Monday 23 July 2007

This week we will walk through some material dealing with Spirit-Led Imagination from "Mandate to Difference by Walter Brueggemann.

Worship is an act of poetic imagination that aims to reconstrue the world. It is an act of imagination , by which I mean it presents lived reality in images, figures, and metaphors that defy our conventional structures of plausibility and that host alternative scenarios of reality that cut beyond our conventional perceptual field. This act of imagination that offers an alternative world is, perforce, a poetic act; that is, it is given us in playful trances and hints that come at us sideways and that do not conform to any of our usual categories of understanding and explanation. The practice of such poetic imagination that invites us playfully to alternative reality is deeply rooted in old texts, old memories, and old practices; it nonetheless requires contemporary, disciplined, informed imagination to sustain alternative vision.

So, in worship we take things apart and re-view them. This is not necessarily in a logical and analytical manner. Rather, it is with the stories of and adventures of the faithful of the past brought into the present through lesson, hymns, songs, silence, the meal, and all the other movements and world and actions that make worship - worship. Here it is called a "poetic act." I so agree with this statement because it leaves open the possibility for life being found or encountered or tripping us up even when we come to the liturgy carrying all the baggage of the day. In worship we are invited to let go and look beyond what is right in front of us and let our lives journey outside of what has become our routine or pattern. Worship - within its order and predictable nature - is a surprise ready to happen. Like an image that turns up as we move from one line of hymn to another, our hearts and minds are invited to expand and be renewed. This all comes into our worship from voices of the past but within settings that can be quite a part of today's life. In our new Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, I like the fact that the musical styles of the liturgies bring us such a variety. Of course, the variety can be greater than what is presented...but it helps ordinary folk see the discipline and pattern of worship in ways that make us re-view them. When that can happen in worship - when the old and new can blend to pull us into a new perspective of life within the Reign of God - we are all blessed.

Connection: Some days we all simply need to let go and take what is to come...as it comes. Let the day surprise us. Let it tickle us with what is not yet a part of who we plan to be.

Come, Lord of Grand Hopes and Grand Imagination, come and lift up our eyes and our hearts so that we will risk walking in new ways and letting our heart roam through this day as your Spirit it nudges us and pulls us and offers us alternative ways to see and live within this day. Amen.