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Harula’s GLADvent Calendar

day-13-imagination

December 13
Imagination

Imagination is more important than knowledge. (Einstein)

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do-pizzas-come-square-boxes_-800x800I am TOTALLY on board with Einstein on this one. If we don’t keep searching, even after we think we’ve found the answers to our questions, aren’t we just putting those answers into a box and eventually taking them for granted and forgetting about them? And what if it’s a round answer and we’re trying to fit it into a square box? If the box is big enough to hold it there HAS to be extra space in the box, so the answer isn’t quite right. IMAGINATION is essential to growth!

And I have another quote about IMAGINATION in my journal that’s kind of along the same lines:

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. (Mark Twain)

 

DENVER APRIL 01: Homeless people line to get in for the night at Denver Rescue Mission. Denver, Colorado. April 01. 2014. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

The Christmas season is an absolute feast for the eyes! Everywhere you look there are lights, shiny and glittery ornaments, stars, angels, decorated trees, windows full of colorful gift displays, bakeries full of delectable treats… But every year I ask myself the same question. For all that seeing do we truly see what’s important? Do we see the line of people filing into the Rescue Mission to get a hot meal?

I think the answer is no. Sure, it takes a certain amount of IMAGINATION to envision Santa Claus and elves, reindeer and sugar plum fairies. But I personally believe we’re just conditioned culturally in this country to see those things as a part of Christmas. The MAIN part of Christmas. And I wonder if that kind of IMAGINATION is very passive, like watching the Frosty the Snowman holiday special on TV that’s been rerun how many times?

NICK WOLCOTT/CHRONICLE Debbie Johnson picks out gift requests from the Salvation Army's Angel Giving Tree at the Gallatin Valley Mall on Thursday.

If that’s true, then where does IMAGINATION fit in? How do we fine tune it? I don’t think we can unless it’s active IMAGINATION. Active IMAGINATION is the kind that makes you grow, moves you to participate in it. How often, for example, do you walk into a store this time of year and see a Christmas Angel Giving Tree with the names of needy, local kids hung on it? Active IMAGINATION is what spurs you on to take a name off the tree and return with a present for that child. Your IMAGINATION is fine tuned by anticipating the joy that Christmas gift will bring, even though you won’t be there to see the child receive it.

download-1The same goes for dropping a dollar into the Salvation Army pot. Have you ever stopped to wonder, IMAGINE just what your donation provides? In your community there may be other well-known opportunities to exercise your IMAGINATION in similar ways. But if there’s not, what about visiting a local nursing home and passing out a Christmas card and conversation to the residents? IMAGINE how appreciative those likely lonely folks would be. Is there a food bank in your area? If you volunteer to help out, what does your IMAGINATION tell you about all those families you see pass by as you’re putting out more canned goods? Does the fire station in your area have a coat drive in November or December (as so many do) to collect used coats to pass out to those in need? IMAGINE what not being cold might feel like to them!

Those are the things it’s really important to see during the holiday season. There are so many ways this time of year we can use our IMAGINATIONS to help us touch someone’s life. It just takes a little bit of — IMAGINING!. 😀 And guess what! It’s not too late. It’s STILL two weeks till Christmas!

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Picture Source:
Stocking — Harula
Pizza — eHow
Rescue Mission — www.gettyimages.co.uk
Angel Tree — Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Coat Drive — The Oakland Press