Imagination ad infinitum

Nurturing a consciousness of what could be

This past summer and early fall I read a couple books and watched a movie and was intrigued when threads began emerging among them. “A” connected with “B,” and “B” connected with “C,” which connected back also with “A.” And then I heard a prayer, “D,” that included a phrase that connected all of the above.

The first point in the series (A) was the re-reading of The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann, first published in 1978. He died this past summer, and when I heard that news, I decided to re-read this book, which was a formational book for him that informed much of his later work. I’d first read this book years ago when it jumped off the shelf at me while on a writing retreat, and I’ve long considered meaningful for me.

In the preface to the book’s second edition, Brueggemann wrote about the connection between “‘prophetic’ and ‘imagination’,” because words that give wisdom and courage must also invite “immense imagination” so as to move into and apply to actual happenings. He wrote about the need for communities to hold a “shared willingness to engage in resistance and acts of deep hope.” He briefly mentioned the novel, Imagining Argentina, and how the main character contributed to his community during a time of great difficulty and grief through his acts of “anticipatory imagination,” and this caught my attention. The body of the book then explored the role of imagination in the prophetic voices of the both the Old and New Testaments, which affirmed over and over God’s emphasis on justice and compassion.

“It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”

–Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

Triggered by what I’d read in The Prophetic Imagination, I next read Imagining Argentina (B), written by Lawrence Thornton and published in 1987. The novel’s main character is Carlos Rueda, a playwright for a theater in Buenos Ares during Argentina’s military coup of 1976 to 1983. His wife, Cecilia, a writer of political editorials, was taken away by the police who arrived in a small green Ford Falcon, the model of car commonly used during that dictatorship, to a detention center or secret prison—nobody knew—to be tortured as the police had done to so many before her and so many after, most of whom were never seen again. The city was increasingly grieved by all the loss and violence.

Carlos found his imagination triggered by these events, and he began to tell others what had happened to their missing loved ones based on his visions. Some outcomes were good, others not. He held gatherings in his garden most Thursday evenings, where people could come and tell their stories of who had been taken and who was still missing. Carlos then responded to some of their stories with outcomes that came from his imagination. His imagination was prophetic: the images and events he saw and believed to be true were indeed true. His prophetic words were part of what held this community together during their difficult days.

“They can see everything they want to, but never forget that they cannot see beyond the distortion of their imagination where there is no color and everything exists in black and white. And that is why we will survive, because they do not have what is necessary to defeat us. The real war is between our imagination and theirs, what we can see and what they are blinded to. Do not despair. None of them can see far enough, and so long as we do not let them violate our imagination we will survive.”

Lawrence Thornton, Imagining Argentina

Shortly after reading Imagining Argentina, I watched a movie on Netflix that I’d seen advertised, but about which I knew nothing. The Penguin Lessons (C). Let’s relax with a movie about a cute penguin, I thought. Turns out the film is also set in Argentina, at the beginning of the same coup. The film is based on the true story of Tom Mitchell, a teacher from England and played by Steve Coogan, who arrived in Buenos Aires to teach English at a school for boys. Things didn’t start out well for Mitchell in the classroom, with the boys in their gray suits, white shirts, and red ties, misbehaving just as boys in jeans and t-shirts in a classroom 50 years in the future might. They didn’t listen, obey, or participate. Mitchell was at a loss.

I won’t go into the details of how Mitchell acquires a penguin, but he does, rather against his will but as a result of his beneficence toward the penguin when it was in trouble. One day, when the boys in his classroom were being particularly difficult and disrespectful, Mitchell had an idea. Without any explanation, he walked out of the classroom. A few minutes later, he returned with a large bag, from which he removed the penguin and placed it on his desk. Without comment, he proceeded to teach the class. The students were shocked. They returned to their desks, sat upright in their chairs, folded their hands, and looked at Mitchell and the penguin, the penguin then Mitchell.

From that moment when he had imagined something different for his students, the penguin, and himself, everything began to change, including Mitchell.

The story continued with the ongoing bonding of the bird and the boys and other members of the school community. The coup raged, demanding something of so many, including Mitchell, who rose to the occasion after having been lacking in a natural reservoir of courage. Green Ford Falcons—here they are again—began to appear on city streets, and men opened the car doors and grabbed people and took them away to who knows where, and when we got to this point in the story a knot that had started to tie itself between this film’s first minutes, and the book I had just finished, and Brueggemann’s writing (and today’s reality) now pulled itself tight.

One recent Sunday morning in church, our minister led us in a prayer that held these words: “engage our imaginations”* (D).

Yes, let’s imagine.

The additive power of even the most basic steps that are taken in hope is mysterious. I briefly mentioned this story years ago in a blog post, but it fits so well here, and it’s a story I often think about, so I’m including it again here now. In Here Is Where We Meet, John Berger tells a story of a man who comes upon his long-dead mother seated on a park bench in Lisbon and a conversation between them begins, a conversation about many things, including the nature of hope.

“Let’s hope only for what has some chance of being achieved! Let a few things be repaired. A few is a lot. One thing repaired changes a thousand others [emphasis mine],” said the man’s mother before expanding with an example:

“The dog down there is on too short a chain. Change it, lengthen it. Then he’ll be able to reach the shade, and he’ll lie down and he’ll stop barking. And the silence will remind the mother she wanted a canary in a cage in the kitchen. And when the canary sings, she’ll do more ironing. And the father’s shoulders in a freshly ironed shirt will ache less when he goes to work. And so, when he comes home, he’ll sometimes joke, like he used to, with his teenage daughter. And the daughter will change her mind and decide, just this once, to bring her lover home one evening. And on another evening, the father will propose to the young man that they go fishing together....  Who in the world knows? Just lengthen the chain.”

Maybe you will read one of these books. Or watch this film. Let me know what you think!

May our imaginations of what is true, beautiful, and good be engaged, and may those imaginations then, even in small simple steps, further launch and sustain more of what is true, and beautiful, and good in and beyond—way beyond—ourselves. One thing repaired changes a thousand others.

[Photo: Late fall sunshine and berries.]

*From McKelvey, Douglas. Every Moment Holy, volume II: Death, Grief, and Hope. Rabbit Room Press, 2021.