JB's June Writing Challenge: I is for ... Imagination

"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
-- Mark Twain, US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

My darling friend, the beautiful and talented Paige Crutcher, suggested the "I" topic today. And this is a lady who knows what the word means.

Imagination
I've been told since I was a child that I have a fairly active imagination, and I think it's fortunate that I do, considering that my passion involves creating people and places and situations that don't really exist. But this talent God has blessed me with pales in comparison to the likes of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, and even J.K. Rowling--these amazing writers didn't just create characters, they created worlds, purely from their own imaginations. The enormous scope of their creations is mindboggling.

This past Sunday, our pastor was in Baltimore at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, so our pastor emeritus delivered the sermon; his topic was Heaven, and one of his points was that we can't even come close to imagining the splendor and glory of what Heaven will be like when we get there.

I've had the tremendous fortune to have traveled fairly extensively in my younger years, and I have seen some truly beautiful places, both here in the U.S. and abroad, places of glorious beauty. Even with an imagination as broad as mine, I can't begin to picture how spectacular Heaven will be. (On a side note, I've always wondered how anyone can look at this world we live in and say there is no God. Have you watched a hummingbird hover over a feeder? Have you seen the Grand Canyon or the Smoky Mountains National Forest or the Badlands? Or the Blue Grotto? That's not science, that's nature. And nature was created. Exactly like the worlds in the aforementioned authors' books, albeit on a much grander scale.)

My point is the hope that you'll take a minute or two and really think about how amazing imagination itself is, considering all the things we wouldn't have without it.

On that note, I'm off to bed, with--not surprisingly--Harry and the rest of the gang at Hogwarts (currently rereading Goblet of Fire). Tomorrow's the "J" day, so throw those topic suggestions my way. In the meantime, read a book. It's good for you.