The Big Idea
- Memory, Imagination and The Word
- Structure, Creativity and Truth
- Space, Time and Inner Worlds
Related Notes: Memorizing the Psalms Memorizing the Lords Prayer Memorizing the Ten Commandments Memory, the Things We Keep with Us Storytelling Patterns of Liturgy-The Rhythm of Life Why Learn Sacred Space Quiet Muttering Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio Models of Human Rhythms
Companion Project: Memorizing the Psalms
He is Seated at the Righthand of the Father
I can remember sitting in a church pew singing and clapping during Vacation Bible School and a simple question caused me quite a bit of discomfort: “Where have you seen God today?” As a child the question was mystifying. I did not “see” God physically anywhere. As I got older I started to worry about whether the places I “saw” God where real, or my imagination. How could I know or verify a God sighting in my life? As I continued to grow I realized that this difficulty arose from my poor understanding of God’s place in the Universe and subsequently my own life. If we fail the keep God in His rightful place within our minds, seeing Him and understanding ourselves becomes hopelessly convoluted.
As I have started to raise my own children, I have been challenge to think about where I point out God and His activity to them. Looking up at the moon or sun and hearing those little inquiries about what they are and why the sun sometimes goes to bed after they do offers a choice. Either I can dive into the science and math of how the sun sits still and the earth rotates around it or I can echo the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 19 and point to the hand of God placing and directing the sun every day.
To be clear, I am not saying that the scientific explanation is evil or bad, but it does lack an explicit detail that is vital for a clear understanding of the universe: Where do you see God? To be fair, you can see God in the beauty and complexity of science. However, for a child and within the hustle and bustle of daily life, God should be easy to point to and talk about without regurgitating four years of high school science.
The difficulty with placing God tangibly within our understanding of the universe has not always been an issue. Throughout the old testament, the Israelites operated from the clear picture of God seated on His throne in Heaven. This was not some ethereal heaven either, it was a heaven you can point to. It is the place from which God looks down upon humanity to observe everyone’s way of life (Psalms 11, 14, 33, 53, 102, and 113). It is the eternal and powerful throne room of God far above the sky. This throne is pictured in no uncertain terms throughout Psalms 2, 11, 45, 47, 93, and 103.speak of God looking down on humanity to observe their way of life. Psalm 123 responds to this foundational picture of God and his throne with a tangible response: “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!”
Psalm 123 looking up to God in Heaven God coming down out of heaven to save Psalm 18, 144
God is in the world in tangible real ways that are not just spiritual “apparitions”
basic sketch of the ancient near east picture of the universe
even back to before Galileo universe was mentally organized around the Genesis 1 story
after the fight with Galileo and the triumph of science it was “safer” to seek a mental model for the universe based on science separate from one that is biblically based
ended up splitting the world in two within our minds. Learn the science based earth spinning around the sun and the Spiritual God lives up in heaven
Psalm 18 God opens the heavens and comes down
Throne room picture of Isaiah or Psalm God looking down at the human race
a clear basic orientation to where God is and how he intervenes in the world
mountain and high place as where heaven and earth meet. tower of babel as a man made heavenly mountain
A small reclamation of that universal perspective. does not have to clash with the science picture but it should be primary over it. one way to keep it together mentally. but then the very physical he is up.
Imagination
Imagination is one of those topics that seems to never really be talked about
it has turned into a very private and individual thing
they are MY dreams My visions My creations
fueled by commodification society
If you really had a black void inside of your head what would you fill it with? how can imagination work without some raw material
Imagination needs raw fuel: ideas, images, etc.
these can come from outside of us in our immediate surroundings or inside of us in our memory and minds
I remember reading the Redwall series as a kid and the image of a well that sustains even in the midst of a siege captured my imagination. Tried to make a well in the backyard with the hose and a hole
Similarly the raw idea of being able to live off the land and be self sufficient also captured my imagination as a teen. drew plans for gardens, and fortresses, underground passageways and treehouses.
Where do those raw materials come from?
In my youth they came from novels and stories
As adults I don’t know that we often think about where our dreams or the fuel for our imagination comes from
Memory
turn to the raw fuel for imagination that comes from our memory and minds
the most influence things we remember often become the things to come back again and again in our imagination
so the things we remember or held in memory can, and often do, have a larger influence over our imagination
hollowing out of the modern mind
problem since Socrates with writing
now we have writing, and digital text and google and now AI as the newest push for things to live outside of us rather than in our memory
sometimes not a bad things like calculator or gps but we do become reliant on it
and you can’t imagine where you are going if you don’t or can’t remember the way there
so you still may be able to get a job done but the ability to engage imagination in the process is lost
Word of God
the real reason any of this matters
remembering the word of God is not about getting a gold star or being more holy
it should be about engaging our imaginations