“Who has heard of this? Who has seen these things? Can a land wriggle forth in one day? Can a people be born in a single moment? For as soon as Zion had her labor pains she her children came forth” (Isaiah 66.8).
One of the most important things to remember in any monster movie is to wait as long as possible to show the creature. Let people hear the sound of its footsteps, its breathing, its howls. Show a little bit—a hand, a leg, perhaps a shadowed glimpse of it as it disappears behind a corner or door. All of this builds up the terror; because, our imaginations are very good at filling in the gaps. We are very good at creating an image that is more terrifying than anything anyone can ever put on a screen.
The imagination is a powerful part of our minds. It’s part of that large muscle in our heads, and the more we exercise it the more it can do. Children and storytellers spend lots of time cultivating this part of their brains through play and stories, which allows the imagination to come up with things way beyond anything that is seen.
Too often, Christianity can teach against the imagination. It gets fearful of how unencumbered a well-exercised imagination can think on things that are…outside what everyone’s used to. As such, we teach children and adults that they should be afraid of too much daydreaming, too much fantasy since that’s just a way for the Devil to deceive our minds.
True, imaginations can run away on you. As a person with anxiety, having a good imagination is sometimes more of a liability than an asset. But, while it can lead me down pathways that conjure up the worst possible scenarios, it can also help me see possibilities that are beyond the world before my eyes.
Isaiah is encouraging us to go beyond sight and sound and imagine something amazing. In fact, he’s telling us to go big on our imagining. He’s not asking just us to pretend there are dinosaurs in the back yard, he’s telling us to pretend there are purple, polka-dot, and striped dinosaurs on go-karts riding a figure eight track that goes all the way up into the clouds and right past the back door.
Has anyone ever heard of this? Has anyone ever seen this, the Divine asks. Of course not, but let’s try imagining it. Let’s stop thinking in these small, human ways. It’s time to start thinking about something beyond what’s right in front of us. We have to go beyond what we think is possible.
Why? Because, that’s the space in which hope dwells. As the author of Hebrews tells us, faith is confidence in the unseen. And the imagination is all about the unseen. If we had seen it, we wouldn’t need our imagination to bring it to mind. I’ve been out and around my own block, I don’t need imagination to go there. But, if I want to go and walk around on Mars….
But isn’t all this dreaming too big, aren’t we looking for the impossible to happen?
In fact, that’s exactly what we’re looking for; because, that’s what we hope to see.
Creator of stars, galaxies, and oceans, may I imagine the impossible so that, in me, it might become the possible.