As Owen Barfield once said to me, “The trouble about insects is that they are like French locomotives-they have all the works on the outside.” The works-that’s the trouble. Their angular limbs, their jerky movements, their dry, metallic noises, all suggest either machines that have comet to life or life degenerating into mechanism. You may add that in the hive and the anthill we see fully realized the two things that some of us most dread for our own species-the dominance of the female and the dominance of the collective. -CS Lewis, from Surprised by Joy
Must say I never thought of bugs that hard before.
Imagination is a vague word and I must make some distinctions. It may mean the world of reverie,daydream, wishfulfilling fantasy. Of that I knew more than enough. I often pictured myself cutting a fine figure. But I must insist that this was a totally different activity from the invention of Animal-Land. Animal-Land was not (in that sense) a fantasy at all. I was not one of the characters it contained. I was its creator, not a candidate for admission to it. Invention is essentially different from reverie; if some fail to recognize the difference that is because they have not themselves experienced both. Anyone who has will understand me. In my daydreams I was training myself to be a fool; in mapping and chronicling Animal-Land I was training myself to be a novelist. -ibid
When raising kids I think we make a false dichotomy between imaginative (read: free spirits) and disciplined (read: yes-man) children. We assume you have either one or the other. The former, though, we try to reprimand incessantly and the end product is rebellion. The latter we pat ourselves on the back and are happy of our lil’ Westminster Seminarian.
On a positive note we at least recognize that every aspect of imagination isn’t always good. I’ll use the word daydreaming. We know that’s destructive. Why? It has no creative by-product other than lazy escapism. (I wonder if our eschatological views reflect our ‘imagination’?) So in order to get rid of daydreaming we throw the baby out with the bath water. The exact type of thinking that is contrary to wisdom. How do we foster good imagination in children? Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve really only started to think about this. I suppose reading is a good start.
By the same token, because our little ones don’t draw fairies, castles, and dragons doesn’t mean they’re not imaginative. The product that’s sought after (in my estimation) is creation. Building forts, looking after rabbits, mowing the lawn, driving tractors etc can be ‘creative’.
Our Westminster Seminarians grow up to be fuss budgets. Anxious to define everything in terms of prepositions; as if life fit into a nice box.
I have long learned by experience, and that over and over again, that those who contend thus pertinaciously about terms, are really cherishing a secret poison.
-John Calvin
9 comments:
Thanks for the Lewis quotes! You know something funny? When I read, "As Owen Barfield once said to me...", I attributed the words to you, and thought you were just being smart.
I think that the building of forts, in particular, is awfully similar to stereotypical displays of imagination because they become, in the builders' minds, something much greater than hay bales or blankets. They are castles and dungeons and hideaways and caves and pirate coves and everything under the sun.
As far as looking after rabbits and mowing the lawn goes, I would probably have pretended the rabbits were aliens and the lawn mower a stock car, which defeats the purpose of the actions alone being imaginitive enough. (After all, I used to pretend the dishes I washed were taking a shower before they went to the party in the dish rack. My brother Luke would always stand on the stool next to me to participate in our storytelling event.)
Funny--I don't do that much anymore.
More's the pity...
What do you think the proper expression of adult imagination looks most like?
My wife and I have had no small debate concerning your question. We firmly disagree with each other’s definition of imagination. I, being the federal head, purport that imagination by necessity must be creatively useful, whereas the wife of my youth is much more liberal in her interpretation.
Therefore, an example of adult imagination would be innovation, invention, or adaptation of surrounding environment to suit one’s pursuits. As image-bearers this is most reasonable. For example: winter tires, mechanical milking systems, and indoor plumbing. A rather metallic reply certain to rust under the critique of anyone with an ounce of imagination.
As for no longer pretending that dishes are party guest; that may be a good thing.
My DEAR Captain,
Though you point out some interesting philosphies, I must take issue with your degrading of daydreaming. To do this, I will refer to my very dear friend, Dr. Webster of Diction. He is a Revolutionary of the dictionary. A most respectable individual.
Imagination~the act or power forming mental images of what is not actually present, what has never been experienced,or of creating new images and ideas by combining previous experiences.
Creative~having or showing imagination and artistic or intellectual inventiveness.
Daydream~a pleasing but visionary notion or scheme. Dreamlike or wishful thinking.
Daydreaming is not dangerous, destructive, OR only a form of lazy escapism. On the contrary, it can be quite useful.
Anne Frank was a dreamer-she had to be. While she was in hiding for her life, she put herself in a world where there was fun, love, and freedom. This daydreaming wasn't lazy but actually invigorating, undoubtedly pushing her on through the fog of fear that plaqued her every breath. You could not possibly understand the effect of such reverie as you have never been persecuted so harshly.
You see also, referring to Webster's thoughful interpretation of the word, that daydreaming is VISIONARY. not only is it used to strengthen and encourage (or to escape), but it is a means of vision-of imagination-of CREATIVITY!
