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Rooted in God and the Gospel

Fostering Imagination and Creativity

We foster imagination, creativity, and fresh thinking.

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Paschal Imagination by Ron Rolheiser Posted on E Newsletter on May 11, 2012 1991-02-18

The night before he first knelt to became "the most reluctant convert in all of Christendom" C.S. Lewis spent some long hours walking with J.R. Tolkien, the famous novelist (Lord of the Rings). Tolkien, a committed Christian, was trying to convince him of the credibility of Christ and the church. Lewis was full of objections. At a point, Tolkien countered Lewis's objections with the simple statement: "Your inability to understand stems from a failure of imagination on your part!“ If Tolkien were alive today, I suspect he might want to take us all for a long walk and challenge us in the same way. So much of the frustration and stagnation in Christian circles today stems from a failure of imagination. To let ourselves be led by God through ever-changing times requires, on our part, great imagination.

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We are called to be pioneers.

Pioneers who stand on the edge

of great beginnings,

of unseen futures.

Pioneers filled with unwarranted confidence

that visions give.

Pioneers whose eyes and ears

are elsewhere,

who hear an echo of possibilities

as music poised to enter the universe.

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Ron Rolheiser goes on to say: What is imagination? Imagination is NOT, first and foremost, the power of fantasy ... the power of a George Lucas to create Star Wars or of a Steven Spielberg to create E.T. Rather, it would approximate Chardin’s summons to be pioneers, standing on the edge of great beginnings and unseen futures; Pioneers with confidence unwarranted emerging from visions; Pioneers whose eyes and ears are elsewhere, hearing possibilities as music poised to enter our universe.

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ImaginationImagination is the power to create images

we need to understand and respond

to what we are experiencing.

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Faith Life & Church Structures

Conservative

• Petrified

• Never done it this way

before

• Fear & despair

• Sticking one’s head

in the sand

• Blatant uproar,

picketing

• Sociopathic

Imagination is DEAD

Liberal

• Fuzzy & uncritical

• Let the new times roll!

• Naïve optimism

• Abdication of

intelligibility

• Rubber stamping the

opinion polls

• Wild & reactionary

• Anger

Imagination is DEAD

Consider the polarities of conservative and liberal: We can respond to this with a petrified imagination ("only what worked before can work now!") or with a fuzzy uncritical imagination ("change is always a sign of progress!"). READ SLIDE To use just one example: Looking at history we see that many of the great religious reformers had, precisely, great imaginations. People like Francis of Assisi, Dominic, and Ignatius of Loyola were able to look at religious life in their day and imagine a new way of living it. The specific way in which religious life had been lived out (for centuries) had died ...but religious life hadn't died! These reformers were able to name a death, claim a resurrection, let (with proper love and reverence) the old go, and then live with the new spirit that God was now giving. Religious life was re-imaged and, under the vision that came from their imaginations, exploded in a tremendous burst of growth. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (despite the negative press they get today) did the same thing regarding how Christian thought could relate itself to pagan philosophies. Today, Gustavo Gutierrez' imagination has helped shape a new vision of how the oppressed might live out the gospel. Christ, on the road to Emmaus, re-shaped the apostles imagination. We need to let him do the same thing to us.

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Paschal ImaginationPatterns of death & resurrection

Name our deaths

Claim our resurrections

Let the old ascend

Live with Spirit

that God gives us.

LOVE

Or, we can respond with a paschal imagination ... we can look at the pattern of death and resurrection in Christ and then move on to positively and critically shape our destiny, and living with the spirit that God is actually giving to us. Paschal imagination is about patterns of life and death. ROLHEISER: Christ is not dead. He is still "about his Father's business" in the world, the mystery of his death and resurrection is still being lived out daily, and his spirit is still stirring hearts. However we must have the imaginative radar to read where and how this is taking place. We must be able to look at our lives, our church, and our world and be able to name where we've died, claim where we've been born, know what old bodies we need to let ascend, and recognize the new spirit that is being given us. That's the job description for the religious imagination. “Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.” ― Leo Tolstoy

