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The impact of imagination on our faith, and everyday life.
Remember when you were a kid, and a cardboard box could be anything from a castle, to a spaceship? You'd put on a little play stethoscope, and you were a doctor. Or, you'd have high tea with all your stuffed animals, but really it was with the British elite? Imagination is an amazing thing, but somewhere along the way the practicalities of life overcome the excitement of imagination. We read for information now, something we were taught in school, and something I wrote about here. How has our imagination been impacted by different Christian messages? Let's consider the power of imagination!
When I'm getting ready to write a new blog post or rough out a series I could teach, I've been known to ask those close to me if they'd like to make a suggestion. Without fail someone will ask me to teach or write on discernment. But!
There is a link between discernment, and imagination.
If your first question is - What do you mean? - I'm glad you asked. Imagination helps us remember feelings or experiences, enter into the Biblical story, or engage our understanding of how God is speaking to us. It can also help us understand what direction to take. For instance, are you a daydreamer? How is God speaking to you through daydreams? Ignatius of Loyola often reflected on his daydreams, and found them quite insightful.
The problem is this, within the Western Evangelical Church, and in some cases, the Western culture - ancient, and traditional ways of discernment have been discarded, and logical thinking prevails. Here are three messages taught by the Church that can greatly impact discernment. I'll break them down a bit, and share how they relate to imagination.
You can't trust your body.
Emotions are evil, and will lead you "astray." (Thanks St. Augustine!)
We're certain of ____________.
You Can't Trust Your Body
The Prior Teaching
This comes mostly from Genesis 3, or what we Christians like to call "The Fall." Somewhere along the line the natural urges of desire became untrustworthy, and as such, you have to keep yourself "under control." Your body can be used by Satan to tempt you. All those fun messages. If you were taught that, I'm so very sorry! I don't want to cause a shock to your system, so I'm going to say right here - the next paragraph may be a challenge for you, and that's okay!
A Different Perspective
Your body is actually hardwired to protect you. Your body is not an "it," or an afterthought. It's a beautiful, "very good" creation from God (Gen. 1:31). In our haste to get to "The Fall" we miss the beauty of Creation! Your body knows how to heal themselves, how to intuitively stay alive through breathing and a beating heart, how to warn you of danger, and how to engage the world around you. Your brain is hardwired to your body, causing you to have "gut instincts." These are all parts of your body.
In The Discerning Heart, Wilkie & Noreen Au cite work conducted by Antonio Damasio, a professor of neurology, saying "when confronting decisions, the emotional brain flags specific options as desirable or repulsive based on information retained in the brain from past emotional experiences." So our bodies, and our emotions are actually linked. If you had a strong reaction to touching a hot stove, you're less likely do it again. Your body registered the pain, sending the emotional reaction of panic.
You may be thinking - well, that's practical, everyone does that, and you'd be right. (I hope!) But what about desire? If purity and desire are linked, as is often the case in the Evangelical church, how does that impact our body if/when we have a sexual relationship? Furthermore, if we're told that desire is bad for most of our life, how does that impact our marriage? How does it impact our feelings towards our bodies? What if you "sin" and have sex before, or outside of marriage? Do you trust your body? It's much more complicated than just staying away from the stove.
In spiritual direction, I'll ask people how they experience God physiologically. What is embodied faith like? What does the peace of God actually feel like in your body? The term for this is "felt sense," and was coined by Eugene Gendlin who says "a felt sense doesn't come to you in the form of thoughts or words or other separate units, but as a single (though often puzzling and very complex) bodily feeling." However, if there is a disconnect because we've internalized messages that our body can't be trusted, how does that impact our ability to discern?
That's all well, and good, but how does this relate to imagination? Let's say I asked you to remember an event in your life. Maybe it was one where you were (notice I said were, not felt) deeply convicted. I would ask - where do you feel it in your body? Now I'm tying imagination to physiology because I'm asking you to reflect on your memory and engage it. This can be helpful in determining how you experience conviction as compared to condemnation, which I'll come back to shortly. See what I'm getting at?