Finally, one last comment before I lay my fingers to rest. Productivity is not the sole purpose of imagination...though it MAY be a biproduct. Not ALL people are inventors though everyone (despite how you view yourself), has SOME level of imagination. What is the sole purpose of imagination? You should know this one the way you and Scott spout off about beer. It is to ENJOY what is GOOD. It is to DELIGHT in what God has given you to delight in. If you say these things to support your beer drinking habits-then surely you can expand that philosophy to include other blessings the Lord has bestowed upon us....Right, Mattie?
Here I sit, contending pertinaciously about terms because I'm harboring a secret poison...and you don’t have to respond. The girls’ long nap allowed me to write more than I intended.
I agree that imagination often results in things that we view as "practical", and some people wrongly place them outside the realm of creative imagination, but I don't think the mere use of them alone involves imagination. In your original post, you wrote, "The product that’s sought after (in my estimation) is creation. Building forts, looking after rabbits, mowing the lawn, driving tractors etc can be ‘creative’." I was wondering what the creation involved in mowing the lawn or looking after rabbits is. You've removed many leaves of grass from the lawn by using a wonderful invention, and you've sustained the rabbits, but I don't see a creative event. (I use “creation” with caution, as humans can never truly create ex nihilo.)
I'm also wondering if it’s possible, as parents, to always see the distinction between Lewis's definitions of imagination (daydream) and imagination (invention) when it's occurring in our children. He might have sat dreamily looking out of a window while first coming up with the notion of Animal Land and its inhabitants, and to the casual observer, would have appeared to be engaged in "lazy escapism". Although the results of his invention were seen quite quickly, sometimes the daydreams one has in their youth aren't realized in tangible shape until much later. And even if he'd never mapped those ideas out on paper so that a tangible result could be seen, no one would argue that they weren't a fitting start to his eventual writing of fiction. Other ideas he had as a youth (e.g. Narnia—see below quote) never found a tangible existence until he was much older, and I’m sure there were still more that never existed outside his mind.
There are proper times for imagination, and I think even for imagination that you would define as daydreaming, but as parents, we should train our children to discipline their imaginations. Sunday morning worship obviously isn't an appropriate time to draw portraits or pretend that the leaves swirling outside the window are sprites (I admit that in my youth, I did both). But we do let Millie have a doll with her in her seat. She'll often have the doll stand when we stand for worship and read scripture when we read. Is that a wrong use of imagination? She isn't distracted from her own worship by the doll, but she mimics what John and I do in training her to be an active part of worship by "pretending" that the doll is her baby.
And why is it that imagination MUST have a tangible result in order to be worthwhile? I think that the either/or set-up of this discussion is flawed. (I.e.: Either imagination involves creative results or it is worthless and destructive daydreaming.) God instilled imagination into humans. We express it by building sheds and designing winter tires, yes, but you seem to denigrate imagination not expressed in physical form.
On a related note, you state that the proper use of imagination must be creatively useful. What do you mean by "useful?" Must the result help us in our everyday tasks (e.g. milking machines) or should it also involve artwork, symphonies, and poetry?
One more question--would the reading of novels or watching of films be an exercise in lazy escapism? Is the enjoyment of a novel or film for only that--enjoyment--a wrong use of one's imagination? I ask because I don't see a place for it in your short posts and because I know of present Christians who follow the Puritans in condemning the reading of fiction that has no blatant moral lessons.
Lastly, would you define the imagining of garden weeds as invasive cancer to be imagination or daydreaming? Just wonderin'.....no reason...:)
The Christian Imagination, edited by Leland Ryken, from which I skimmed portions to cull the following loooong quotes, is next on my list of books to read. Some of these quotes address, in part, my questions.
C.S. Lewis:
The Lion...all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, "Let's try to make a story about it."
George McDonald:
"But although good results may appear in a few from the indulgence of the imagination, how will it be with the many?" We answer that the antidote to indulgence is development, not restraint, and that such is the duty of the wise servant of Him who made the imagination. "But will most...rise to those useful uses of the imagination? Are they to more likely to it in building castles in the air to the neglect of houses on the earth? And as the world affords such poor scope for the ideal, will not this habit breed vain desires and vain regrets? Is it not better, therefore, to keep to that which is known, and leave the rest?... "Is this world so poor?" we ask in return. The less reason, then to be satisfied with it; the more reason to rise above it, into the region of the true, of the eternal, of things as God thinks them...for it is not the thing we see the most clearly that influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have far more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things may be demonstrated to the intellect....
Is there, therefore, no faculty for those infinite lands of uncertainty lying all about the sphere hollowed out of the dark by the glimmering lamp of knowledge? Are they not the natural property of the imagination? There, for it, that it may have room to grow? There, that the man may learnt to imagine greatly like God who made him, himself discovering their mysteries...?
The end of imagination is harmony. A right imagination, being the reflex of the creation, will fall in with the divine order of things as the highest form of its own operation....The reveries even of the wise man will make him stronger for his work; his dreaming as well as his thinking will render him sorry for past failure, and hopeful of future success...
