Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Power of Imagination" (September 3, 1967)
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Transcript
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(speaking indistinctly) | 0:05 | |
- | When service is over. | 0:09 |
- | For the fact that we have no choir to lead us | 0:11 |
and let us all lead the congregational singing | 0:13 | |
as we sing hymn, number one. | 0:16 | |
(piano music playing) | 0:20 | |
(piano music continues) | 2:12 | |
(piano music continues) | 3:08 | |
Join me now please in the Prayer of Adoration. | 3:32 | |
Lord thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. | 3:35 | |
Before mountains were brought forth, | 3:41 | |
or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, | 3:43 | |
from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. | 3:47 | |
A thousand years, | 3:52 | |
and that site, are but yesterday when it is past. | 3:53 | |
Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, | 3:57 | |
and with all the company of heaven, | 4:00 | |
we laud and magnify thy Name, | 4:03 | |
evermore praising thee, and saying, | 4:06 | |
Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of hosts. | 4:09 | |
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. | 4:14 | |
Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High. | 4:18 | |
Amen. | 4:21 | |
Throughout all the centuries of Christian history, | 4:33 | |
there is a prayer that has united Christians | 4:37 | |
across every boundary and every division. | 4:41 | |
And which today unites all of us, | 4:44 | |
on this side of the grave and the other side, | 4:49 | |
in praying together, the prayer, which Christ has taught us. | 4:52 | |
When we do so thoughtfully and meaningfully, | 4:57 | |
it can lift us into the presence of God | 5:01 | |
as perhaps nothing else can. | 5:04 | |
May we pray the Lord's prayer. | 5:07 | |
Our father who art in heaven, | 5:10 | |
hallowed be thy Name, | 5:12 | |
thy kingdom come, | 5:15 | |
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 5:16 | |
Give us this day, our daily bread. | 5:20 | |
And forgive us our trespasses, | 5:23 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 5:25 | |
And lead us not into temptation, | 5:29 | |
but deliver us from evil. | 5:31 | |
For thine is the kingdom | 5:34 | |
and the power and the glory, forever. | 5:35 | |
Amen. | 5:38 | |
The scripture lesson this morning | 5:53 | |
is taken from the book | 5:55 | |
of Matthew chapter 16, verses 13 through to 19. | 5:56 | |
Now, when Jesus came | 6:03 | |
into the district of Caesar of Philippi, | 6:04 | |
he asked his disciples, | 6:06 | |
"Who do you men say that the Son of Man is? | 6:08 | |
And they said, | 6:12 | |
"Some say John, the Baptist, | 6:14 | |
"others say Elijah | 6:16 | |
"and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." | 6:19 | |
He said to them, | 6:23 | |
"But who do you say that I am?" | 6:25 | |
Simon Peter replied, | 6:27 | |
"You are the Christ, the son of the living God." | 6:29 | |
And Jesus answered him, | 6:33 | |
"Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah! | 6:35 | |
"For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, | 6:39 | |
"but my father who is in heaven. | 6:42 | |
"And I tell you, you are Peter | 6:45 | |
"and on this rock, I will build my church | 6:47 | |
"and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." | 6:50 | |
That's in it, the reading. | 6:53 | |
Let us rise to sing All Hail the Power of Jesus Name. | 7:05 | |
(piano music playing) | 7:10 | |
Let's be seated. | 8:43 | |
Maybe we lift up our hearts in prayer to God. | 8:48 | |
Almighty Father, | 8:53 | |
we do give thee praise and glory. | 8:56 | |
And we thank thee for thy son, Jesus Christ, | 8:58 | |
whom we call our Lord. | 9:01 | |
For his redeeming work, | 9:04 | |
for his teaching, | 9:06 | |
for the example he set for us to follow, | 9:08 | |
for his willingness to forgive us | 9:11 | |
when we are repentant. | 9:14 | |
For the plan which he has given us for our lives | 9:16 | |
and for life eternal. | 9:19 | |
And as we give thanks to him and for him, | 9:23 | |
