2006-07-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

CELTIC IMAGINATION

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The imagination is the faculty which bridges, co-presents and co-articulates the visible and the invisible. In the Celtic world, for instance, there was a wonderful sense of how the visible and the invisible moved in and out of each other.

John O'Donohue in "Anam Cara - a spiritual wisdom from the Celtic world."

"The eye, when it opens, is like the dawn breaking in the night. When it opens a new world is there. The eye is also the mother of distance. When the eye opens, it shows that the world and others are outside us, distant from us ........

........ When you really look deeply at something, it becomes a part of you. This is one of the sinister aspects of television. People are constantly looking at empty and false images; these impoverished images are filling up the inner world of the heart ......

....... televison and the computer world are great empty shadowlands. To look at something that can gaze back at you, or that has a reserve and depth, can heal your eyes and deepen your sense of vision.

To the fearful eye .... all is threatening.

To the greedy eye .... everything can be possessed.

To the judgemental eye .... everything is closed in definitive frames.

To the Resentful eye .... everything is begrudged.

To the indifferent eye ... nothing calls or awakens.

To the inferior eye ... everyone else is greater.

To the loving eye ... everything is real.

Love is the light in which we see each thing in its true origin, nature and destiny. If we cold look at the world in a loving way, then the world would rise up before us full of invitation, possibility and depth.

The loving eye can even coax pain, hurt and violence towards transfiguration and renewal.

( The above quotes are excerpted in John O'Donohues wonderful and imaginative book, "Anam Cara - spiritual wisdom from the Celtic World.")

As one turns the pages of Holy Scripture it is as if one turns back the centuries and so are transported back to a time in human history when men and women looked at their world that to them was full of invitation, possibility and depth.

When reflecting on the great journey of faith that Abraham and Sarah set out upon, one wonders what it was they imagined at the end of their journey. What was it they saw that enabled them to set out in faith towards an only 'promised' land"

The wonderful, challenging, and often painful stories, particularly of the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, of Adam and Eve, Cain & Abel, Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Ishmael, Jacob & Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and David are also full of transfiguration and renewal. They all had one thing in common ...... they could 'see' the promises of God.

CHAPTER ONE - http://celticimagination.blogspot.com/

CHAPTER TWO - http://celticimagination1.blogspot.com/

CHAPTER THREE - http://celticimagination3.blogspot.com/