Monday, December 21, 2009

widening the imagination.

What do you think is the most enjoyable thing to do in the snow?

I love making snow angels, but sledding down the big hill in our neighborhood is pretty awesome too.


In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her. At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

-Luke 1:26-45

I love that within the story of the birth of Jesus there are so many instances of people encountering angels. Seeing an angel must be a huge faith booster. As Luci Shaw would say, receiving a message from an angel would certainly widen your imagination.

It came to me, recently, that faith is “a certain widening of the imagination.” When Mary asked the Angel, “How shall these things be?” she was asking God to widen her imagination.

All my life I have been requesting the same thing – a baptized imagination that has a wide enough faith to see the numinous in the ordinary. Without discarding reason, or analysis, I seek from my Muse, the Holy Spirit, images that will open up reality and pull me in to its center.

This is the benison of the sacramental view of life.

-from Winter Song by Luci Shaw

(In case you were wondering, numinous means supernatural, and benison means benediction.)

3 comments:

  1. Yes, a widening of the imagination is a good description of faith. But maybe it's just not letting it get shrunk by the natural-centric world around us, and by the "sophistication" of growing more educated.

    I don't know how to use numinous and benison yet, but sledding on our hill is a special treat, as is any kind of walk in the neighborhood when the snow is thick and coming down in great flakes. We haven't been able to do either in about six years.

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  2. I think the most enjoyable thing to do in the snow is hiking in the Rocky Mountains during the summer, when your shoes aren't waterproof and you're miles away from where you started. Oh, I guess that's more like "memorable" than "enjoyable. Well, for enjoyable, how about hiking across some dramatic Rockies range, with nice, cozy, dry boots and cloths. I can't remember the names, but I remember the massive features, like a 3D IMAX, and the quiet little hidden lakes, like a Tolkien hideaway.

    I thought Sarah Beth would say: skiing at Uber Gatlinburg.

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  3. Ahh yes, if you're asking about FAKE snow - skiing at Ober Gatlinburg. Otherwise I'll agree with sledding down the hillview hill.

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