Spiritual Imagination

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By Darrick Jackson

Sermon

Darrick Jackson is smiling, wearing a red shirt and glasses

Our imagination is a powerful tool. It can drive our creativity, fuel our hope, and deepen our faith. What if we engaged imagination as a spiritual practice?

The Rev. Darrick Jackson (he/him) is the Ministerial Credentialing Director of the UUA. He is one of the authors in the book “Centering: Navigating Race, Authenticity and Power in Ministry.” Rev. Darrick is active in DRUUMM (the UU ministry for people of color) and is the treasurer for Healing Moments (a ministry for caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s). He is pursuing his D.Min in Theology and the Arts at the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Rev. Darrick and his husband, Dr. James Olson, live with their two cats, Merlin and Morgana.

Suggested Opening Words

  • Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

Suggested Chalice Lighting

  • We light this chalice today to illuminate our way toward Love. Inside the womb of this waiting time, we are bathed in sounds, floating in love, growing out of our comfort zone. We experience love, sorrow, pain, and joy. There is a numinous quickening as we await a new world yet unborn.
    –Melissa Jeter

Suggested Story for all ages

  • We Became Jaguars by Dave Eggers

Suggested Reading

From “Care of the Soul: The Spiritual Imagination” by Thomas Moore
Here is how I see the imagination playing a central role in the spiritual life. Human beings have a natural pull deep into actual life with all its complexity and challenges. It’s wonderful—I call it soul. But we also have an instinct to explore and taste the mystery of it all and the highest, most ideal and sublime values. That is the spirit. But that mystery can’t be defined or placed in a test tube. We approach it through images that bring us close and give us good hints about the elusive element we’re searching for. The imagination—all those stories and parables and rituals—serves the spirit and gives image to the unnamable. To worship the image or confuse it with facts is to miss the very point of spiritual expression.

To benefit from the spiritual insights of millennia, we need two powers: one, the capacity to make effective and powerful images, and two, the ability to grasp the thrust of those images and be transformed by them, to feel the presence of the unknown that they conjure up. Again, if you confuse the image with what you are seeking, you will not be in the realm of spirit at all. If you translate it into concepts or moral demands, you will have lost the necessary image. Working with imagination is a delicate business.

Some people want nothing to do with religious and spiritual images. Others make too much of them by treating them as facts. Religious images are a means, not an end. They allow us to be in the presence of the great mystery of life—but to benefit from such powerful images, you have to take care not to make them into idols, interpret them too far, or get stuck on only one set of images.

There is a great deal to learn about the imagination, and the best way to begin might be to read one of the sacred stories, as story, and open yourself to the mysterious state of mind in which the story places you. Steep in it, live with it, talk about it, make it one of your own.

Suggested Closing Words

Imagine by Rev. Darrick Jackson
Connect with your imagination and let your spirit soar.
Share your heart with another, and savor its sweetness.
Embody the beloved community with your whole being,
And let it radiate out from you like the sun.
Just Imagine.
Blessed Be.

Suggested Hymns

  • 360 Here We Have Gathered
  • 1059 May Your Life Be As a Song
  • 346 Come, Sing a Song with Me