Emotions Are Evil, and Will Lead You "Astray"
The Prior Teaching
This one goes back to one of the Church Fathers, St. Augustine of Hippo, and was adopted by the Catholic and Protestant Church. Satan, the great tempter, will use your emotions to manipulate you, like he did with Adam and Eve in the garden. It was Eve's desire for knowledge of good and evil, etc. If you've been part of a conservative church, or have any older relatives, you've seen this one in action. Stoicism is prized, emotional outbreaks are something to be avoided. It calls to mind the phrase "I'll give you something cry about," that may been part of your upbringing. So, we suppress our emotions, and bottle them up. We separate ourselves from them. Or, perhaps there are "gender appropriate" emotions. Boys don't cry, they hit. Women are too emotional to be leaders. That kind of thing.
A Different Perspective
You want to know something that blew my mind? While I was studying my Master's, I learned that at the same time Augustine was telling us that emotions can't be trusted, another Church Father, Irenaeus, was saying they were divine messages from God! This teaching was adopted by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Complete transparency - I don't know anything about the Eastern Orthodox Church, so I can't comment on whether this was helpful.
Imagine with me for a moment: what would it feel like to believe your emotions were divine messages from God? That they're good? That they are a connection point between you, and God? What if we trusted our emotions to tell us about ourselves? What upsets us? Why does it upset us? Why did we have this big response to a small event? My goodness! We can learn so much about ourselves when we pay attention to our emotions! Wilkie and Noreen say our "instinctual emotional responses support efficient rational choice."
In spiritual direction I may ask you to reflect on your emotions. What colour are they? What texture? Is it big, or small? Can you name it? Then, tying to the body, where do you feel it in your body? See how imagination can impact discernment? If you're paying attention to your emotions, because you've taken the time to get to know them, an exercise like this will come more naturally to you.
Going back to the example of conviction from before, I change it a bit and ask you to think of a time you felt condemnation. You realize that it's prickly, and unsettling. Maybe you feel it in your knees, instead of your shoulders. (FYI - I have no idea where you may experience it in your body, I'm just picking places, so don't expect your felt sense to be in the same places I picked.) Now you're connecting your imagination, felt sense, and emotions all together. Next time you have something come up, maybe a conversation where someone shares their opinion of your actions, you can sit and reflect. Where do you experience it? What emotion is tied to it? Then you can react accordingly. If it's conviction, make appropriate changes. If it's condemnation, it's not from God, and you can discard it. Imagination and discernment - two peas from the same pod? I like to think so!
We're Certain Of _______
The Prior Teaching
Within the Church, especially if you've only ever been part of one denomination/church, we're "certain" of so many things. We're "certain" hell exists. We're "certain" of gender roles. We're "certain" of marriage. We're "certain" our body, and emotions can't be trusted because they will lead us to sin. We're "certain" the rapture will happen.
A Different Perspective
I'm not going to spend much time on this one, but I'll share a couple resources. Suffice it to say, certainty kills imagination because it gives no room to question, consider, or reflect. You aren't able to engage your imagination, and therefore, have a hard time discerning if what you're "certain" of is from God, or from man.
Check out the video below if you want to challenge rapture theology.
See my post on Deconstruction here, if you'd like to hear my personal challenges to why questioning our faith isn't something new.
How Does Spiritual Direction Help?
A trained spiritual director can help you engage your body, your emotions, and your questions in a safe environment. They help you get from focusing on what's going on around you, to how to discern the movement of God. It will take time, simply because we have to untangle previous teaching, but it can really enhance your spiritual life. I want to finish with this quote, also in The Discerning Heart where Au and Au rely on the work of Ann and Barry Ulanov, who say,
Properly understood and pursued, the imagination is perhaps our most reliable way of bringing the world of the unconscious into some degree of consciousness and our best means of corresponding with the graces offered in the life of the spirit.
Resources
Holy/Hurt Podcast by Hillary McBride
The Discerning Heart: Exploring the Christian Path by Wilkie Au & Noreen Cannon Au
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