“Imagination”

This month’s theme is one of my favorites – Imagination. Often imagination is understood to be the opposite of our lived experience, as if there is a “real” world we are living, and then there is imagination which is nice but ultimately unreal. This is not my understanding of imagination. Imagination is our true experience of life, if we let it be so. Too often we confuse a lack of imagination for the real world.

Imagination is just as much about our actions as it is our thoughts. A perfect example of this is the problem of world hunger which has remained prevalent today even with advancements in technology, farming, and storing techniques. As many of you already know, there is enough food: grain, vegetables, beans and fruit to feed the entire world, leaving no child hungry. So why isn’t this our lived reality? A simple lack of imagination put into practice, is the answer. We live under the illusion of scarcity, and think that everyone must somehow compete and find a way to get basic needs met. And we think this is realistic! Imagination often is much more sane, much more wise and compassionate, than the world we take for granted as real.

Another false notion is that “the world” is some kind of static, impermeable existence that needs to be reckoned with. In truth, the world is fluid and open to change every moment of our living, if we have the imagination to see it. Our lives and thus our world are never stuck in place, but constantly evolving, shifting, and becoming itself again and again, co-created with us.

There are many different kinds of imagination, and ways of approaching it. Most of us have some way to access imagination in a way that is natural to us: through our body, logic, poetry, song. Imagination is opening ourselves up to the truth of possibility. It is expressing the truth that the universe is endlessly expanding, growing, and thus so are we.

I have sometimes had people ask me: Do you think people can really change? The answer I offer is it is actually impossible for us to remain the same, so change is not an option, it is a given. The heart of that question though is usually: Do you think people can change toward goodness? This is also affirmative. We can become so bogged down by our own past actions, stories we’ve told ourselves or what others have said about us, that we can feel as if change toward goodness is something out of reach. But the truth is that it is only a moment away. Every moment we are alive is an opportunity to change toward goodness. The trick is to practice this change so it becomes a habit, and we more easily and quickly realize when we are veering off course from our values.

With practice, using our imagination can become a habitual part of our living. We can seek to know and experience the world in novel, creative, and life affirming ways. We can see ourselves with a wider sense of possibility that is deepened through humility and compassion.

As we begin 2021 at UUYO, I’m excited to build upon the work we’ve done together this last year: utilizing new technologies, seeing our community in various geographies, understanding that our mission serves the entire globe as well as our locale. I have experienced the expansiveness and sense of possibility in this past year, and I think our church is primed to use our imagination to see what possibilities may emerge for us in the coming year. Community makes the practice of imagination a joy, and it is inspirational to be assisted by others in experiencing our lives with more possibility, and less fear and sense of scarcity. We can feel inspired to continue to imagine what our lives may become, and how we may work collectively for a world where all experience freedom and respect. A world where we and others are free to be who they are, and where our individual capacity for imagination is nurtured, respected, and welcomed.