D'Var Torah: Imagination Message

By Sara Glater
January, 2005

In a letter to Rabbi Yitz, I began with a familiar line from our siddur: "We are loved by an unending love, touched, soothed, counseled…" I feel the warmth of our religious community. It has held me and rocked me; allowed me to grieve and to grow. My culture is now also my faith and TBI deepens this faith.

While tonight's sentiments and stories are personal, I share them to illustrate the universal value of self-expression. I am grateful to your listening ears.

To renew what is familiar and to celebrate what is new is essential to imagination; to awakening spirit. This notion is core to Reconstructionist Judaism. Personal, collective and religious history provides information, often great information for integration into individual life. History links us to our past, combines with our present to reveal new insight and point us on. I echo words of Rabbi Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionism. He said, "tradition has a vote but not a veto." Judaism invites query; exposition; shanah, to repeat in the oral tradition. Judaism exemplifies the art of storytelling. And storytelling wakes up imagination, deepens spirit. Cody was in class recently creating a series of stars of David. He asked, "You know why I love Jewish stars? Because they are never upside down, no matter which way you turn them." I laughed, and thought and told him that his wonderful observation teaches us about Jewish history. We've turned and been turned every which way and we have always managed to come round right.

Children often ask me questions; some to which I have no definite response. When I am truthful, it makes no difference whether I have an answer. I simply enter the question with the child. When I don't pretend to "know it all," they feel comfort, as do I. To honor mystery humbles us, grows our souls.

Veteran fantasy author Ray Bradbury lived in my childhood neighborhood. Films of his life were shown in high school English class. Bradbury stories held me and never let go. It is not as much what he writes about that appeals to me, but how he expresses it. An artful wordsmith, his use of metaphor is priceless and timeless. About writing, Bradbury says, "my stories run up and bite me on the leg. I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off."

From the time I could hold a pencil, I made pictures and wrote stories out of imaginings. It was my way of problem solving, communicating and serving. My best self was and is expressed visually and verbally.

After describing the spinning wheel in Rumplestiltskin, journalism explains that there are some cultures which do not recognize the wheel as viable technology, but no cultures which disregard the importance of storytelling.

Each of us has a story to tell. Each story is unique and worthy of voice. It is often in the telling that we access our imagination.

Some think visually, others musically, kinesthetically, scientifically, etc. My Papa is a research chemist and professor. At 84, living with macular degeneration and a cochlear implant (severe hearing and sight loss), he still works in his laboratory several times each week and mentors graduate students. He taught me the importance of conducting class differently each session to keep information fresh. I often remind him that imagination is intrinsic to art, science and the like; and that his teaching method is an example of imagination at work. Bradbury says, "the best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible."

Most of us recall some upsetting story about self-expression, an experience which often inhibits us from trusting our own ideas, or believing that they are worth address.

One personal example of discouragement came in reviewing my report cards from grade school. My father saved my marks and delivered them to me as an adult. I received A's with the exception of C's in art. And I recall why. I never followed prescribed project guidelines, for they required that I assemble what adults had conceived; an effort to create parent-pleasing results. I still have the pre-cut Thanksgiving pilgrim. (My Papa is a great shoebox archivist.) The kindergarten handprint hangs in my office. I secretly added red pencil marking outside the lines to make it my own.

Another upset occurred when adults took early notice of my interest in art. They often presented me with coloring books in an effort to encourage my 'natural ability.' I did express gratitude for these well-meaning gifts, but I believed they had nothing to do with imagination. I told my elders, "Pictures in coloring books are not mine. I will make frames for them." And so I decorated many a coloring book border, polite child that I was.

Culture unconsciously imposes the notion that adult perception is superior to child perception. We don't always mean to and it is simply not true. Children are complete in this moment just as are adults. None of us are all we can or will be in future moments. Still, children are not simply potential beings, as they are so often defined. To believe this robs them of spirit, youth and natural development.

Everyone enters and grows in an imperfect world. We collect and carry wounds and we share them, rarely intending to inflict damage. Still, we do, and deep wounds may cause lasting pain. Expression is balm for wounds. Life is additive: paving our way, a creative process.

One day, 20 plus years back, while directing the San Francisco Children's Art Center, I was block printing with young children. Matthew finished rubbing the back of his print, before revealing the image on its underside. I still hear his small voice and his big words, as he looked up and asked, "Can I open the present now?" We all deserve to be rewarded and all deserve to gift ourselves by expressing ideas. Art is one vehicle for self-expression and self-development. Active imagining contributes to all aspects of life. After attending art class a while, parents often report children’s learning skills sharpen; their ability to concentrate and self-motivate. As teacher, I do not foster future artists, so much as confident, growing spirits.

Art can engage all we do. Most basic, as well as most complex, tasks are enhanced if undertaken with imagination. There is art in painting a wall as well as a canvass; birthing a child as well as an idea. Meinrad Craighead is a former nun and painter/poet. In an essay accompanying her "egg" painting, she voices my sentiment. Meinrad says, "We have a spirituality, full from within. Whether we are weaving tissue in the womb or pictures in the imagination, we create out of our bodies." She wears short-cropped hair with a long, narrow tail down her back and believes that her life will be complete only when the tail stops growing. When she stops growing. So long as we are conscious, we grow.

I define talent as, "interest allowed to develop." Where interest or tendency or facility originates is a matter of mystery and opinion. Some believe these traits God-given, others believe they are environmental or a result of genetic intelligence. I believe all are true, with individual Spirit at the core. In a world often cast in shadow, it is a blessing to witness the bright side of human potential. We are a complex lot, with tools of development and destruction at our disposal. My notion of "interest allowed to develop" applies to connection as well. While we share certain chemistry with certain people, each relationship requires dedication and imagination to bloom and to grow. Great diversity of talent is abundant here in our religious community. We are blessed.

To live Jewishly, we carry out mitzvoth, good deeds. Contributing imagination to the act of compassion is a major mitzvah. Some art is created exclusively for personal growth. Some as means of communicating ideas or transmitting beauty. All are good deeds if conceived in good will. Teaching is part of my art. I create a new a project for each class meeting and collect inspiration from the exchange of stories with students; weaving a collective web. Freedom within structure invites each soul to meet its unique challenge.

If we honor God in our interests, honor our stories and the spirit alive within each of us, we honor the development of self. God asks that we grow and present our best selves; "individuate," as psychologist Carl Jung described it.

In youth, I kept busy building my own vision; as armor against the trauma of early family life and as a way to gift others with fruits of my imaginative labor. Art expression was and is good medicine.

Questioning and commentary are essential elements of imaginative life. As a Jew, I am drawn to ancient wisdom and Biblical metaphor; I embrace small miracles and believe that hope does reign eternal. I maintain we are born good, though mortal, and hold within us capacity to do good. I am comforted by Judaic support for individual thinking, for belief in deeds over creeds, acceptance over exclusion, and love, above all.

To grow is first to plant our feet, then to send them forward. It is healthy role models, parents and teachers who help nourish our roots. It is our individual spirits, which sprout wings, support falls and set us free.

On moving to Oregon five years ago with zero personal contacts, I was reminded - no important decision is made without risk. I am blessed to have taken that first leap of faith and to have landed in this community. Bradbury says, "Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down." Just as framers of the Constitution, and framers of pictures and framers of sacred texts, we are called upon to frame our individual lives. Einstein believed imagination more important than knowledge. I believe, through imagination, we discover knowledge, deepen faith.

Nurture your imagination. Start by telling your stories. Remember to ask questions and learn to accept, as well as offer, help. Enact mutual mitzvoth. Trust your capacity even when it is hiding. Life is a process of bringing awareness from inside out.

Again from our siddur, "we are embraced by arms that find us even when we are hidden from ourselves."

Bradbury says, "We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." I add: There is always time to learn new tricks. May your time be now. And may your spirit be truly blessed by the task.

I close with a poem I recently wrote for my Papa.

Papa’s Blessing

Tell me Papa, why and what and if and when.
How, Papa?

"Fagela baby, your life should be only sweet," Papa sang.

I rose up from small stature
and flew by training wings
onto my father’s bouncing knees.

Here, he told of Wiser Hun, a favored white hen
who lived through her naming ceremony,
only to land sadly on the Shabbos plate.

And "luscious", a small craft he fashioned,
precision built
and maiden voyaged
at Ocean Beach;
in the red dawn of war.

Papa seldom answered,
so much as layered stories upon questions.

When he paused,
I rose up to resume my query;
now, in image over word.
I painted a dancing hen and floated a matchstick boat;
gifts for Papa; of memory and honor.

I met new parts of my father
as I visioned old times.

"Fagela Baby, your life should be only sweet;"

Papa sang then,
sings again and yet again.
This blessing,
our chorus
Is just the answer I need.

Shabbat is a time of reflection and renewal. It is also a time for awakening spirit.