The month of May brings a new theme for our children’s Religious Education curriculum, which for this month is “Living Love Through the Practice of Imagination.”
As someone who works with children, I’m one of those lucky adults who can indulge in imaginative play on the clock. It’s a privilege shared by people in creative fields — writers, actors, artists. But the practice of imagination is an important spiritual practice for every one of us. Through imagination, we leave behind the limited world of what is and venture into the limitless realm of what could be. For children, imagination builds the muscles of creativity, problem solving, and free thought in their developing minds. As adults, we must continue to exercise these muscles, or they will atrophy into thought patterns of apathy and complacency.
I recall my frustrations as an idealistic adolescent, talking to adults about ways we might end problems like hunger and homelessness, problems that my faith had led me to care about deeply. More often than not, the response to my ideas about how the world should change were met with, “Well that would be nice if it were possible, but it’s just not going to work in this world.”
I’m not claiming that my teenage plans to end world hunger were entirely actionable, but my early experience with these defeatist, unimaginative responses from adults has inspired me to try to live differently as I age, to keep my imagination alive and awake to possibilities that might seem, on the surface, impossible. Author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art…” And art, I would argue, begins with imagination.
This month our kids will begin our unit on imagination with “Using Imagination to Have Fun.” This is also a crucial spiritual exercise for adults — using our imaginations just for the fun of it is a joy in and of itself, and it also helps loosen up our minds to prepare us for problem solving — like stretching before you go on a run.
The following week we will learn about “Using Imagination to Help and Find Hope.” This is a lesson we all need for our times. The success of mutual aid networks in Los Angeles during the wildfires was a great example of how we can imagine new ways, both outside of and in collaboration with established institutions, to help others. Those new ways of helping create hope, born of the realization that we are not alone, that we can be there for each other.
Our next lesson, “Using Imagination to Think Outside the Box,” will get the kids to apply their imaginative skills to creative problem solving. The wonderful kids in our RE program have unique talents for music, science, literature, sports — this lesson will challenge them to apply imagination to their areas of interest in new and creative ways.
Next comes “Using Imagination to Understand.” This lesson will help our kids see the importance of standing in someone else’s shoes, and to empathize with their experience and perspective. This is, to me, the most important moral function of imagination. If we cannot learn to empathize with oppressed people, we will continue to make up rationalizations for why they must deserve to suffer. Our children already know better — and as adults, we can relearn how to see the world with empathy and compassion.
It is my prayer this month that we will all join together in the spiritual practice of imagination. Take some time to write a poem, paint a picture, create a new recipe. It doesn’t matter if it turns out well. Focus on the process, not the product. Stretching the muscles of our imagination in one area will help us see other things more expansively — and our world is crying out for expansive new visions of what is possible. Look to our children for inspiration, and encourage their unrealistic, impractical ideas, especially when they come from a place of empathy and compassion. We need their help to build a better world — it’s entirely possible, so let’s not tell them otherwise just because we lack the imagination to see the future.
Jessica TenHave-Place
Director of Multigenerational Religious Education (DMRE)
(she/her/hers)
