lest we mire in what is...

i was reminded this morning of what a beautiful gift we all have: imagination--the power to think of what could be, and not just of what is.
i need to dream/fantasize/imagine more.

when i taught english at a township school in namibia, i was totally unprepared for a lesson one day. so i told the class, we are going to take 20 minutes and think about what our dreams are and then write them down. so i set my swatch watch and watched them struggle, watched their confusion, watched them giggle. when the time was up, i asked if anyone wanted to share. those who chose to share expressed pure delight in their fantasies. children in townships in namibia do not receive a lot of opportunities to escape with their minds.

nothing has happened in this world without someone imagining first what could be. perhaps it was academia, perhaps it was too many hard knocks, perhaps it was a constant feeling of exhaustion, but it was so long since i imagined what could be.

towards the end of december when the winter really set in here in iowa, i was at a very deep and dark place in my psyche. i was angry, i was depressed, i was tired. and then an e-mail came from pandu, who happens to be my closest friend in namibia. the subject line in the e-mail was "believe in the god of impossibilities."

really, i didn't need to read the e-mail itself.

whether you are a so-called person of faith or have some other belief system or claim nothing at all, i believe the message is universal. we are all endowed with an imagination.

use it.

(and yes, i did use the verb "fantasize" in this post.)