Luci Shaw:
I read about a prairie woman in 1870 who wrote in her diary a note about her quilt-making: "I make them warm to keep my family from freezing; I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking." … Sometimes beauty becomes almost a matter of survival. Without it, a part of us shrivels and dies. We have been given a sense of the beautiful which can be regarded as gratuitous. Which it is--a gift of pure grace....
Years ago, I was talking with my Uncle Max, a hard-working, shrewd, practical New Zealand apple farmer. Hearing that a new book of my poems had just been published he asked me, with genuine bewilderment, "But--what good is a poem? What earthly use is it? Why can't you say what you want to say in a straightforward way that people can understand?".....Poetry, as well as any of the arts, is my soul crying out to your soul, "There's something here that has leapt into life for me…”
C.S. Lewis:
What then is the good of--what is even the defense for--occupying our hearts with stories of what never happened and entering vicariously into feelings which we should try to avoid having in our own person? Or of fixing our inner eye earnestly on things that can never exist...? The nearest I have yet got to an answer is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves....We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own....We demand windows.
Lewis again, from a different essay, speaking about The Wind in the Willows and Story in general:
To that extents the book is a specimen of the most scandalous escapism...It might be expected that such a book would unfit us for the harshness of reality and send us back to our daily lives unsettled and discontented. I do not find that it does so. The happiness which it presents to us in fact full of the simplest and most attainable things....And in the same way, the whole story, paradoxically enough, strengthens our relish for life. This excursion into the preposterous sends us back with renewed pleasure to the actual.
G.K. Chesterton:
Human beings cannot be human without some field of fancy or imagination; some vague idea of the romance of life and even some holiday of the mind in a romance that is a refuge from life.
Seeing that this blog is an outworking of MY imagination, I must have the last word. I find your main thesis self-contradictory.
“Although the results of [Lewis’s] invention were seen quite quickly, sometimes the daydreams one has in their youth aren't realized in tangible shape until much later. And even if he'd never mapped those ideas out on paper so that a tangible result could be seen, no one would argue that they weren't a fitting start to his eventual writing of fiction.”
Given that, why should I defend mowing perennial monocots as imaginative? In a future time there may be an thought process that finally becomes ‘tangible’ as a result of our perpetual turf war.
I am not trying to establish an ‘either/or’ rule for imagination; rather a ‘both/and’. It is both didactic (in the case of Millie’s doll during worship, although she doesn’t see it being so) and creative (using an inanimate object for expression). You hit the nail on the head using the George McDonald quote.
“Must the result help us in our everyday tasks (e.g. milking machines) or should it also involve artwork, symphonies, and poetry?”
I knowingly pressed the ‘utilitarian’ idea a little too far. I suppose we could ask why God made the zebra when just a plain brown horse would do. Or, why even a horse for that matter? But, like God’s creation, our work too must have a result or aim. Maybe our work isn’t as tangible or empirically derivable, but a result nonetheless should prevail.
You must understand too, Abby, I come from a long line of unimaginatives. When I weeded the garden all I thought about was killing weeds and wishing they never grew again, hoping to get every last bit of root. Work was work. I wasn’t really impressed to think any differently of it. Not to sound like a behaviorist, but imagination wasn’t fostered when I was a wee lad. That’s why no matter whom I quote or what I write, it’s painfully obvious that I’ve got about 3 imaginative fibers in my body. Imagine that!
I, as you, disagree with the stiff shirted puritan of old (and new) that enjoyment is intrinsically wrong or wasteful. I will admit though, that not long ago I considered reading fiction a bad use of one’s time.
The fact still remains: I’d pull weeds out of the garden long before reading fiction or writing a good poem. That illustrates, as your Luci Shaw quote does, that imagination isn’t medium specific. In my mind, poems, sci-fi, beautiful cows, a nice looking lawn, a stonewall, a bullseye target, and a weed-free garden are all (partially) the result of imagination. All motives being equal and true; none better than the other.
Just to quibble (and to have MY last word), that wasn't my main thesis. If I had one at all, it probably would have been that imagination is useful even when it has no outworkings in physical form. I can see how the statement seemed self-contradictory, though. I worded it badly. I meant that, even if he had never actually written or talked about Animal Land--if it had remained a secret from the world--it still would have had an indirect influence on his development in other areas of imaginitive writing (to point out a time when what looks like daydreaming could be useful.)
And you don't have to defend lawn-mowing as imaginitive. I just didn't understand how it could be according to your own definition of imagination.
Quibble, quibble, grin, grin...
I highly recommend The Christian Imagination. The skimmed parts were tremendous! It even included an essay by a man of your ilk, who believes realism far exceeds fantasy in writing.
Word
Oh, I had a question too. Is it a good thing to be a 'man of ilk'? Did you mean to put an 'm' in there somewhere?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets Abby's long comments!
Scott
baffling.
you write as if those long diatribes are a nuisance.
harumph.
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