Tag Archives: resurrection

Without Imagination Tradition is a White Washed Tomb

2015-07-03_418616_2932If there is one thing that I have learned after thirty years of marriage,  it is that if I fail to use my imagination  when expressing my love towards my wife, her response to my actions will be less than enthusiastic. But if I get it right an actually touch the strings of her  imagination then I get a response that I could have never imagined. That my friends, is the life engine for every kind of relationship.


Marriages are designed for a life-long race and the vows of the contract provide the structure and framework that enable the relationship to transcend the physical limits of each partner.  However if either partner in the relationship quits using their imagination, for the relationship, the union loses one or both of it’s engine’s life giving energy cells. Bread without wine is no fun. Bread and water is the diet of prisoners and wine is the fruit most associated with Jesus who is an example for human possibility and our relationship with God.




It is funny or sad, how all relationships start with two partners dreaming of a future together. With imagination people willingly give themselves to be a prisoner of love to another. They desire to be with the other and they are willing to give up their life and will to be with the other person. In Jewish tradition, God and Jesus act out in the Garden of Gethsemane, a marriage supper, where a cup of wine is pushed back and forth across a table until the marriage contract is agreed by both families.  When the Father of the Groom takes the cup passed by the bride’s father it is deal for a lifetime.

If in my marriage, I used no imagination and express the same words, make reservations at the same restaurant, and give my wife the same birthday and anniversary card, one or both of us would be serving out a life sentence instead of celebrating 30 years of happiness. There is an expectation on me to use my imagination to express the relevance of my life shared with my wife. Why, because it is alive and the definition of life is expression. If I got construction paper and glitter and made a different card every year I would still miss the point, because I am not eight years old and maturity is function of my expression to my partner in life.

There is an obvious realization that human expression during worship and devotion will transcend with each generation.  Have you ever visited your grand-parents church? Have you ever visited your parent’s church? I am assuming they are different from your current church. Depending on your perspective and age you can literally smell the tradition in the pews, in the walls, in the windows and in the people. Museums work very hard to capture and express the presence of authentic reality, and with one step across the threshold, there it is, “Tradition”.

The sense of tradition reverberates to the core of our being because it is a part of who we are and there is no denying it. It is part of your parent’s being and it is part of your grand-parents being therefore it is part of who we are as humans.  Tradition has a tangibility that words fail to express but it plucks the strings at the core of our being. In our materialistic world our proximity to tradition, is measured in time and space, and it either awakens or conforms the imagination of our consciousness.

As we enter a sanctuary our senses are overwhelmed by the artifacts and the order of service that scream you are in the presence of tradition and thus you must conform. Even if that tradition is in a warehouse, a 100-year-old church building, a Starbucks’ that has not opened of business that morning  or an online internet teleconference.  After we have sat and experienced the presence of tradition our senses remain overwhelmed with the conforming spirit of tradition until we step outside of the door of the sanctuary or disconnect from the internet conference. What a difference a simple change in proximity can make.

If that first breath upon leaving and crossing that threshold is an experience that desires imagination and possibility then thank God because we are alive. If we sensed imagination and possibility when we entered the sanctuary, thank God the tradition is alive. Truth when expressed through tradition has a way of transforming the expression of reality into its form.  The love two people share becomes a child and that expression is bound by the human body.

Why is the tradition when a man asks a woman to marry her seem so over the top as compared to when I proposed 30 years ago?  The answer is simply “imagination”. Hopefully my proposal was over the top as compared to my dad’s proposal to my mom 27 years prior.  We live in a technical world and the guys and gals that fail to implement imagination and today’s resources may get a rejection to their proposal.


Bread and water represent pure existence but Jesus offers Bread and Wine to those that want to live abundantly. 50% of marriages end in divorce because things become routine and imagination moves outside of the relationship. Traditions that use imagination will have life and transcend physical limits. Traditions without imagination become as Jesus put it “white washed graves”. As humans and Children of God were not designed to live in graves but live in gardens which spiritually represent constant renewal.

Each generation is bless with the opportunity to express love according to its own imagination. The 50’s, 60’s and 70’s each produced a different expression and the American nation was transformed. However, each generation had to overcome the traditions of the preceding generation.  The beauty of death is that it provides a renewal for us when we fail to use our imagination. There is nothing like a change in proximity to bring renewal. God is patient and is not bound by time and space therefore He is willing to allow a generation to continue and die off before the next generation enters into the promises of His imagination.


Jesus died and legally removed all obstacles that created an idea of separation in consciousness of human understanding of our relationship with God. Jesus death also awakened us to the reality that we are all children of God and therefore we are all brothers and sisters. Jesus provided a new DNA structure and a spiritual life that cannot be contained in old wine-skins, for any human willing to eat His Bread and drink His Wine. However most religious traditions attempt to put limits on who are members of God’s family.

But God remains patient and many are emerging from the current traditions unto life. It is only when we courageously step out of the doors of the old traditions do we get a fresh breath of imagination and possibility.  However if religious traditions embrace imagination they can also become life for the next generation and transcend all physical limits.

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