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We live in a world that seems bereft of potential, a world that seems to have lost its imagination.
I read recently in a Connecticut newspaper that: “at least 1,967 students age 6 and under were suspended last school year—almost all of them Black or Hispanic. According to a report from the Connecticut Department of Education, the number of students suspended is actually higher, but privacy issues restrict the state agency from releasing information.” That’s preschoolers we’re talking about—the article also mentions a seven-year-old being arrested.
I could never have imagined this. I would never want to imagine this.
We are in an endless war on drugs and terrorism…and no one seems willing to imagine what the end of those wars might look like. We face unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide in the air, and yet we cannot imagine a world without oil and coal.
I wonder at times if we are so cynical that we have lost the capacity to imagine a different kind of world. I wonder at times if we are so deadened that we cannot lift our head from the cold, hard concrete to look at what is around us.
When I am feeling most cynical, most hopeless, most helpless, when I am feeling most desolate and alone, when I have no vision beyond my bed at night and only the thought of doing it all over again tomorrow, I can be overtaken by hopeless boredom, and the monotony of helplessness and lost creativity.
Where has my imagination gone?
When I was a child, I remember playing for hours in the fields around my house. Imagining we were swimming with sharks, exploring the ocean, climbing the highest mountains and tracking lions and elephants. The top of the slide at the play ground was a rocket to the moon. The sand was quicksand—don’t slip and fall in! Don’t fall in….
Pay attention. Watch where you step. Stay awake. Don’t fall in…. I guess a lot of us fell in, and fell asleep.
Where are the dreamers, the lovers, the poets, the artists—the ones who cause us to see the world with our head cocked to one side, or standing on our heads, our left finger in our ear? These are the ones who awaken us. They do not wake us with dire predictions of death and destruction; that only causes us to want to drink more Koolaid, to check out—Why strain ourselves? It’s all going to crash and burn; I might as well sleep through it.
No, the dreamers are the ones who see a light. They are the ones who see the world as a giant ball of possibility. The ones who shake us gently and whisper in our ear: Wake up! Look around; it’s so beautiful here. Hey!—another gentle nudge—Hey, wake up. Look at all this endless possibility. Look at this awe and wonder!
The dreamers invite us to wake up and participate in the world. They inspire us, by their own faith, to see the invisible and to wonder about the future.
We slowly open our eyes and allow them to focus, and we are invited into the world of endless fascination. The dreamers ask us to participate in its creation, to consider its intricacies and its diversity. We are invited to wonder at the options and imagine the possible future outcomes of the choices we make. The artists, the musicians, the writers, the dancers, the poets, the actors invite us to consider together the world that we are bringing into being.
Imagine for a moment that the binary world no longer exists—because it doesn’t. There are instead shades and tones in a spectrum of life—human identity spilling over and filling many cups at once. Each cup a moment of memory, a snippet of story, a wellspring of wisdom. Each cup a new opportunity to share ourselves with others, to inspire deeper understanding and to develop deeper wisdom about this thing we call life.
Imagine for a moment that our ancestors matter, that our history matters, that our culture matters, that all cultures matter. Each culture is an aspect of us as human beings, inspiring curiosity and respect for our complex nature, as well as the complexity of all life.
Imagine for a moment that all paths to the holy are sacred, and we hold each other’s paths in the palm of our hands. Would you hold your palms open to guide others on their way, or close your fists so you can get there first?
We can imagine we all belong, because we do. We can imagine that we are all loved because we are. And we invite others to belong with us because we know the pain of being unwelcome, of feeling unloved.
Imagine for a moment a world of peace—but with an element of chaos. (I don’t mind a world of chaos, so long as the chaos isn’t violent.) Perhaps like the chaos of an English garden: lush and colorful, a surprise in every corner, a seemingly random cacophony of color and texture. Imagine a world not without conflict, but one with ingenious and inspired ways of responding to the conflict. Ways that honor and value the dignity and inherent worth in all life.
Each choice we make shapes the world, creates new possibilities, brings love or pain. Each choice is made with intention or made in deep sleep. The artists, the dancers, the puppeteers ask us to wake up, to pay attention, to consider and to think. They remind us of our interdependence, the cause and effect of life lived.
Nothing we do in the world is done in a vacuum. Our actions ripple out beyond ourselves in ever-widening circles that intersect the ever-widening circles of life all around us.
The poets and dreamers have invited us to look behind the curtain, to see beyond the veil. Tu-shun, the First Patriarch of Huayan Buddhism, offered the image of the jeweled net of Indra: a net that stretches across the universe, with a jewel at each juncture of the net. Each jewel reflects all the other jewels in the cosmic matrix. Each jewel represents a living being, intrinsically and intimately connected to all the others. A change to any one jewel is reflected in all.
We are intrinsically and intimately connected to one another, reflected in each other’s eyes, the beauty and grace of the divine spark shining in each of us. We are buoyed by each other’s dreaming, imagining together a future we have set in motion. Our children and our children’s children will live in a world so different from our own we cannot even begin to conceive of it.
Their world is shaped by our actions today. Imagine one year from now, five years from now, one hundred years from now, seven generations from now. What kind of world will our actions leave them seven generations from now? If we are awake, we teach them to walk gently on the earth. If we are awake, we teach them to care for the smallest, and recognize the sacred and profound in all life. We teach not just with our words, but also by our actions, by our example.
If we are awake, we see that we must help awaken others, because our children and children’s children live in a world that is shaped by our actions today.
The painters, the sculptors, the dreamers, the songwriters shake us and call to us in our sleep—disturbing us, stirring us, rousing us to participate thoughtfully in the creation of the future. Calling us away from the love of power and towards the power of love.
The poets remind us that our intentions, thoughts and actions carve the world into being each day. But if we are in deep sleep, we may act as though we are awake but tumble through the world stumbling and tripping, hacking away at the life around us. We hear the news of war and death, of terrorism and fear. We hear of children sold as slaves, children forced to fight wars, children with little opportunity and even less hope.
And we sleep…unable to dream except in restless dreams of no, no more, of what if? and I’m only one…. And then we feel that tugging on our elbow, that persistent ache, that nudge at the edge of our consciousness calling us awake. The artist, the singer, the poet, the song, inviting us to try something new, to take a risk and open our eyes, to experience the world again from a new and different perspective. Inviting us to imagine together a world in which we can be both awake and be in deep joy. Singing a song of love and peace, inviting us to imagine a world beyond our wildest dreams, calling us to imagine what the world would be like if we lived our lives on the side of love.
Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110172734/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_09/03.mp3