we pray that we may appropriate into our own lives, | 9:27 | |
the blessings which he offers | 9:31 | |
and for which we have expressed thanks. | 9:33 | |
We are aware our father, | 9:37 | |
that there is much in us that keeps us | 9:39 | |
from receiving these blessings. | 9:42 | |
We would ask thee to remove that, and to forgive it. | 9:46 | |
We stand in need of thy forgiveness and thy cleansing power, | 9:51 | |
so that the blessings which Christ would give to us | 9:56 | |
may come to us. | 10:00 | |
And that we may become the kind of people, | 10:02 | |
he would have us to be. | 10:04 | |
We ask thy blessings upon this worshiping congregation, | 10:07 | |
those who are here and those who worship by radio. | 10:12 | |
We pray that we may all together | 10:17 | |
with other Christians worshiping today around the world, | 10:19 | |
be drawn into the kind of fellowship | 10:24 | |
which will transform this world with its many problems | 10:28 | |
into the kind of community | 10:33 | |
with which thou would be pleased. | 10:36 | |
The kind of community that cares for one another, | 10:39 | |
that recognizes problems and seeks to solve them | 10:42 | |
in the spirit of the master. | 10:46 | |
We pray thy blessings upon these athletes here. | 10:50 | |
Grant them, O God, growth in grace | 10:54 | |
as well as in body and in mind. | 10:58 | |
Sustain them from injury, | 11:02 | |
grant unto them clean sportsmanship | 11:05 | |
and the rewards of their efforts. | 11:08 | |
We pray our Father, thy blessings upon athletes everywhere, | 11:12 | |
that they may offer unto mankind an example | 11:16 | |
of manliness and sportsmanship, | 11:19 | |
that shall be a part of the redemptive process going on | 11:22 | |
under the leadership of thy spirit in the world today. | 11:28 | |
We ask now as we continue to worship thee, | 11:34 | |
that we may have thy presence, | 11:36 | |
thy intelligence and thy leadership. | 11:39 | |
For we ask it in Christ's name. | 11:43 | |
Amen. | 11:46 | |
We are happy to have in the leadership of our service today, | 11:53 | |
the members of the football squad, | 11:57 | |
Larry Dempsey, Eddie Newman, John Alexander, | 12:01 | |
and two on the coaching staff, Dick Havens, | 12:07 | |
who formerly was on the varsity football squad | 12:10 | |
and coach Sam Tymer. | 12:14 | |
Those who are receiving the offering today | 12:16 | |
are Jim Durth, Bob Morris, Joe Newman, Dick Dickson. | 12:19 | |
Your bulletins were given to you this morning | 12:24 | |
by William Turner and Bruce Reynolds. | 12:26 | |
We are grateful for the help of these and others | 12:29 | |
who will be helping us next Sunday. | 12:31 | |
I would particularly invite your attendance | 12:34 | |
at this service here in the chapel next Sunday, | 12:36 | |
when Carl James will be the principal speaker, | 12:39 | |
Carl James certainly needs an introduction only to those | 12:44 | |
who are completely new at Duke and in Durham, | 12:48 | |
because of his outstanding association with the University | 12:52 | |
and this community for a number of years. | 12:55 | |
Some of you may have heard him | 12:58 | |
when he spoke in chapel here a few years ago. | 13:00 | |
One of the reasons why I would like for you | 13:05 | |
to hear Carl James in person, instead of by radio, | 13:07 | |
those of you who are listening in, | 13:10 | |
is that we have not yet been able to devise a method | 13:12 | |
whereby those of you who are listening in by the radio | 13:16 | |
may make a contribution to the offering. | 13:19 | |
And this goes to the fellowship of Christian athletes, | 13:23 | |
which has a number of very worthwhile purposes. | 13:26 | |
All of which seem to require the expenditure of money. | 13:29 | |
And with that, | 13:35 | |
I will announce that we will now receive | 13:37 | |
the morning offering. | 13:39 | |
(piano music playing) | 13:56 | |
(piano music continues) | 14:56 | |
(piano music playing) | 15:23 | |
(bright piano music) | 17:21 | |
Could you bow your heads, please. | 18:14 | |
Heavenly father, give of all good things, | 18:17 | |
who has taught us | 18:21 | |
that it is more blessed to give than to receive. | 18:21 | |
We dedicate these, | 18:25 | |
