When I do a thing – when I feel accomplished – I typically reflect on the tasks I have completed within the timeframe that I identified and feel proud of myself for that. While I certainly should be proud of those parts of accomplishing something, I need to remember to reflect on and be proud of the imagination it took to even dream that goal in the first place. -Jody Malloy (CLF)
When was the last time you reflected on the way imagination played on a role in your accomplishments?
When I think about imagination, I find myself returning to the power of words, the power of names. Take Blue. It’s the last color to appear in many languages, including Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew. Many ancient civilizations had no word at all for the color blue, and without the word to lead to the thought, they couldn’t differentiate it from other colors (why Homer classically refers to the “wine-dark sea”). Words are the building blocks for ideas, which in turn are the blueprints with which we recreate the world in our mind, imagining it. How crucial it is, then, that we arm ourselves with words and ideas that help us see more clearly the world in which we want to live. -Paul Spanagel (CLF)
What are the words you use for the things you imagine?
Imagine what a world that leans into abundance and care feels like.
What happens to your body when you imagine the world that supports your thriving.
That supports art in all its forms
Music,
Dance,
Community Care and Love.
You have all you need to thrive, shelter, food, water, art, music, community…
Notice how your body responds to feeling care and love.
Notice how your body responds
Imagine what the spring of the transformed world feels like.
-Aisha Hauser (CLF)
What do you imagine when you imagine an abundance of care and love?
Let us all imagine, invite, and/or conjure a vision of a world without violent hierarchies—a place where ALL people can thrive—and then intentionally embody/practice that world in our family, community, organizational and institutional structures over and over and over again until our present world is replaced by our sacred and embodied vision. May this be our prayerful practice. -Donte Hilliard (CLF)
How can you embody your vision of our world?
“Sometimes I imagine having everyday colorful.” -Luis R, a CLF member incarcerated in Rhode Island
What are the colors you imagine?
Can you help sustain the CLF’s life-saving Worthy Now prison ministry We rely on thousands of generous donors to provide lifelines of love to almost 2,000 incarcerated Unitarian Universalists. Learn more and donate at http://clfuu.org/lovethatsaveslives.
