In His Image, In His Imagination!

Isaiah 11:6-9

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; The calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.

The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox.

The baby shall play by the cobra's den, and the child lay his hand on the adder's lair.

There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD, as water covers the sea.

----------

All week Bro. Juniper has been carefully painting with a small, narrow brush white paint atop the numerous chalked poems and quotes that now cover nearly every inch of the concrete floor of the dining hall. The grand wooden table and chairs are all still outdoors in the courtyard, but now with the rapidly rising desert temperatures, we decided that our days of meals outdoors are numbered. It seems we all have been reluctant to move back into the dining hall and erase with our sandals the spontaneous outpouring of chalked words to earth that we all delighted in doing for a short few days. I'm afraid if we had a larger expanse of concrete floor we would still be marking the earth with imaginations. Imagination. That got me to thinking, for if we had no imagination, then this life and this universe would be a terrifying place indeed. I have already described the reality of what takes place within ourselves, and all around us -- violence! If one were to take a microscopic look into our own body, and the same close-up view of our immediate surroundings, one would be shocked at the countless wars going on, wars of survival. Yet we humans were given by God imagination. Just as Isaiah imagines a peaceful kingdom, we go about our daily lives with imaginations of peace, and these imaginations keep us from returning to the animal state. If we can imagine peace, we can move toward peace, we can even become peaceful, even while dwelling among the unpeaceful kingdom that surrounds us. Don't sell imagination short. Imagination isn't self delusion. Imagination isn't fantasy. Imagination isn't untruth. Imagination is what motivates the scientist, as well as the artist, as well as the theologian, as well as the little child. Thank God for being created in His Image, in His Imagination!