our offerings to the service of Christianity. | 18:26 | |
Humbly praying thee, | 18:29 | |
that all our gifts and energies may be consecrated | 18:31 | |
to the extension of thy kingdom on earth, | 18:34 | |
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 18:37 | |
Amen. | 18:39 | |
I would like to talk with you a little while now | 18:56 | |
about the power of imagination. | 18:58 | |
We are told by those who make a study of animals and of man, | 19:05 | |
that the difference between animals and men, | 19:13 | |
which can be agreed upon by everyone | 19:16 | |
of all theological points of view | 19:18 | |
or points of view which do not recognize the theology, | 19:21 | |
is that men have the ability to imagine. | 19:27 | |
Men have the power of imagination, | 19:31 | |
whereas animals do not. | 19:35 | |
Now whether you explain this in terms of a spark of divinity | 19:38 | |
or simply a different order of evolution | 19:43 | |
or whatever your explanation is, | 19:46 | |
it seems to be an agreed upon fact | 19:49 | |
that this is the chief difference between animals and men. | 19:52 | |
We can imagine, they cannot. | 19:57 | |
Not to any noticeable degree. | 20:01 | |
For instance, | 20:04 | |
if you go out into your backyard at home | 20:06 | |
and to pick up a stick to the cat in your yard, | 20:09 | |
this stick is always a stick, | 20:15 | |
but to a little boy, | 20:19 | |
your little brother or your neighbor's little boy, | 20:23 | |
this stick can be many other things. | 20:26 | |
It can be a horse and he can ride it. | 20:30 | |
It can be a telephone pole or a TV antenna. | 20:33 | |
Whatever his imagination wants this stick to become. | 20:38 | |
Or let's say that there is a pond water. | 20:43 | |
Now to a duck, a pond of water is a pond of water. | 20:49 | |
But to a little boy or a little girl | 20:55 | |
who may have bought at the dime store a small ship | 20:58 | |
and launched it on this pond of water, | 21:02 | |
it may be the Atlantic ocean, maybe the Pacific ocean. | 21:04 | |
It may be some imaginary ocean on an unexplored planet. | 21:09 | |
Whatever the imagination of a little child | 21:15 | |
would like for this pond of water to become, | 21:18 | |
in his or her mind, it will become. | 21:21 | |
The imagination is that ability which we have | 21:27 | |
to make new discoveries, | 21:31 | |
to solve problems, | 21:35 | |
to get an advanced report | 21:38 | |
on how things are going to turn out, | 21:40 | |
and therefore, to get a view into the future. | 21:43 | |
To see not only what things are at the present time | 21:49 | |
and see them in depth, | 21:52 | |
but to see how things are going to be | 21:54 | |
if we make certain plans. | 21:56 | |
Imagination is the flower of genius. | 22:01 | |
As I've already indicated, | 22:04 | |
it is that which primarily distinguishes us | 22:06 | |
from the lower animal kingdom. | 22:09 | |
It is that quality of mind and heart, | 22:12 | |
which enables us to put together the experience we have had | 22:16 | |
with the resources at hand and project into the future, | 22:20 | |
dreams, plans, visions development. | 22:25 | |
Here at Duke university, we have a development program now. | 22:30 | |
On the basis of which we have asked | 22:36 | |
for extensive contributions | 22:38 | |
from foundations and individuals throughout America. | 22:40 | |
All of this is based upon an imagination. | 22:44 | |
A process of imagining by which the leaders | 22:48 | |
of our University, the faculty, and the administrators | 22:51 | |
are planning and dreaming for a greater Duke in the future. | 22:56 | |
To come down out of the clouds, | 23:03 | |
for a moment to a more mundane level | 23:05 | |
that may indicate one of the ways | 23:08 | |
by which we use our imagination to bless our lives | 23:10 | |
and everyday living. | 23:14 | |
Last week, I was reading about something | 23:15 | |
that happened in the city of Tucson, Arizona | 23:18 | |
during World War II. | 23:21 | |
You will recall, those of you who are older | 23:23 | |
than the football players, | 23:25 | |
that back during World War II, | 23:28 | |
