“The slow fire of the impossible is lit….by the imagination”
Emily Dickinson
We are made in God’s image – and are image bearers and image makers.
We grasp or deal with reality through our imaginations.
The power of our imaginations can “release the emotions and move us to action”. “Images are forms of transport. They get us going. They move us on” (Anslem Gruen).
We need the imagination to envision new possibilities, to make connection between our experience and the stories and texts of our tradition.
“The slow fire of the impossible is lit….by the imagination”
Emily Dickinson
What you are in love with
what seized your imagination
will affect everything
Pedro Arrupe
The imagination evokes rather than explains. It does not tell us anything new but revives our awareness of what we already know. It activates the dark secret or memory we all carry within us – of our original goodness and worth.
Ask yourself what you feed your mind with.
What stories or parables you tell yourself?
What negative images do you hang on to?
Don’t ask so much where they come from, but where they lead.
If they lead away from life, freedom and hope; if they lead to further anxiety or negativity you can be pretty sure they are not of god, but come from a deep inadequate or insecure part of you.
Imagine that you were kissed by God before you were born. Each of us carries the dark secret of being kissed and caressed by hands far gentler than ours. The dark memory acts as a kind of prism through which we see and experience everything that happens to us. We go through life never fully arriving, slightly disappointed, because we have experienced something more infinitely precious. When we see goodness and beauty and truth out there it is because they resonate with the dark memory within. When we are angry, frustrated or abused, it is because these experiences do not match or resonate with this dark memory of being kissed.
Ronald Rolheiser
We are enfolded alike in the Father, in the Son, and in the holy Spirit. And the Father is enfolded in us, the Son too, and the Holy Spirit as well: all mightiness, all wisdom, all goodness – one God, one Lord.
Our faith is nothing else but a right understanding, and true belief, and sure trust, that with regard to our essential being we are in God, and God in us, though we do not see him.
Julian of Norwich 54
One of the gifts of Julian of Norwich is her well known phrase, ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well’.
English historian, folk musician and song writer Sydney Carter used these words as the basis of one of his well-known songs, sometimes also called ‘The Bells of Norwich’.
Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go.
Here by the tower of Julian, I tell them what I know.
Ring out, bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.
Ring for the yellow daffodil, the flower in the snow.
Ring for the yellow daffodil, and tell them what I know.
All shall be well I’m telling you, and let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click on the link below.
