Imagination

Dear Readers,
Tom is in Massachusetts, returning Sunday.  This is an edited version of  post from July 24, 2021.

Friends,

We all need to stretch our capacity for imagination right now. In this seminal time an emphasis on a creative spirit is especially necessary, and we need to be able to imagine what we want to create.

Elise Boulding, feminist and Quaker futurist, used to lead workshops where she began by asking us to mark a future time, say fifty years out, and then walk it back to the present. The idea, of course, was to encourage us to ask how we change our lives now as a beginning toward a fulfillment of the future we had just envisioned. I often think, for example,  about how I would create alternative social structures such as a creative and coherent pan for Christian
Democratic Socialism, or imaginative ways to deal with crime, imprisonment, and healing from harm done, such as restorative justice practices.

To help me imagine my efforts at social justice I have especially appreciated what biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann calls “prophetic imagination” in his widely read 1978 book by that name. His work has been extremely important in my approach to social justice work, and to a large part, the way I frame my Saturday Evening Posts. Brueggemann defines prophetic imagination as "the capacity o nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to that of the dominant culture, grounded in a moral vision that aligns with God’s relentless call for compassion and justice."  Prophetic justice begins by naming the present unjust structures, sometimes called “principalities and powers,” that are the dominant oppressors in our contemporary world and then creating and implementing a more humane, kind, and just way of life.  The Jesus narrative presents such a model for imaginative use with his surprising parables in his confrontations with oppressive hierarchies and social structures. He challenged through the lens of radical nonviolent love - and, yes, at a significant price, but ultimately nonviolence is the only way, as research about nonviolence has confirmed, to undo the systems of subjugation and violence that does not perpetuate even more violence.

I recognize for every inclination to imagine a hopeful, positive future these days, for many of us there is another voice that says we might not make it: democracy is under siege, wars never seem to end, we have abused the planet beyond repair, and the impetus for rapacious consumption and greed will likely do us all in. 

But I encourage each of us to explore how “prophetic imagination” might serve each of us as well, in our personal life as well as our familial and political relations. Our imagination is a powerful tool that can and will help us cope with creating a more just and loving world.

Blessings and peace,

Tom