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Denise Shekerjian

Characteristics of 40 Macarthur Awardees

INSTINCT

• Intuition

• Itch

• Yearning

• Seeing possibilities

JUDGMENT

• structure

• assessment

• form

• purpose

Moral imagination

CREATIVITY

hope

Remember the story of Pino Puglisi and the question? And what if somebody did something? Pino Puglisi’s question should echo in our hearts. But let’s apply it to our situation. We are women coming to the fulfillment of our mission. We have accomplished amazing things, and each of these things required a martyrdom of its own kind. Perhaps our story can be illustrated in Denise Shekerjian’s research. In her book entitled “Uncommon Genius” (Viking Press. New York. 1990. p. 170.), Denise Shekerjian studied forty winners of the Macarthur Award. She concluded that the great ideas of these artists, scientists, social movers and shakers were born of a combination of instinct and judgment. She says, "What intuition provides is an inkling, an itch, a yearning, an array of possibilities. What judgment provides is structure, assessment, form, and purpose." Blending them together with a strong dose of moral imagination will lead to opportunities that if pursued may well be a dramatic flowering of the most creative work of your life.”

The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted fellowships ($500,000 over 5 years) to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. The MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. In keeping with this purpose, the Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals rather than through institutions. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. They may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers. Although nominees are reviewed for their achievements, the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential. Indeed, the purpose of the MacArthur Fellows Program is to enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.

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MORAL IMAGINATION

JUDGMENTINSTINCT

Creativity

Leading With Mysticism

and Prophetic Hope

Intuition

Itch

Yearning

Seeing

possibilities

Structure

Assessment

Form

Purpose

Wisdom

dwelling with

prudence

Proverbs 8:12

Here is another way of viewing Shekerjian’s research. It is easy to see here that the intersection of wisdom, intuition and structure is where imagination and creativity are active. We are not yet dead and still have the work of living before us. Applying a medicinal affectivity can be done with the faculties of moral imagination, instinct, and judgment. Moral imagination is all about the wisdom and prudence that come with experience and listening. Prudence is the harmonious union of the urgent (time) and the important (weight). The art of knowing how to combine these two is characteristic of wisdom, one of the conditions for living well. St. Vincent de Paul said that 'True Christian prudence makes us submit our intellect to the maxims of the Gospel without fear of being deceived. It teaches us to judge things as Jesus Christ judged them, and to speak and act as He did.‘

Instinct and intuition are what we seem to have an itch for, what keeps us yearning and seeing new possibilities. Can we name these things?

And judgment is about the decisions we need to make for effective action, decisions that must of necessity consider the structures that are important for realizing the form and purpose of an action.. All together the creative process is always dynamic, never static. There are contemplative and active dimensions to creativity. We could apply this to a ministry project, a work of art, or a strategic plan. I believe we can also apply it to the fruits of our prayer and suffering as we age and move more closely to eternal life. It’s not only about experimenting with paint on a canvas or savoring the work of a mathematical equation through which a MacArthur Fellow might win a $500,000 scholarship. It is above all, seeing things whole, finding a means of integrity to act with a balance of wisdom, instinct and judgment.

For us and first of all it is about LISTENING with mystical ears and eyes and hearts. This is a schema for moving with mysticism and prophetic hope. It is a methodology that comes from the deepest places of

our faith. Imagination and the beauty it seeks is not just one aspect of reality, not just one element among many. Rather, it is the deepest foundation of reality. It can be another name for GOD. Our meditation on the reality of beauty has one goal: to enable us to understand the nature of God and the nature of the world so that we might be able to enter into the transforming dynamic of generous LOVE.

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PROPHETIC PRESENCE

Watching the horizons

Hearing the music of the future

Reading reality where the hands of our

heart touch the ones needing compassion

Looking for alternative futures in tune

with God’s desires for the world

Being leaven

Taking the road less taken

Prophecy has a lot to do with change. A prophetic dimension and presence in the world causes all of us to be on the watch at the horizons of life, listening for the music of the future, and reading reality where our hearts touch the ones needing compassion. The prophet is always looking for alternative futures through which change will bring about God’s desire for the world.

