“This, perhaps, is one of the strongest arguments for the transcendent value of literature. A man who has not lived any of those things, when he reads the words of one who has, can know suddenly some part of what it is to walk in another pair of shoes that look nothing like his own. A man who has cultivated and nurtured imagination in himself, though he be young and untried and little-travelled, can yet know the world deeply and love it all the harder. And God so loved the world.”
That is my favorite excerpt from her beautiful essay Imagination As Love found over at Having Decided To Stay where the author, Bryanna Johnson skillfully shares her intricate and thoughtful perspective on life and literature from her own vivid imagination. God’s grace and love spills from her writing, overflowing like the living waters that Jesus offered the woman at the well. And we are invited to come and drink. Cheers!
© Una-Melina // Worthy Books & Things, 2013.
Imagination is the power of image-creation. It is a living fire in the mind, for we are image-using creatures. Indeed, all our dealings and deliberations are the chasing – or the fleeing – of some picture we aspire or dread to enter into. Images are the way we understand the world, the way we sort what is desirable from what is to be avoided, the way we associate words with each other and words with deeds and words with the world. Words without pictures are without meaning. Images are the incarnation of language, the taking on of flesh.
This picture-processing begins in childhood. A child knows that words must go with something, they must belong to something. Like “spoon” belongs to the long, metal shovel that puts ripe, strong bananas between the teeth. Like “flowers” belongs to the cotton-white clusters that house the bees. Like “mommy” belongs to the soft…
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Intentional Living 
This is a wonderful post to read as I start my day.