Meditations During Advent: The Need for Imagination

Today is the feast day of Dorothy Sayers, 1893-1957. Her father was a priest in The Church of England. Dorothy received a degree from Oxford in Medieval Literature. She wrote fifteen Peter Wimsey detective novels and many other novels. She also wrote a translation of The Divine Comedy by Dante, which I can confess is a very accessible vehicle into this rich text.

As I thought about Dorothy Sayers, I remembered a quote by C. S. Lewis: “For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.”

As we move closer to Christmas, perhaps what we might let go of in these last weeks of Advent is our addiction to empirical facts. Instead let us embrace our imagination and our need for story. John Shea wrote, “We turn our pain into narrative so we can bear it; we turn our ecstasy into narrative so we can prolong it. We tell our stories to live.”

If we are to experience Christ being born in our lives and in this broken world, it won’t be by figuring it out through reason. Rather, it will be by connecting our individual story with the larger narrative of God being born in this world in the most unexpected ways. I remember hearing Bishop John Spong lecture in Hendersonville years ago. He spoke about what science reveals about the scripture. I thought it was interesting and engaging, but really he was answering questions I wasn’t asking. All I wanted to know is, “Is it true?” Not how science reveals it happened, but how my story is connected to the ongoing story of God being born in this world and how resurrection always follows death.

In other words, we see the world by the lens we put on. Reason is helpful, but it cannot have the final word. Again, Lewis: “imagination is the organ of meaning.”

As we draw nearer to Bethlehem, can you connect your story to Mary and Joseph, two people—strangers in a strange land—realizing the only home they have is one another? Can you embrace the story in your life and believe that the power of God is stronger than your disbelief? In the midst of such political rancor, can you believe the Prince of Peace will be born again in this country and in yourself?

Frederick Buechner wrote a book---Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale. He writes that the Gospel is a fairy tale that is different because “it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.” Yes---in Black Mountain, NC and in your life.

 

- The Rt. Rev. Porter Taylor