Ron Rolheiser. Dare To Be One In A Thousand 1986-06-02. Posted at http://www.ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/?id=782 on Feb. 17, 2012 Our culture, on the other hand, is rejecting the notion of prophecy and is swallowing us whole. The current culture is reversing Robert Frost's famous adage and telling us “to take the road more taken”, not the road less taken. Prophecy is seen as unrealistic, idealism as immature. . . Hence, our task today is to be leaven, to be idealistic and in that way to be prophetic. Our culture's demand that everyone be like everyone else is not so much malicious as it is despairing. People are content to settle for an attainable second best only when, for whatever reasons (hurt, bad self-image, lack of hope) they have given up on ever attaining what is ultimately best. Today we need people who, when speaking of love, economics, values, sexuality and aesthetics, are compassionate enough to be empathetic to our real struggles.

In being prophetic in this way, we can show the world that we truly love it because, ultimately, nobody wants a homogenized culture, nobody wants the lowest common denominator within relationships, love and sexuality; nobody wants to despair that we can feed the hungry and create a more just world; and nobody wants a world which despairingly says: “The best, what's truly special, cannot be reached, so simply settle for what is happening. Do what everyone else is doing, that's good enough!” It's not good enough. What's truer and deeper inside of us knows that there is more.

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Consecrated by circumstance and need

“Ek kaleo”

Jeremiah in France: The Cloisters of the Abbaye St-Pierre de Moissac I picture Theresa Maxis and Jeremiah together here because I think they have a lot of similar characteristics as prophetic people. They shared the same inclination for prayer, social justice and friendship. It is well known that prophets often speak and act from a place of exile, be it real or figurative. Exile means that one is removed from one’s home, from the support of friends and acquaintances, and from the hearing of others. It is as if circumstances and need have taken away their existential and moral freedom. Yet it is circumstance and need that consecrate the prophets and set them apart.

Consecration is a word that connotes things to do with church and religion. Consecration takes one out of the profane world and sets one aside for sacred, holy service. The danger is that it can be seen as cultic separation rather than being set aside for service. In giving service, we set aside our freedom and suspend our ordinary activity. Sometimes we are called to service, not because we are special or holier than anyone else, but because we just happen to be there when the time calls for it.

That was the case with Moses: When God called him to go to Pharaoh and ask him to set the Israelites free, Moses objected. “Why not my brother? He has better leadership skills. I don’t want to do this! Why me?” And God answered those objections with the words: “Because you have seen their suffering!” It’s that simple. God tells Moses that he may not walk away because he has seen the people’s suffering. For that reason, he is not free to walk away. Circumstance and need have consecrated him.

Our very notion of church draws on this concept. The word ecclesia comes from two Greek words: ek kaleo. Ek is a preposition meaning, “out of”; and kaleo is a verb meaning “to be called”. To be a

member of the church is to be “called out of”. And what we are “called out of” is what our normal agenda would be if we weren’t conscripted by our baptism and by the innate demands of consequent discipleship. Baptism and church membership consecrate us. They call us out and set us apart in the same way that Moses’, having seen the suffering of the Israelites, took away his freedom to pursue an ordinary life and in the same way that some critical need of another causes us to set aside our plans for a day.

What is best in our humanity and our faith is they are forever trying to consecrate us for our times. The needs and wounds of our world are constantly asking us to suspend our radical freedom, to set aside our own agendas, in order to serve. And like Moses, we have all seen enough suffering in this world that we should no longer be asking the question: “Why me?” (Ron Rolheiser. “Consecrated by circumstance and need”, in The Compass . Diocese of Green Bay, WI (March 9, 2012), 11.

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For most of us,

there is only the unattended moment,

the moment in and out of time,

the distraction fit,

lost in in a shaft of sunlight,

the wild thyme unseen,

or the winter lightning, or the waterfall,

or music heard so deeply

that it is not heard at all,

but you are the music

while the music lasts.

