Translating a World on the Edge

Can you imagine one photograph that contains all the events of your life from birth until death? For most of us, the photo would be miles long and wide.

Of course, we know this is not possible, but the very fact that we are imagining it shows that imagination goes much farther than simple knowledge.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. – Albert Einstein

Well, who embraces the entire world, knowing and understanding all?  That sounds like God to me.

The root word in “imagination” is image. God uses his imagination to create us, and wills us to be made in His image and likeness. His imagination is directed by His will–just as our imagination is directed by our will. Our free will, our ability to choose one thing over the other.

Sometimes we choose one thing over the other based on memory, events that have affected us in some way, good or not so good. Those events can stoke our imagination positively, such as the memory of our best Christmas or Thanksgiving so far, and that leads to next year, and then the action of how we’ll create an even better Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Memory can also stoke a negative imagination. Someone did me wrong last week, so I imagine ways I can  get back at him.

Our memories are entirely our own. If we choose to re-hash past hurts, it is no one’s fault but ours that we are miserable. It’s no wonder that our lives seem dark and confusing.

But we have an imagination that can alleviate that, if we choose to use it.

Our imagination can bring light back to our lives when we look at the bad situation with a different perspective. Then with our free will, we can choose to ‘act’ in a positive way. We can love, even those who have hurt us. We can heal and mend. We can turn ourselves away from those mental pictures that drag us down.

Working from  memory, and with free will, imagination allows us to move forward, and keep going. What a great gift it is!