The final step in the Creative Process is rest and thanksgiving. It is good.

Transcription

1 Imagination: Noah Imagination is that faculty of mind which images and forms. That s what Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore says. When I think of imagination I usually think of Walt Disney or George Washington Carver or the space program. I think of people who catch a vision of something that has never existed and bring it into manifestation. Sometimes that process produces something no one thought possible. I can set a goal or visualize obtaining something but usually within the realm of what is familiar and possible. I think of using my imagination to catch an image of something beyond the familiar. Like building an ark. I don t think most people think of Noah when they think of imagination because it clearly wasn t his idea it was God s idea. But as I was meditating on the 12 Powers it occurred to me that really, on a spiritual level, all divine ideas come from God. Teachers often use Joseph to represent imagination because of his dreams and visions. But one of the things that got Joseph in trouble was ego: his vanity in viewing those dreams and interpretations as his own not as ideas coming through him from God. George Washington Carver, as a scientist, got in trouble for saying his ideas and inventions came from God; not from some purely scientific process. So how do I get Noah involved in imagination? God gave Noah this idea more like an assignment but at some point Noah had to be able to catch the image in his mind AND believe it was possible to manifest. There seems to be little discussion in the Bible of what that process looked like. Must be part of the stuff they left out. That process is one of the things I love about the movie Evan Almighty; in a modern setting it explores what some of that process might look like for any of us. You may know there are flood stories in many traditions of mythology so we can be pretty sure our Bible story borrows elements from other flood stories being told. And what happens with Noah after dry land reappears is just odd and not part of this discussion. Today I want to focus on the faculty of Imagination and using Noah what happens to us when imagination gives us this big, outrageous dream. Charles Fillmore considers Imagination to be a part of the Creative Process, which we can probably agree with. So I want to layer his 7 Step Creative Process over Noah s experience and our exploration of Imagination. 1

2 The first step is Light. Fillmore s Creative Process is based on the 7 days of creation in Genesis. Really the beginning is the Void, the chaos, the great emptiness. The darkness. We hate this part don t we? Yet it is the opening for Light; the appearance of the Divine. True creativity begins with the Divine, the One Creator. For Noah, we find it begins when God said. In this story it is easy to determine it is a divine idea. God said. Big clue. In our lives it may not be so easy to determine it is a divine idea. Sometimes we do hear that still small voice or sometimes for me, it is not so small or still. But the Divine is the beginning of true creativity. Now point of clarification. Thoughts can be creative. Pure ego thoughts can capture out attention and with focus and passion we can pursue those material manifestations. They are not lasting. Second step is Faith and then Imagination. Fillmore has some overlap as he describes these two distinct faculties. Listen: With my IMAGINATION I lay hold of perfect ideas and clothe them with substance. [FAITH is] the perceiving power of the mind linked with the power to shape substance. Imagination lays hold of or catches ideas; Faith perceives. Imagination clothes with substance and Faith shapes substance. Both powers bring ideas into manifestation. Fillmore says Faith is spiritual assurance, the power to do the seemingly impossible. How many people thought Disney World was a viable enterprise? How many people thought peanuts would transform Southern agriculture or produce scientific discoveries? How many people thought we even COULD put men on the moon and bring them home? Imagination without Faith is just a daydream; it is just a doodle on a page. I am not sure everyone would agree that these were Divine ideas but there is something very powerful about what unfolded. It is easy to scoff at the story of an Ark with two of every animal as so improbable it never happened. But it bears some irony when we think of the same level of disbelief applied to some things we know actually did happen. Noah was picked because of his faith. Were these others picked to bear fruit from divine ideas because they were the fertile soil of faith plus imagination? The next three faculties or powers Fillmore brings in are Will, Understanding and Wisdom or Judgment. We haven t explored all these yet this summer but let me start with Will. It is the Executive power or the directing power. When we talk about Divine Ideas and the One Creative power, we become 2

