urbanmonklife

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Thursday, October 09, 2008

"Imagination is better than knowledge" -Albert Einstein.

The world is all a mixture of imaginary and real. Perhaps the main way we make sense of the world is through imagination. But whose imagination?

Very few things that we are told count are very solid..

Academic qualifications are pieces of paper.
Money is amazingly imaginary (or how did hundereds of billions of pounds just 'disappear' in a day?).
Facts are 'manufactured in factories' -they are things made by people to try and make sense of the world. Imaginary.
Celebrity is a fairy story told by magazines and tv.
'Progress' is a great humanist myth.
Development,
Economics,
Nationalism,
Religion,
Fear,
all imaginary or demarkated by imaginary lines.

Reality does exist of course, underneath all these things, and it bubbles up and surprises us from time to time.

But our eyes and ears and senses only have access to a tiny fraction of 'the present moment reality' (but it's where God meets us!).

Otherwise there are various forces competing for our imaginations.

'The bottom line', 'in the real world', 'democracy and freedom', 'normality', 'disney morals', 'if everyone would just agree to believe what I believe then everything would be ok', 'consumer wellbeing', 'Hugo Chavez imagination?', Osama Bin Laden's imagination?, Simon Cowell's imagination?, the 'moral majority?', the guardian?, the daily mail?, etc.. etc..

A day for thinking about what stories we live our lives by?

The news about the world economy is fascinating at the moment. It's like people are collectively waking up and realising: "but look the emperor is actually naked!"*

And we have a rich history of prophets to learn from, who lived, spoke and acted, in ways shockingly in contrast to the prevailing imaginations of their day. Jeremiah mourning about coming destruction when everyone was partying. Moses trying to persuade people they were special when everyone knew they were Egyptian slaves.

What economies shall we imagine? what ways of organising our communities that care for the weakest members? what ways of teaching and bringing up our children? what ways of cooperating with different cultures and nations?

"you cannot solve a problem with the same mindset that created it"
-Albert Einstein.

"the key pathology of our time, which seduces us all, is the reduction of the imagination so that we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted to do serious imaginative work."
-Walter Bruggermann

*see also wee pict on this subject

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