24 February 2005

From "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann.

We have no public arenas in which serious hopefulness can be brought to articulation. What is most needed is what is most unacceptable - an articulation that redefines that situation and that makes way for new gifts about to be given. Without a public arena for the articulation of gifts that fall outside our conventional rationality we are fated to despair. We know full well there are not among these present pieces the makings of genuine newness. And short of genuine newness life becomes dissatisfied coping, a grudging trust, and a managing that dares never ask too much.

I find this piece points right to the center of the need for prophetic imagination. We are not looking merely to be what we are or what we have been. That has always meant war, poverty, insecurity, hatred, and many other demons of life as it is. We must lift up our eyes and our lives and contemplate what Brueggemann says might be the "most unacceptable." It may be unacceptable now but it may be the way into a whole new expression of God's gracious and love alive in the world. Too often we settle for how we know life. Yes, it may be good for now. Yes, we may not be troubled. But, look around...look around at the whole picture. God promises so much more for life within the community of God's people. But we need to go to the place God calls us...into God's promises...not into more of our own making. In the life of the Church and in the life of the powers of our world, we are at a point in which the Spirit of God is blowing around and, like in the days of the great prophets, calling us to imagine the Reign of God - in its fullness - even now.

Connection: Dream. Hope. Imagine. Live!

Take us into your arms, O God, and whisper into our lives the simple gift you offer us so that we will be encouraged to take the step and live within your gift of life. Amen.