Recently after a long day in which a slight funk had settled over me, I spontaneously called a friend to see if her daughters might join me for dinner. (Hanging out with kids gaurantees the funk will flee.) They were about to sit down to their evening meal so my friend instead suggested I join them. I walked to their home mindful of the importance of community and the fact that I've many dear neighbors.
Soon after eating, Ella announced that she was making an airplane. One of the adults commented with a tone of disbelief, "How will you do that?" Ella quickly replied, "All it takes is imagination." With that she was off with younger Lily at her side.
The three adults sat talking while also aware Lily was soon standing in the recycling bin, her blonde hair barely visible, handing cardboard, also known as airplane parts, over the side to Ella.
With the necessary parts in hand, the two returned to the grown ups to recruit an engineer. I volunteered. I had just that morning been quietly reminiscing about the joys of making things during my childhood summers. I could be lost for hours creating from paper mache, paints and plaster.
In less than an hour, we had created a plane with wings, headlights and styrofoam seats. Ella, Lily and my funk were headed to Madagascar and the Artic while I headed home mindful once again that children offer such vital lessons for us, if we're paying attention.
My two young friends modeled imagination and resourcefulness, something so often missing in our daily lives. Also when initially questioned, rather than thinking, 'It can't be done,' they set out certain they could do what was intended, build an airplane. They didn't settle for traveling to just fifty states. They were world travelers. I had an hour prior walked down the street mindful of my neighborhood community yet they were curious about their world community.
I also pondered how today's children will grow up to respond to the world we're leaving them, a world with great advances thanks to imagination yet a world of critical challenges many due in part to our short-sightededness and the non-relational paradigm in which we've been operating. I wondered how utilizing my imagination as well as acting upon my imaginings might alter the world these two girls and the world's children will inherit.
There's much necessary talk today about the earth's limited resources, but imagination is an unlimited resource, limited only by our lack of consciousness and courage. May we be inspired to rediscover the unlimited resource of an awakened imagination so we can travel to the many undiscovered lands within us, around us and between us. If we did this, imagine the world we might co-create. Imagine that shift!
Dawn, The Good News Muse, June 2, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment