Leaning into our imagination

Reflecting on being at the Worshipping in the wilderness: Silence, Sunday 11 October meeting in Kings Hall, by Andrew Hook. 

‘No singing allowed’. However, I found myself singing, despite myself. It was barely audible, but it was singing. I then stopped singing – maybe it had achieved its end – because my imagination then took over. I could allow images to form, images that moved, that transmitted themselves into a hip sway. Here too, in the imagination, we can soar. Here we can be as loud and as physical as we wish, arguably more so. I saw a painting* of a dancer and that dancer became me. I still see that image and can be lead immediately into an interior space. It’s a wide open space where Christ also dwells: where Jesus, the soul and the body unite. There is then perhaps an invitation, as there always has been, to explore interior as well as exterior expressions of worship – of meeting the Divine. After all, many saints when confronted with enforced silence or reasonable limitation (as in our case) have over the years availed themselves of accessible, direct union and communion with God, regardless of their circumstances.

* The Ascension by the Indonesian artist Bagong Kussudiardja, celebrating the dancing Christ ascending to heaven.