T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets

Imaginative and creative people have the capacity and boldness to speak in ways that require listeners to face what is wrought by God, but also have the remarkable ability to speak a new world beyond a present experience. They can give new life and summon faith in a fresh way, thus creating hope for a community deeply in crisis.

READ THE POEM BY T.S. ELIOT

The Artist’s/Poet’s Language in the Jeremiah tradition It is free, porous, and impressionistic – like Jeremiah’s metaphors for God.

Artists and poets are more than ethicists. They have no advice to give to people. They only want people to see differently, to re-vision life. They are not coercive, only trying to stimulate, surprise, hint and give nuance. They make available a world that does not yet exist beyond their imagination, but offer it as impetus for freedom of action. The poet wants us to re-experience the present world under a different set of metaphors and want to entertain a world not yet visible; to imagine a world where hurt has turned to healing. Artists and poets speak porously, using a language that is not exhausted on first hearing. They leave many things open, ambiguous, still to be discerned. Artists do not pretend to know the

future, but offer the present as a shockingly open and ambiguous matter out of which various futures may

emerge.

This Jeremiah poem offers an incredible richness of images. (4:29-31)

At the noise of horseman and archer every city takes to flight; They enter the thickets; they climb among rocks; all cities are forsaken, And no man dwells in them. And you, O desolate one, what do you mean that you dress in scarlet, That you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, That you enlarge your eyes with paint? In vain you beautify yourself. Your lovers despise you; they seek your life. For I heard a cry as of a woman in travail, Anguish as of one bringing forth her first child, The cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, Stretching out her hands, “Woe is me! I am fainting before murderers.”

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• Poetry gives porous opening

to the experience of the listener.

• Poetry & art are about invitation and imagination

as much as ethics.

• People are changed not by ethical urging but by

transformed imagination.

• Establishment ideology

without imagination leaves

people resistant and exhausted

because it takes power away

from them.

Porous language leaves the reality to which it points open for the experience of the listener who is trusted to continue the image, to finish the thought out of one’s own experience. Some people want explanations, but that begs a world of controlling thought.

Here is where vitality in ministry is most accessible. • Ministry is concerned with invitation and imagination as much as ethics. This means that it’s important to find a fresh way into the matter. Paul Ricoeur said that people are changed, not by ethical urging but by transformed imagination. Poetry, music and dance thereby have a social function. • Religious peddlers (“hucksters”) who flatten out rich metaphors for God promise certitude, but offer no spiritual journey. They offer establishment ideology without imagination to discern differently the painful events of the time. • Today people in ministry are resistant and exhausted because they are fearful and robbed of power. The abysmal lack of imagination is evident in both policy and law.

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Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: In a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a

John Paul II: LETTER TO ARTISTS (April 4, 1999)

11. The Second Vatican Council laid the foundation for a renewed relationship between the Church and culture, with immediate implications for the world of art. This is a relationship offered in friendship, openness and dialogue. In Gaudium et spes, the Council stressed “the great importance” of literature and the arts in human life: “They seek to probe the true nature of humanity, its problems and experiences, as men and women strive to know and perfect themselves and the world, to discover their place in history and the universe, to portray their miseries and joys, their needs and strengths, with a view to a better future. . .(No. 62)

This world in which we live needs creativity in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. John Paul II. Message to Artists (Dec. 8, 1965)

Now if we are daunted by what may seem very lofty thoughts of the pope, we can take comfort in his realism as well when we says: Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: In a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece. (No. 2)

May your imaginative and creative life bring freshness to our world.

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CONTEMPLATIVE MOMENT

How does claiming

yourself as an

imaginative and

creative thinker/

artist require you

to draw on the full

spectrum of your

humanity?

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Contemplative Moment

Noticing beauty in the world is the first step

of a lifelong journey. – How easy is it for me to notice beauty around me?

– In other people?

– In myself?

– What gets in my way? How will I overcome obstacles

to my own growth in this ability?