Today, though, I want to touch a little on something a friend of mine asked me in an e-mail early this morning. Here was his question…
”I wonder, in your experience of learning to listen to God, to hear God speak interiorly to you, whether you have been informed by Ignatian spirituality's belief that God can guide our imaginations?”
Here's my answer to his question...
A.,
To answer your question…Yes, I believe that God can and does guide our imaginations. I became “informed" of these things, though, long before I encountered Ignatian Spirituality...or, at least, before it was articulated to me to be as such.
God created us in and through His Imagination. To imagine is to see what does not yet exist as though it does because, in reality, it already does. This is how God has known each of us since BEFORE the foundations of the earth were laid. This divine imagining is the seed of all creativity and inventiveness…in the Heart of God and in the hearts of His Image-bearers. This, also, illuminates the paradoxical nature of the direct relationship between creativity, creation, and the bringing into form that which has been imagined. To illustrate the inner workings of this "relationship," I would like to submit to you the following example: the creation of the chair...
Once the image of "chair" has been formed in your mind, the idea of "chair" has been created. The fashioning of the imagined "idea of chair" into a physical form is simply the bringing to solidity that which was imagined earlier (e.g., created ALREADY).
Another paradoxical side to all of this is how the solid form of something can inspire additional creativity and imagination. Take, for example, the creation of a painting or a children's story. What the original artist or author may have imagined may, in it's crystallized form, create imaginings quite expanded or different from that which was originally imagined. This is why some paintings can evoke sadness in one person, joy in another, and even anger in yet another. For the observer (in observing) or the reader (in reading) brings a certain (or not so certain) creative element to his or her experience of that which was created previously.
To have God’s guidance in our imaginations is to have Him at the helm of our generativeness. The spark of creativity is generative desire. Generative desire (the desire to extend the kingdom of God, the desire to create that which brings joy, the desire to create loving relationships, the desire to learn more of the things of God that we might experience God more fully and, as such, find our ultimate satisfaction and enjoyment in Him and, in turn, become a conduit of such things to those around us) is from God. Generative desire (e.g., God’s Imaginings as they are expressed in and through our own imaginings) is always of God. Cravings are a counterfeit to or a warping/staining of such desire. To delight oneself in God is to find ones cravings transformed back into generative desire which can then be channeled toward life-giving (read, "generative") pursuits (see Psalm 119:36, 119:18, 90:14, and 37:4).
I love it, my brother, that you are encountering these things and asking such questions.
To answer your question…Yes, I believe that God can and does guide our imaginations. I became “informed" of these things, though, long before I encountered Ignatian Spirituality...or, at least, before it was articulated to me to be as such.
God created us in and through His Imagination. To imagine is to see what does not yet exist as though it does because, in reality, it already does. This is how God has known each of us since BEFORE the foundations of the earth were laid. This divine imagining is the seed of all creativity and inventiveness…in the Heart of God and in the hearts of His Image-bearers. This, also, illuminates the paradoxical nature of the direct relationship between creativity, creation, and the bringing into form that which has been imagined. To illustrate the inner workings of this "relationship," I would like to submit to you the following example: the creation of the chair...
Once the image of "chair" has been formed in your mind, the idea of "chair" has been created. The fashioning of the imagined "idea of chair" into a physical form is simply the bringing to solidity that which was imagined earlier (e.g., created ALREADY).
Another paradoxical side to all of this is how the solid form of something can inspire additional creativity and imagination. Take, for example, the creation of a painting or a children's story. What the original artist or author may have imagined may, in it's crystallized form, create imaginings quite expanded or different from that which was originally imagined. This is why some paintings can evoke sadness in one person, joy in another, and even anger in yet another. For the observer (in observing) or the reader (in reading) brings a certain (or not so certain) creative element to his or her experience of that which was created previously.
To have God’s guidance in our imaginations is to have Him at the helm of our generativeness. The spark of creativity is generative desire. Generative desire (the desire to extend the kingdom of God, the desire to create that which brings joy, the desire to create loving relationships, the desire to learn more of the things of God that we might experience God more fully and, as such, find our ultimate satisfaction and enjoyment in Him and, in turn, become a conduit of such things to those around us) is from God. Generative desire (e.g., God’s Imaginings as they are expressed in and through our own imaginings) is always of God. Cravings are a counterfeit to or a warping/staining of such desire. To delight oneself in God is to find ones cravings transformed back into generative desire which can then be channeled toward life-giving (read, "generative") pursuits (see Psalm 119:36, 119:18, 90:14, and 37:4).
I love it, my brother, that you are encountering these things and asking such questions.
Peace to you,
Dave
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