It seems to me we frequently suffer from failures of imagination. I’m thinking about huge things like world visions of peace and an end to hunger, but I’m also specifically thinking of the little things. How frequently do we find ourselves in situations we just can’t imagine getting out of, at least not in a way that would be satisfying, let alone full of joy? Maybe it’s not true for you, but for me, there seem to be so many.

I think about this week of midterms and papers and know that there are more moments than not when I just can’t imagine the week being over and everything being done. This is a complete failure of imagination – of course the week will end, and I know myself well enough to know that the work will be done. But there are moments when I just can’t imagine.

And if I fail at this little thing, this situation where I know the week will end, whether or not I can imagine it, is it any wonder that I fail at the bigger things? The situations where there are no concrete guarantees?

Two and a half years ago I blew my life apart. I graduated from college, went out west for the summer, broke up with my fiancé, started a new job, moved into an apartment by myself, and basically started over. I can’t tell you why I blew it all up, it had been really good, but sometimes you just have to do things without knowing why. And I did this one with great imagination. My journal entries are full of dreams and visions for what I could do with my life. It was like I had a blank canvas and a palette full of bright colors and I could paint anything.

Six months later and it was winter in Rochester, my job was not what I had dreamed it might be, and I found myself in the dark, on the floor, listening to Ben Harper over and over again. Generally, a good indication that life is not going particularly well. For the next two years, I suffered from an acute failure of imagination. All I could imagine was what I had had. I knew I couldn’t go back, couldn’t undo what I had done, but I couldn’t imagine going forward either. So I stayed still. I got severely stuck: in the wrong relationship, in the wrong job, in the wrong city. I tried a few times to “unstuck” myself, but I just couldn’t go forward, so I stuck.

There must be something useful about these times, these moments and months and years when we get stuck and can’t “unstuck” ourselves. People liken them to winter and perhaps this is the best image – a hunkering down, a death, in order for new life to spring forth. But I am not good with winter. I left the north for the south, not only for school but primarily to escape the winter. I get about two months into cold, grey skies and I just can’t imagine sunshine. I get stuck and I get hopeless.

I’m reading this Matthew text over and over again about not worrying and I am getting stuck in it. Jesus says, ‘consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, and yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will God not much more clothe you – you of little faith?’ I am suffering from a severe failure of imagination and beginning think more and more that faith might essentially be an act of imagination.

As Christians, we are called to live in tension. We are called to live in this world, to pay attention to the hurts and brokenness that seems so pervasive. And yet we are also called to live in faith that God is present and in charge and working to restore the world to wholeness.

I can see the brokenness and the pain. I can see it in my classmates, I can see it on our prayer board, I can see it in the newspaper and in homeless shelters and on the streets. And I can give lip service to the faith. I can stand and recite the Apostle’s Creed from memory with the best of them. I can, with integrity, get up and say I believe in God the Spirit, acting in the world. I do. I believe it. But too often I can’t see it. I just can’t imagine it. Can you?

Can you really imagine a world without death or hunger or war? Can you really imagine a life filled only with faith? Can you imagine that God loves you more than anything else and that God loves me and everyone else that much too? Can you imagine that God wants to make us more beautiful than lilies? I believe it, but I just can’t imagine it. And if I can’t imagine it, do I really have faith in it?

It seems to me that we suffer, individually and collectively, from frequent failures of imagination. If we can’t imagine it, how do we keep from getting stuck? If we can’t imagine it, how can we help God work towards it?

Perhaps the best response is to go back to our small failures of imagination. My failure to imagine the week ending and the work being done. And to remember that even though I can’t imagine it, it will still happen. Even though I couldn’t imagine my life being as good as it was, it is getting there. Even though I can’t imagine an end to war or hunger or poverty, perhaps it is happening just the same.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe faith is not solely about imagination. Maybe imagination is the dream and faith is the willingness to keep pushing forward even when we no longer see the dream, even when we feel incredibly stuck. Maybe faith is believing that God never suffers from a failure of imagination.