 The poet Billy Collins wrote these words called on turning 10 The whole idea of it makes me feel like I'm coming down with something Something worse than any stomach ache or the headaches I get from reading in bad light a kind of measles of the spirit mumps of the psyche a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul You tell me it is too early to be looking back But that is because you have forgotten the perfect simplicity of being one and the beautiful complexity introduced by two But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit at four. I was an Arabian wizard I couldn't make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way At seven I was a soldier at nine a prince But now I am mostly at the window watching the late afternoon light Back then it never fell so solemnly against the side of my treehouse and My bicycle never leaned against the garage as it does today All the dark blue speed drained out of it This is the beginning of sadness I say to myself as I walk through the universe in my sneakers It is time to say goodbye to my imaginary friends Time to turn the first big number It seems only yesterday. I used to believe there was nothing under my skin But light if you cut me I could shine But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life I skin my knees I bleed as we move into a month of examining how we become a People of imagination this image of it seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin, but light is One that deeply resonates Billy Collins's poem talks about losing our imagination at the age of ten when we turn that first big number and That this is the beginning of sadness. I Don't know if we begin to lose it at ten or twenty or fifty, but somewhere along the way It does feel as if the ability to imagine Drain's from us somehow and we lose a great deal when it is gone Our imaginations form our lives our symbols the way we structure and organize our world It is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives Think about how it feels when you imagine something new Some new dreaming that allows you to leave the routine everyday existence by fantasizing about things that make life interesting travel theater Libraries time with friends time in nature Imagination gives us the chance to step outside of ourselves and all of our believed limitations To dream to create something new to believe something is possible It can be seen as the birthplace of our hopes the thing that fires our creativity Relieves our boredom alleviates pain and riches our relationships Those with others and with our very own selves. I Know that since March I have been doing a lot of imagining Creating in my mind a different life than the one we are living now, and I know I am not alone in this This past summer the psychologist Kathy Melchioti wrote I Just got a boarding pass to go on a mission to Mars. I am not kidding You too can get one by visiting the NASA website and submitting a request The flight is scheduled to leave in 2026 and Because of my age and the fact that I am not the equivalent of astronaut John Glenn Only my boarding pass will be on the flight But after months of being grounded from travel and flying due to the pandemic I desperately need an adventure even if only one in my mind a Imagining what the future will bring post pandemic is daunting for most of us Our brains are wired to choose negative scenarios over positive ones Melchioti shared I know that my worst days so far have been those on which I cannot visualize anything other than my current narrative Unending physical distancing donning a mask to go pick up groceries staring at the computer screen for yet another meeting But in order to get through this marathon, we now must begin to see beyond it Remembering what it was like to pretend when we were children Calling deeply on the power of our imagination At Four I was an Arabian wizard. I could make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way at Seven I was a soldier at nine a prince Can you remember who you believed yourself to be at those early ages? I know at some point. I was an archaeologist Theologist add another an astronaut and at some point I was an ambassador at the United Nations Who were you when you could pretend that anything was possible if There ever was a time when we could use the power of imagination. It's now I'll rune. T. Roy wrote an article entitled the pandemic is a portal and in it he said Whatever it is This virus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could Our minds are still racing back and forth longing for a return to normality Trying to stitch our future to our past and Refusing to acknowledge the rupture But the rupture exists and in the midst of this terrible despair It offers us a chance to rethink this world we have built for ourselves Nothing could be worse. He says than a return to normality Historically pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew and this one is no different It is a portal a gateway between one world and the next We can choose to walk through it dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred our Averus our poisoned rivers and our smoky skies behind us Or we can walk through lightly with little luggage ready to imagine another world and Ready to fight for it Here we are at the beginning of a new year Having made it through a year that brought so much into clearer focus Both hatred and brutality and also moments of great love and connection What is it that we can imagine for this year to come? Who do we want to be? What do we want our families our communities our world to look like when we are on the other side of this? Can we break with the past and? Imagine our world anew There was a recent interview with the author Jason Reynolds and he talked about the use of imagination in his work He said I think that my role will always be to figure out how to create Fortitude in the minds and the bodies and the spirits of young people I'm trying to fortify them. It's the reason why I do so much around imagination because at the end of the day ultimately We need young people to be able to activate their imaginations if they cannot we are in trouble big time But how does one keep an imagination fresh in a world that works double time to suck it away? How does one keep an imagination firing off when we live in a nation that is constantly Vacuuming it from us He says I think the answer is one must live a curious life One must have stacks and stacks and stacks of books on the inside of their bodies and Those books don't have to be the things you've read. That's good too, but those books could be the Conversations you've had with your friends that are Unlike the conversations you were having last week It could be about this time taking the long way home and seeing what's around you That you've never seen because most of us stay in our little quadrants. We stay in a five block radius But what if you were to walk the other way? What if you were to explore the places around you? What if you were to speak to your neighbor and figure out how to strike up a conversation with a person you've never met? What if you were to walk into a situation free of preconceived notion just once Once a day walk in and say I don't know what's gonna happen. Let's see I'm gonna give that person the benefit of the doubt To be a human Reynolds tells us step out of your neighborhood Talk to somebody different because we underestimate what this does for the mind We underestimate what it does for the imagination and as long as these Imaginations are firing off as new stories are being written as new dreams are being shared Then we have hope for a different and better future And here's the critical piece of this for me and it comes back to our story of Henri Matisse and the iridescence of birds The artists the poets this is what they do they ask us to wake up to listen to our dreams To imagine to pay attention to consider and to think if we are going to be brave enough to step into our imaginations to think about building a new world together to create stacks of books inside ourselves built on conversations with those we know and those we don't I Believe we need to begin to see one another with an artist's vision With new eyes with a way of seeing that when we look at one another We see iridescence We see beauty we see a story waiting to unfold in front of us We see brilliance We see possibility What if we saw ourselves in this way and What would it be like if we believed everyone we met Had nothing under their skin but light and The greatest world we could imagine was actually possible If we could all help one another shine As we do this work together there are pitfalls It is easy for us to get caught in the dominant cultural influences that tell us that our issue Our dream our vision is the correct one the most important one the one that all should heed and follow We cling to what we know as right and good and we stop seeing one another as beings of light and We begin to see one another as competitors for scarce resources This serves no one's well-being If we are going to live into our dreams We need all of us We need the visions the hope the dreams the tears the frustration the passion of every single one of us in In a time of deep division in our world Our imaginations must be grounded in a clearer vision an Artist's vision that can see iridescence and grounded in a deep compassion an Active compassion that is seen as an intentional daily practice cultivated courageously patiently deeply with one another This can be the life we share Allowing us to risk Seeing ourselves and one another with that artists vision To be curious to fire our imaginations to share our dreams to bravely write new stories of Possibility and hope to give one another the benefit of the doubt To believe in one another To believe in ourselves to be humans To be humans made of light together So I'll leave you this morning in the beginning of this long-awaited new year With these words from the Reverend Teresa Soto The world makes many demands on your time Your skin your heart Until you are left gasping and wondering if you will ever do enough Have enough be enough Stop your counting measuring and checking You are enough So much more than enough Made from fragments of the galaxy You do measure up and To recover from the doubt pressed upon you the antidote for doubt is dreaming All the dreams that call to you lime green and frosting pink dreams The other soft and tender dreams that run blue to gray Sky indistinguishable from lulling sea The dreams that seem impossible Listen, that's their nature if they had already happened then they would be reality solid and smooth like the round bone home of an unbroken egg Be brave enough to name your dream Nurture it and allow the rhythm of your breath And the power of your imagination to bring your dreams to life May we be brave enough to make it so