On imagination

A seminary professor once made that declaration to her, according to Shipley, senior minister at Centenary United Methodist Church in Richmond. “But to a great extent, the world of faith is a world of imagination,” she writes in the August issue of The Connection, Centenary UMC’s newsletter.

“We worship and serve a God whose power, majesty and love are greater than our highest conception or deepest understanding, a God who must always be shrouded in mystery and whose plan for the world must, for us, lie in the realm of faith and imagination,” writes Shipley in her column, “Pat’s Patter … .”

To a great extent, the world of faith is a world of imagination.

Shipley explains that spiritual imagination is not just dreaming or fantasy. “It is allowing ourselves to enter into the reality of the world as God sees it or would have it,” she states.

It is looking beyond the self-centered, self-directed world of our senses to the world as it can be or as God would have it become, according to Shipley. “By using our spiritual imagination we can catch a glimpse of the promises and possibilities, the greatness and wonder of God,” she asserts.

Shipley concedes that spiritual imagination allows persons to contemplate great theological questions. She declares that it’s greatest value, though, is in the daily living out of faith.

“When we are so firmly set in the trials and tribulations of our world that we can see no farther than the flesh-and-blood, brick-and-mortar reality of our world,” Shipley cautions, “we are subject to being overcome by fear, anger and cynicism.

“When we can see not only the world as it is, but as it can be through the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, these deadly emotions can be overcome.”

Shipley emphasizes that imagination allows persons to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. “It allows us to hope even in the darkest situations,” she states. “It allows us to look into the face of an enemy and see a child of God.”