Responsible imagination

WE need to be more aware of this duty. We just cannot let our imagination to go and fly anywhere it likes, guided simply by our senses and the things of the world, and much less by our weaknesses and the temptations around. It has to be properly purified trained and educated, integrating and grounding it on our over-all dignity as persons and children of God.

Animals also have some imagination and memory, but of the kind that is simply ruled by instincts and direct sense contact with things around. Theirs and ours have something in common but also something radically different, since they are purely animals while we are rational animals, with a spiritual soul.

Our imagination actually plays a very crucial role in our life. It’s a powerful faculty of ours, a great gift from God, which enables us to form images that become raw materials, fuel and also end products of our spiritual acts of knowing and loving.

As persons with body and soul, and who live in both the material and spiritual as well as supernatural dimensions of life, we actually cannot be exempted from having images. Our knowing and loving, no matter how spiritualized, cannot be completely freed from images.

Our ideas, no matter how abstract, just cannot come without some images accompanying them. Same with our act of loving. It will always need some images for love to take off, keep its course and grow. Our imagination, together with our emotional and psychological make-up, is the vital link between our body and soul.

We should give time to plumb the depths of both the theoretical and practical implications of this reality that often escape our attention, so we can behave as we ought, as persons and children of God.

It’s part of our spiritual and therefore our moral life to see to it that our imagination conforms to certain laws and standard. It just cannot and should not develop automatically. It needs to be guided, and more than that, to be continually purified, enriched and engaged with its proper end.

We should try our best to avoid our imagination to be held captive simply by instincts, hormones and purely sensual stimuli. Sad to say, this aspect of our responsibility toward our imagination is hardly known, let alone, appreciated and acted on.

As far as I can see, there’s hardly any serious and sustained effort, either individually, collectively or systematically, to train, educate and discipline our imagination.

It looks like it’s a free-for-all, anything-goes affair. It would seem that it is even considered as the very essence of human freedom to allow each one to use the imagination in any which way.

This attitude is widely regarded as respecting one’s privacy which, of course, is part of our human right as long as it is again properly understood and lived. But very often, this right is abused and distorted beyond recognition. It falls under the category of an understanding of freedom that is unhinged from the truth and that rejects the responsibility to follow laws and contribute to the

common good.

When we use our imagination well, when our imagination drinks from what is true, good and beautiful about us as persons and children of God, we will enjoy many wonderful benefits.

There will be more simplicity, transparency and integrity in our life. Our thinking becomes clearer and more objective, and it is made easier. And in spite of being enriched, our thinking gets more to the point rather than straying.

There will be more creativity and buoyancy in our life, as the imagination will provide us with more details and possibilities to discover more things. In other words, we become more human, more warm, affectionate and understanding with everyone and with everything. Our EQ increases together with our IQ.

This is not to mention the tremendous good it can do to our spiritual life. Our prayer, our faith, our devotions would really fly and soar!

Of course, when our imagination is misused or hardly used, the opposite also come as a result. We would easily fall into duplicity and deception. We would simply nourish our ego, crippling our capacity to love and to give ourselves to others. Our knowledge and understanding of persons and things would get stunted.

We really need to train and educate our imagination. We should talk more freely about this responsibility, coming up with suggestions and ideas that can help all of us develop this wonderful power and gift from God. Obviously, it has to start in a very personal way, before anything collective and systematic could be done.