So far in our journey, we have pondered love, joy and wonder, beauty, and what it means to be the symbol of Christmas.  Today, we ponder the role of imagination in all of this.  We have good company in this pondering, because many before us have recognized the role of imagination in our faith life — important guides from St. Ignatius to C. S. Lewis to the psychologist Carl Jung.  All have understood the role of imagination in lifting us from our human limitations to a place just a little closer to God.  As C. S. Lewis phrased it, “Reason is the natural organ of truth; imagination is the organ of meaning.” (“Bluspels and Flalansferes”).  But it is Howard Thurman (whose work is the focus of our reflections) who ties the act of imagination as the fuel that moves us into life, that place where we experience beauty and creativity against all the odds:

There must be always remaining in every[one]’s life some place for the singing of the angels—someplace for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and by an inherent prerogative throwing all the rest of life into a new and created relatedness. Something that gathers up into itself all the freshets of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright light of penetrating beauty and meaning—and then passes. The commonplace is shot through now with new glory—old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the harshness of life, life is saved by the singing of angels (44).

The world around us, notes Thurman, wants to crush our imagination, and, I would argue, therefore, our ability to see God.  Poverty leaves little time for such imagining; it blocks the eye to beauty because it is hard to connect beauty to survival when you are worried aboutfood and housing.  Gun violence keeps children from dreaming — who can hear an angel sing when you are worried every time a door opens unexpectedly in your classroom?  And no one has a more stunted imagination than the comfortable, because we devote our energies to maintaining and increasing that comfort.  Lack of imagination keeps us place, it keeps us from understanding the crown that shimmers over our heads, “that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear.”  We stop growing, we stop living, we stop believing.

Instead, we must, as Bruce Epperly suggests, stand with the shepherds abiding in the field, who, despite their hard-scrabble existence, did hear the angels sing, because it is the song that is the most important:

All of us need the aspiration that comes from an angelic encounter. In Thurman’s words, we need a crown “placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear.” Angels come into our lives, bringing tidings of great joy, opening our eyes to beauty, giving us second chances, and filling ordinary days with wonder. Pause a moment, listen for the singing of the angels. With the shepherds, listen for the voice of the future calling you to holy adventures (46-47)

Shepherds then, as now, were at the economic bottom of the social ladder.  And yet, it was the shepherds who so clearly heard that most important song.  Even though in the eyes of the society around them, they had nothing, in that moment they had everything, because they had a vision of a way of being that was beyond their circumstances.  They could imagine a world of love, a world of beauty, joy and wonder, and they could act on that imagining.  They left their flocks and went to see the child, for, when they listened to the angels sing, they were no longer afraid.

So, this day, I ask myself, am I afraid to grow into my crown?  Have I stuffed cotton in the ears of my soul so that I no longer hear the angels sing?  I suppose many days, the answer is yes.  Some days, perhaps, I am too focused on being part of that angelic choir and I do not listen even when surrounded by their music.

Today, my friends, I’m going to let the angels sing, and I will do a better job of listening. These angels might not look like angels and their song might not feel like a song.  But if I imagine, I might just hear the voice of God.