Imagination, Hating or Waiting?
From 1 Corinthians 12 – 15 If the foot should say, "Because I had my hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? 16 and if the ear should say, "because I am not an eye, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body?
One of Sinclair Lewis's descriptors of tyranny in It Can't Happen Here is to call it "imagination hating."
Although as I recall, Lewis means that in terms that tyranny's grip on social conformity is threatened by the individual's imagination, I'm afraid we tyrannize ourselves far more than any feared government regime ever could. Consider the self talk Paul spells out and sets up in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16. Is focusing on whatever gift or function God has not given to us at the moment. It is bitterness on continuous replay. It is imagination hating.
Who on the outside can be expected to compete with that? Who among those humans who care about us most can be expected to continuously suture those gaping wounds we inflict upon ourselves because of the thoughts we constantly tolerate? No human knows the passwords to the depths of our ever-vulnerable soul as well as we do.
Knowing that, perhaps that's why Paul doesn't dwell on the sepsis of introspection. He reminds the Corinthians, and us, that we are part of a larger work. As we suspend for the moment doubts about ourselves, or outright resentment of whom God has created us to be and where He has placed us, going all but begrudgingly into His larger work, we begin to see a glory we can't behold by naval-gazing. The pieces fit together into something that, even on the side of Glory's full reveal, is occasionally beautiful.
Perhaps our fondness for our own diction and accent can be put to better use than resenting what we are not. Perhaps as we purpose today to affirm the parts of God's whole we see around us, the insipid voices within will be quieter by comparison. Perhaps as we reflect to others what they are in Christ, and could be, we will have less time and energy for self-measuring.
One of Sinclair Lewis's descriptors of tyranny in It Can't Happen Here is to call it "imagination hating."
Although as I recall, Lewis means that in terms that tyranny's grip on social conformity is threatened by the individual's imagination, I'm afraid we tyrannize ourselves far more than any feared government regime ever could. Consider the self talk Paul spells out and sets up in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16. Is focusing on whatever gift or function God has not given to us at the moment. It is bitterness on continuous replay. It is imagination hating.
Who on the outside can be expected to compete with that? Who among those humans who care about us most can be expected to continuously suture those gaping wounds we inflict upon ourselves because of the thoughts we constantly tolerate? No human knows the passwords to the depths of our ever-vulnerable soul as well as we do.
Knowing that, perhaps that's why Paul doesn't dwell on the sepsis of introspection. He reminds the Corinthians, and us, that we are part of a larger work. As we suspend for the moment doubts about ourselves, or outright resentment of whom God has created us to be and where He has placed us, going all but begrudgingly into His larger work, we begin to see a glory we can't behold by naval-gazing. The pieces fit together into something that, even on the side of Glory's full reveal, is occasionally beautiful.
Perhaps our fondness for our own diction and accent can be put to better use than resenting what we are not. Perhaps as we purpose today to affirm the parts of God's whole we see around us, the insipid voices within will be quieter by comparison. Perhaps as we reflect to others what they are in Christ, and could be, we will have less time and energy for self-measuring.
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