the OPA was in charge of such things as gasoline | 23:30 | |
and tires and sugar and other scarce items. | 23:34 | |
And if you wanted some of these commodities, | 23:38 | |
you had to get the approval of the OPA. | 23:40 | |
There was a group in Tucson | 23:44 | |
who had banded themselves together | 23:46 | |
to produce a little theater. | 23:49 | |
And one of the gimmicks which they had was, | 23:52 | |
that between the acts, | 23:55 | |
they were going to serve coffee and donuts. | 23:56 | |
And they were going to sell the coffee | 24:00 | |
and give away the donuts. | 24:03 | |
Well, people of course wanted sugar for their coffee, | 24:06 | |
and so they had to go to the OPA | 24:10 | |
and get permission for the sugar. | 24:14 | |
But because of an OPA restriction, | 24:17 | |
they could not do what they wanted to do. | 24:20 | |
They could not sell that commodity | 24:23 | |
and give away the other commodity. | 24:25 | |
And so in order to get the sugar, | 24:28 | |
they simply reversed things | 24:30 | |
and sold that which they had planned to give away, | 24:32 | |
and gave away that which they had planned to sell. | 24:34 | |
And got by the OPA regulations legally and actually | 24:38 | |
in every other way. | 24:43 | |
Well, every day we are using our imaginations | 24:45 | |
in this fashion. | 24:47 | |
Let's take now a more serious look at this power, | 24:50 | |
which I believe God has given us. | 24:53 | |
Which power it is that indicates something | 24:57 | |
of our kinship to the divine | 25:00 | |
and distinguishes us from the animals. | 25:02 | |
It's power of imagination. | 25:04 | |
Dr. D S Gregory says there are three kinds | 25:07 | |
of imagination operating in human life. | 25:10 | |
The first is the scientific | 25:13 | |
and philosophical kind of imagination. | 25:14 | |
I am sure that we do not need a great deal of explanation | 25:18 | |
of how the scientific imagination has operated | 25:22 | |
in our own generation to be impressed with the value of it. | 25:26 | |
I have here before me, | 25:31 | |
a full page ad taken from Time Magazine | 25:33 | |
as an illustration of this. | 25:37 | |
This is an advertisement placed in Time Magazine | 25:40 | |
by the Chrysler Corporation. | 25:43 | |
And the headline of the ad is, | 25:46 | |
Imagination is the Directing Force at Chrysler. | 25:48 | |
And then they proceed to explain | 25:53 | |
how it was that they got together some engineers, | 25:55 | |
asked them to use their imagination | 25:59 | |
and how you the automobile consumer, | 26:02 | |
will benefit from the imagination of their scientists. | 26:05 | |
A bit later, I took from the same Time Magazine, | 26:10 | |
another full page ad placed there | 26:14 | |
by Alcoa Aluminum Corporation, Pittsburgh. | 26:16 | |
And after describing with some illustrations, | 26:21 | |
how their engineers also are using their imagination, | 26:24 | |
they have this punchline at the end, | 26:29 | |
We do not call this engineering, this is imagineering. | 26:32 | |
The use of the imagination in the area of science, | 26:40 | |
according to Alcoa Aluminum brings great blessings | 26:45 | |
to all mankind, and so it does. | 26:49 | |
We could turn to many fields of science | 26:53 | |
to show how the use of the imagination | 26:56 | |
in the scientific area has blessed our lives. | 26:58 | |
I will mention only one other. | 27:01 | |
Up in the great Northwest, | 27:04 | |
there was a section of Oregon, Montana and Idaho, | 27:06 | |
comprising something like a million, 200,000 acres, | 27:10 | |
which formerly was all together desert land, | 27:15 | |
quite useless. | 27:18 | |
It was nonproductive to the people | 27:20 | |
who are engaged in agriculture. | 27:22 | |
It was not scenic. | 27:26 | |
It was nonproductive on the textbooks. | 27:27 | |
The United States government sent some engineers up there | 27:32 | |
to use their scientific imagination. | 27:35 | |
And on the Columbia river, | 27:38 | |
they constructed the Grand Coulee Dam, | 27:39 | |
which transformed these million and 200,000 acres of land | 27:43 | |
from a desert into a productive and beautiful area, | 27:49 | |
simply by the use of the scientific imagination. | 27:57 | |
