Creating Space for Imagination
Dear Savannah and Sutton,
You and your children fill me with wonder and awe. I love when their imagination soars, when they create new games, when you envision a novel solution to a perplexing problem or when you speak of a better tomorrow. Imagination needs exercise just like muscles do. I hope you regularly create space to let your mind wander, your thoughts expand and your dreams take flight. The world needs more of your imagination.
-Dad
Inside Out Lectionary Letters
Year A - 4th Sunday in Lent (Texts, Art, Hymns)
Readings for March 15, 2026
1 Samuel 16:1-13 / Psalm 23 / Ephesians 5:8-14 / John 9:1-41
Summary of John 9:1-41
This passage relays the story of Jesus healing a person who had been unable to see for his entire life. The story captures the reactions of the person who was healed, his parents, the disciples, the neighbors, and the religious authorities.
Scripture as a Mirror of the Soul
The psychologist Carl Jung, used the phrase “active imagination” to describe the process of recreating a dream scene while awake, and participating in how it unfolds. It is intended to be a way of engaging directly with the unconscious. Instead of passively observing dreams or limiting them to symbolic analysis, active imagination invites the dreamer to step back into the dream world, interact with its characters, and allow the story to continue. It is essentially a dialogue with different parts of the psyche. I view active imagination as part of a larger practice of spiritual imagination.
Jesus invites the disciples to not be limited by the religious dogma that disabilities were somehow a consequence of sin. Jesus’s actions invited the religious authorities to imagine the Sabbath rules as being subservient to the value of doing good. Jesus invited the person born without sight to imagine what faith could bring to pass. And He invites all of us to imagine how sight might actually get in the way of seeing.
This would be an ideal time to use active imagination to recreate the scene found in John 9. Imagine walking with Jesus; modern day or ancient times, you decide because this is your imagination. You come across someone who cannot see. What is your first reaction? Avoidance? Walk faster? Offer a simple greeting? Then someone nearby asks an awkward question about this man or his parents being sinners. Do you bark back, “Hey, this man may not be able to see, but he can certainly hear.” Or do you simply cringe inwardly?
You can engage with all the characters of the story. The stories of Jesus invite us to be participants. But let’s take it one step further. Imagine you are the person who cannot see. What does it feel like to be talked about like that? What does it feel like to be unable to work, and have to depend on the generosity of others for your sustenance? What would be your reaction to Jesus’s words as you listened to Him talk about you to others?
If Jesus is inviting you to see with new eyes, hear with new ears, and speak with a new voice, what does that mean? Use your imagination to speak to the rule-keeping-Pharisee part that lives in you. What does the Divine voice within need to say? Use your imagination to speak to the wounded and ostracized part of you. What does that part of you need to hear from the new voice within? How might this imaginative journey enable you to see yourself in new ways, hold your pain in compassionate ways, and envision a future in hopeful ways. This story is for you and me to hold, feel, taste, wrestle, squirm, cringe and discover. Let the imagination run free.