3 disillusioned and confused contemplating that power creating destructive weapons or war strategies. Will is our faculty which operates as free will. We can take any idea, initially divine, and guided by ego and material desires, we can manifest that which is so unlike the divine it is difficult to believe it ever could have had a good beginning. Noah s task is to follow God s direction. I suppose instead of saving two of every animal, Will could have directed Noah to consider, You know, we don t really need those aardvarks. And maybe something smaller than an elephant. Then we d have room for some paying customers. What would someone PAY to survive? See how Will works? But no, Noah stuck to the task and was obedient to Divine Will. Another way Will works with Imagination is to create Worry instead of Visions. When Will directs us guided by ego s fears, we clothe our idea with the substance of our greatest fear. We create images for everything that can go wrong and eventually one of those things happens. And we think it is bad luck or bad karma. It is our own imagination guided by fear and focused in the wrong direction. Understanding. Knowing how principle works and how it can be applied in this situation. Knowing that there is a divine purpose and that the purpose may be beyond intellectual knowing. I am guessing Noah s neighbors were about as enthusiastic about his Ark as Walt s neighbors were when he wanted to drain a swamp in Florida and build another Disney park. How many neighbors thought Carver or those early rocket engineers were geniuses? Really George? A Peanut? The moon? It s only green cheese. Why would we want to go there? Imagination asks us to follow our heart s knowing, rather than our head s. And to trust that what we need will be provided. Noah had all the wood he needed. Interesting huh. When we are on the right track, things do fall into place. We must do what is ours to do; we must keep acting on guidance and what we need is provided. Imagination requires us to let go of our disbelief to allow divine potential to manifest. We build some pretty thick barriers in our minds. Those barriers ego tells us protect us from being hurt and disappointed. Wisdom or discernment allows us to hear that which is false and that which is divine. We can discern between ego telling us about our limitations and the divine telling us about the power within us. Again, this is a faculty we have to exercise. Joshua had to learn to distinguish and to have confidence in the plan from 3

4 God to overcome the walls of Jericho. What doubts and fears keep us from bringing imagination to life in our lives? Do we have the courage to let them go and step beyond our perceived limits? The final step in the Creative Process is rest and thanksgiving. It is good. As I worked on this sermon I was guided to a process I ve experienced over the years. It is Michael Beckwith s Visioning Process. Visioning is NOT the same as visualization. Beckwith says visioning is catching God s idea. Sounds like Imagination to me. Beckwith also talks about visioning as opening a way for God s unlimited to come into view. I also liked this quote. Beckwith says we will be pushed by pain til we are pulled by vision. So I thought today we would engage in a Visioning Meditation as we exercise our Imagination. There are visioning sheets at the aisle ends of the rows. If you need a pencil or pen, the ushers will bring those around. If we need more sheets, the ushers have a few more sheets in the back. For those of you who are committed to ULV, I invite you to vision for ULV. If this is your first time or you just feel you need a personal vision right now, please feel free to use this visioning process for yourself. IF you vision for ULV, I d like to invite you to leave your vision sheet in the bulletin basket on your way out. The board would like to see what visions are alive in our congregation. Again, this process comes from Dr Michael Beckwith, founder and senior minister at Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. Everyone have a paper and a pencil or pen? Let s begin by just becoming comfortable in your seat. Relax. Take a cleansing breath. Feel where the tension is in your body and take another breath into that space and release. Close your eyes for a moment and feel your breath take you into your heart space. We are pushed by pain until we are pulled by vision. We let go of the pain and open to Spirit s vision. What is Spirit s highest vision for? For Unity of Lehigh Valley? For your life? What is Spirit s highest vision? What must I/we become to empower this vision? Every vision moves forward, pulls us forward, based on the energy we give it. Am I being called to be loving? To be bold? To be generous? To be committed? To be adventurous? 4

5 What must I/we become to empower this vision? What must be released? What is in the way? What fears, what limiting thoughts, what unforgiving thoughts am I holding onto that keep me from opening to Spirit s unlimited becoming visible? What must be released? What must be embraced? What are we invited to trust? What ideas have we not relied upon which we could embrace as we become new beings in our vision? Are we asked to embrace change as a way to grow? Are we asked to embrace balance and know that change is not a substitute for stability but an enhancement? Are we asked to embrace diversity? Are we asked to embrace confidence? Are we asked to embrace wisdom? What must be embraced? Is there any other information we need in this moment? One final Fillmore quote on Imagination: The Spirit of Truth projects into the chamber of imagery pictures that, rightly understood, will be a sure guide for all people who believe in the omnipresence of mind. We give thanks for the vision pulling us in the direction of Spirit. As we allow it to be, so it is. Amen. 5