All right, let's look then at the second kind | 28:01 | |
of imagination, which Dr. D S Gregory says | 28:04 | |
we human beings possess. | 28:06 | |
The artistic. | 28:09 | |
And as we sit here in this beautiful chapel | 28:12 | |
that has been made beautiful by the artistic imagination | 28:15 | |
of many people who have gone before us, | 28:18 | |
we are aware of the various kinds of artistic imagination, | 28:21 | |
which have been employed in the past | 28:25 | |
to transform stone from simply inert matter in the ground, | 28:28 | |
to a thing of beauty, | 28:35 | |
to transform glass from something that's liquid and hot | 28:37 | |
into something that is beautiful, | 28:41 | |
and which has a message. | 28:43 | |
To transform the metal of organ pipes | 28:46 | |
into music that can lift the soul into the presence of God. | 28:51 | |
What does an artist do to become an artist? | 28:57 | |
Well, he sits before his canvas, | 29:01 | |
or he sits before that piece of stone, | 29:04 | |
which he is going to sculp. | 29:07 | |
Uses his imagination, | 29:09 | |
or he sits down to his organ or his piano or his violin | 29:11 | |
or whatever kind of musical instrument he has | 29:16 | |
and uses his imagination. | 29:20 | |
So the world has been greatly blessed | 29:24 | |
by the artistic imagination of Bach and Beethoven | 29:25 | |
and hundreds of others whom we honor as artists. | 29:30 | |
And for whom we thank God, | 29:35 | |
because of the application of their artistic imagination. | 29:38 | |
There is a third kind of imagination, | 29:45 | |
which Dr. D S Gregory says we possess, | 29:47 | |
and that is an ethical imagination. | 29:50 | |
And it is about that, I would primarily like to speak today. | 29:54 | |
Because it is the ethical imagination, | 29:59 | |
which indicates greatest of all our kinship | 30:02 | |
to the Heavenly Father. | 30:05 | |
It is the ethical imagination about which Joel spoke | 30:09 | |
in the old Testament, | 30:13 | |
in the second chapter in the 28th verse, | 30:14 | |
when he said, | 30:16 | |
"I will send my spirit upon all flesh | 30:18 | |
"and your old men will dream dreams | 30:22 | |
"and your young men will see visions." | 30:24 | |
That is to say, | 30:28 | |
God said that he was going to send his holy spirit upon us, | 30:29 | |
upon you and me. | 30:33 | |
And that when the spirit of God really comes into us, | 30:35 | |
we begin to see visions. | 30:38 | |
We begin to dream dreams. | 30:41 | |
We begin to use our ethical imaginations. | 30:43 | |
We begin to see solutions to ethical problems, | 30:47 | |
which we had not seen before the spirit of God came. | 30:50 | |
We begin to dream of possibilities of greatness | 30:54 | |
in the ethical and spiritual realm, | 30:58 | |
which we would not have seen | 31:00 | |
had it not been that the spirit of God came and led us | 31:02 | |
and kindled our ethical imagination. | 31:05 | |
"I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh," he said. | 31:09 | |
"And your old man will dream dreams. | 31:12 | |
"And your young men will see visions." | 31:14 | |
Dr. Rufus Jones, the late, very great Quaker, | 31:19 | |
once made the statement | 31:25 | |
in the midst of a heated debate between the people | 31:27 | |
who believe that man evolved from the animals | 31:29 | |
and those who believe that he did not. | 31:32 | |
By saying that he thought this debate actually | 31:35 | |
was somewhat irrelevant. | 31:38 | |
That it overlooked a much more important | 31:41 | |
and a much more practical question. | 31:43 | |
And on the basis of which each man himself could determine | 31:46 | |
for himself, | 31:50 | |
whether he is linked to the animals or linked to God. | 31:52 | |
He said, the question basically is, | 31:57 | |
do we use our ethical imagination | 31:59 | |
and act as though we were created by God in his image? | 32:02 | |
Or do we allow our ethical imagination | 32:07 | |
to lie quiescent and dormant and unused | 32:11 | |
and act as though the animals were our brothers? | 32:14 | |
Of course, I'm aware as you are | 32:19 | |
of the conduct of some people | 32:20 | |
