?
Outward or inward?
Beauty or ugliness?
Attention or neglect?
Respectful or rude?
Kind or harsh?
Respect or indifference?
Understanding or ignorance?
Compassion or cruelty?

The Eye of an Artist

If I remember correctly (and even if I don’t), the story goes something like this.
A sculptor was asked how he could sculpt such a beautiful horse.
His response was something like this.
“I simply carve away anything that doesn’t look like a horse.”
The gift of the artist is that she sees the horse in the marble or the painting on the canvas or the figure in the wood before she ever begins. She knows it is there.
Her job…
Her calling…
Is simply to set it free.

Maybe that is our job, as well.
To see what is not yet.
To know what lies hidden in the craziness and the chaos and the confusion of today and to chip away at it, piece by piece, until what is hidden is set free.

Advent Continues – December 17

Part of the message of Advent and Christmas is not about how life and world actually are. The past several days have shown, again, how brutal and heart breaking life can be. But, instead, the message of Advent and Christmas is about how we imagine life and world could be. The language of the parts of the Bible that Christians read at this time of year is symbolic and hopeful and pointing to a someday beyond the horizon of today.
Weapons of war transformed into tools that nurture and sustain.
Those in need provided for.
Nations refusing to train citizens for war.
No one living in fear.
Peace…known by one and by all.
Imagine.
The imagery here is not all pie in the sky, but taps into our deepest longings and our bravest hopes which is a part of the reason, I think, of the appeal of Christmas to so many, even to those who do not buy into the traditional Christian understanding and practice.

The challenge we face is not our lack of imagination.
The challenge is taking those steps…
Sometimes baby steps…
From where we find ourselves today towards that which our imagination tells us just might be. I think, too often, we get side tracked by thinking we have to have how we get from here to there all figured out before we begin. And, because that is impossible or just too overwhelming we just mark time where we are.
But, the time for just marking time is past.

With the slaughter of the innocents last Friday in Newtown, CT the time is past for just talking about gun control and mental illness. We may not be able to take all the steps needed at one time, but we can take one step.
And, so, too, with peace.
And, so, too, with hunger.
And, so, too, with…
You fill in the blank.

Imagine if we all took one step today…
And another one tomorrow.

Imagine

I know I am jumping the gun, but only by a couple of weeks.
And, I am not the first this year to do so. Sometime in the last week or so I saw a comment that one or two stores had already put up their holiday decorations…and I am not talking about Halloween.

And, so a quick survey. Please raise your hands in response to these questions.

How many of you have begun to make plans for your holiday meals – either Thanksgiving or Christmas?
How many of you hope or plan to have additional guests or family members at either one or both of those meals?
If you have begun to plan for those occasions, how many of you have begun to think about what food you will serve?
For those meals, how many of you will prepare something special?
How many of you will probably prepare and serve more than what you will need?
For those meals, how many of you have special china or special silverware which you use?

Thank you.
Yes…most, if not all of us, could raise our hands to most, if not all, of these questions.

Now back to the Bible for a moment…
And, to our celebration of World Communion Sunday…
And my feeble efforts to pull multiple strands together in a way that makes sense.
The reading this morning from the Sayings of Jesus describes a great banquet.
I can envision the scene because, like you, several times a year I enjoy a banquet.
I gather with family at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Extra chairs are pulled up to the table.
Extra tables are added to the room to accommodate the extra food.
There is not only enough. There is more than enough.
And, memories are built around those moments.
Memories of who was there.
And, sometimes of who was not.
Times when your family grew and extra chairs were added.
And times when you lost a loved one and a chair stood empty.
Am, I right?
Wonderful, memorable, meaningful moments.

But, about 10 years ago I realized that I had never really understood what Jesus was talking about.
Here is what happened.
For a week, I along with about twenty other people were living and working in the community of El Eden. In English…Eden, located in the municipality of Ticuantepe in Nicaragua which was and is the second most impoverished country in the western hemisphere.
The setting was beautiful.
A tiny community.
20 minutes down a rutted dirt road.
Located up against the hillsides created by an ancient volcano.
Surrounded by pineapple fields.
But, the living conditions were sparse.
Crowded.
Cramped.
Too many people in too small a space.
But we made do.
And, the food was simple.
Rice and beans and pineapple for most of the meals most of the week.
Until Friday.

For our main meal on Friday we had asked if we could invite the families with whom we had worked, and also other members of the community to join us. At the end of the day, we arrived from work to see a larger than usual number of women cooking over their wood fires. More children than usual ran up to hold our hands and to walk with us. Grandparents stood shyly around the edges watching us and waiting for the meal.
It was a feast like I had never experienced.
Rice and beans and pineapple, and…
Chicken.
It was the first time in a week that any of us had eaten any meat.
And, the first time, in who knows how long, that any of the children or the women or the grandparents who shared that meal with us had had any meat. Looking back on that moment and that meal, for the first time I understood the story that Jesus told. Thanksgiving dinner is wonderful, but each day you and I have enough food and more. Christmas dinner is wonderful, but each day you and I have enough food and more.

The banquet that Jesus describes is a meal with food overflowing on a table for those who, in their wildest dreams like the people of El Eden, cannot imagine that much food let alone being invited to share in a meal that has that much food. The faces I now see as I read or hear this story are the faces of the mothers who protectively make sure their children stood in line and got a plate of the food. It is the lined faces of the grandparents who waited timidly around the edge hardly daring to believe that they have been invited to dinner. It is the laughing, smiling, giggling faces of the children who ate too quickly and then lined up for more.
A grand banquet.
Can you imagine it?

But, the story that Jesus told was not simply about a meal, was it?
It was about what Jesus called the Kingdom of God.
What life would be like…
What the world would be like…
If God were in charge and Caesar was not.
And, Jesus was constantly saying to those who would listen that the Kingdom about which he spoke was not some great by and by, but was to be found in our midst.
Right here.
Right now.
Just where you are.
Just as you are.
The Kingdom of God.
Children laughing and eating and lining up to get another plateful of food.
Not only enough. More than enough.

With that image in mind, today we celebrate World Communion Sunday.
Where, with a small piece of bread baked by our children and a sip of juice barely enough to wet our lips, we remember that it is all about…
ALL ABOUT…
How God intends the world to be.
How God imagines our lives to be.
Everyone there.
Bountiful beyond our imagination.
With second helpings for us and for all.

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Several things I believe: