Imagination

The greatest gift I have ever been given is … time.

Most of the memories from my growing up revolve around summer, because there was nothing between me and an unfettered imagination. I was free to simply adventure in the land of imagination. When I awoke each morning I would jump out of bed, not figuratively but hyper literally. To this very day I do not set an alarm, because I have an internal giddy up button that shakes me awake as it trumpets that a new day is here with a giant invitation to be and become. For the last several years that time is 5am.

Annoying, I know. Yes, there are days when sleeping in or simply sleeping longer would be nice. But the internal giddy up button is apparently welded to 5am. As a kid the giddy up button simply launched me into getting lost in imagination … which is without bottom and without a lid. The imagination only knows generosity and abundance, which is sorely needed today, correct?

A stick had endless possibilities, and the small patch of trees in our backyard felt more like an unexplored universe. Just give me time and I could get lost in worlds and wonder and the endless exploration of “Let’s see what happens!” I write all this because this is the place that Advent takes me … to a time of unrestrained possibility.

It was through imagination and curiosity and possibility that I first experienced the Bible, although my childhood church, and later the christian college I attended, tried their best to drown the beauty of mystery in the waters of fundamental literalism.

I have come to find the season of Advent as a life preserver, an opportunity to float back to the island of imagination and possibility.

There’s a story in which Jesus is teaching some 5000+ people, and as the day grew long he knew that the people would need to eat. Jesus is handed 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Seriously? I picture this scene as handing my three boys one of those tiny snack sized bag of chips and saying, “Share.” Now, add in several thousand people to that scenario. Yikes. But Jesus is unflinching in his living from a place of abundance, so he distributes the food to the people and we are told that, “all ate and were filled.”

Stunning.

I get that the modern mind immediately wanders into the mathematical weeds of how this super sized smorgasbord is possible. But that would be reading it in way that exchanges the original audience’s context for a rigid, linear and logical context. It’s like asking a math teacher to grade poetry.

The invitation is to marinate the heart in Jesus taking the ordinary elements in all their scarcity, and then he displays Divine generosity in a way that satisfies all the people. In fact, they collect the leftovers which we are told is 12 basketfuls. This is a way for the storyteller to communicate that Divine abundance not only feeds those who are present, but there is enough leftover to satisfy the 12 tribes of Israel. The only way to get there is to go around the minuscule mind and spring into to the perpetually pliable imagination.

For me, Advent is the invitation to take my hungry heart to the Divine buffet, to recapture the wonder of a childlike imagination.

And this leads me to becoming a kinder human being. A lighter husband and dad. A more compassionate friend and neighbor. A fully fed imagination leads me to live from place of … abundance and generosity.

In a year that is trying to double down on confinement, may you take this time of Advent to play on the monkey bars of imagination.