Coracle Trust E-Reflections
Journeying with Innocence and Imagination
Tuesday 1 June 2010
As a child I imagined the life beyond this life
as one enormous room, all mist and kinship,
now I would have to insist on walls and factions,
hidden compartments, corridors leading off
to secret gardens seeped in changing light
John Burnside, Retractationes from Gift Songs
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. (Isaiah 53:7)
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the centre of the throne. (Revelation 5:6)
Image: The Flying Carpet, Viktor Vasnetsov
Music: Le Onde, Ludovico Einaudi
The rise and fall of imagination
In infancy engagement with the world is largely through the imagination. Words and concepts are less developed and so imagination comes to the fore. Gradually as we come into adulthood this tends to fall away or is pushed aside. This may be through a lack of confidence in the imagination or even a fear of the impurity or tamelessness of imagination.
Does increased confidence with words come at a cost? Though important in terms of gaining a healthy sense of autonomy and control (the use of the word ‘no’ is a prime example!), it appears that something is lost in this great swing to the left*. Do we start intuitive, 3 dimensional, integrated and dreamlike and, as we progress through to adulthood, end up being stuck as largely heady people who hide in words, categories and concepts? I note how silent Jesus (the lamb) was from the time of his arrest. And I wonder, What do I use my words for? And do I use them well? In fact, are they all I have?
The ebb and flow of innocence
We don’t drop or lose the issues related to former life stages, they come with us. Innocence and imagination are not purely the domain of the infant. Jesus seems to have healthily retained or reintegrated innocence into his psyche to the end. And so I’m left reflecting on how remarkable it is that innocence takes centre stage in the throneroom of God.
* as in studies on the left and right hemispheres of the brain