that would make the animals ashamed | 32:23 | |
to classify them as their brothers. | 32:25 | |
Animals act a good deal better | 32:28 | |
than some people that we know. | 32:29 | |
But certainly I think Dr. Jones is right in saying | 32:33 | |
that the basic question and dealing with human nature | 32:36 | |
is not so much what happened in history | 32:39 | |
as what is happening now. | 32:44 | |
Are we using the ethical imagination under the leadership | 32:46 | |
of the spirit of God to deal with the problems | 32:49 | |
which we face as men imaginatively? | 32:53 | |
This is where the great question will be settled. | 32:58 | |
Now, what are some of the problems which we face | 33:03 | |
that requires the use of our ethical imagination? | 33:06 | |
Many of you are young people | 33:12 | |
and you find yourselves dating other young people. | 33:15 | |
Here is a boy dating a girl, | 33:20 | |
a girl dating a boy. | 33:22 | |
And very often, I think young people are inclined | 33:24 | |
to make decisions of the day and of the night on the basis | 33:29 | |
of simply the fact that here we are together today, | 33:33 | |
rather than on the basis of the projection | 33:39 | |
of their imagination into the future. | 33:41 | |
A young man I think should ask himself | 33:45 | |
as he contemplates extending a relationship | 33:47 | |
with a young lady, | 33:50 | |
can I imagine myself married to her | 33:51 | |
if things should develop that way in the future? | 33:55 | |
if I should become emotionally involved with her, | 33:59 | |
can I imagine her as the mother of my children, | 34:02 | |
as the person who would share my life with me? | 34:04 | |
And a young lady who is dating a young man | 34:09 | |
should use her imagination at this point and ask herself, | 34:11 | |
can I imagine this person as my husband, | 34:15 | |
a year, two, three years from now? | 34:18 | |
That I think is one of the reasons | 34:23 | |
why God gave us our ethical imagination. | 34:24 | |
To save ourselves from becoming involved in situations | 34:27 | |
which in the future would prove to be quite unacceptable. | 34:32 | |
There is a problem, | 34:38 | |
which I think all of us as a country cannot escape. | 34:39 | |
We may bury our heads in the sand, like an ostrich, | 34:43 | |
or we may use our ethical imagination and begin to solve it. | 34:47 | |
And that is the problem of great sections | 34:50 | |
of our population living in ghettos today. | 34:52 | |
We may pretend that the problem is not there, | 34:56 | |
but it is there. | 34:59 | |
And it will not be solved | 35:01 | |
by any of the customary practices and habits and procedures, | 35:02 | |
which we have employed up to now. | 35:06 | |
And it seems to me that one of the greatest | 35:08 | |
and most pressing problems and needs | 35:10 | |
of this very hour is for citizens of America | 35:13 | |
to use their ethical imagination on a grand scale, | 35:16 | |
to devise a solution to the problem created | 35:20 | |
by the existence of large ghettos, groups of people | 35:26 | |
who are in prison in the great cities of America. | 35:30 | |
To the credit of the people of Durham, | 35:35 | |
I am happy to say that it seems to me | 35:37 | |
that in this very week, and this very month, | 35:39 | |
we are beginning to move into direction here | 35:44 | |
that has real imagination in it and real promise. | 35:47 | |
All right, | 35:53 | |
let's move now from a kind of a group or social area | 35:54 | |
into a more personal area for a little bit. | 36:00 | |
Can you use your ethical imagination | 36:04 | |
with regard to your own personal life? | 36:07 | |
This in essence is what it was | 36:11 | |
that Jesus was asking Simon Bar-Jonah to do, | 36:13 | |
in the scripture lesson, which Rhino Havens read | 36:16 | |
a little bit ago. | 36:19 | |
Jesus said to him, yes, your name is Simon Bar-Jonah, | 36:21 | |
yes you're the stumbling, bumbling almost idiot. | 36:27 | |
You're the person who makes promises and doesn't keep them. | 36:32 | |
You're the person who charges forward | 36:35 | |
with great enthusiasm and then plays out along the way. | 36:38 | |
He was able to be betray, to deny. | 36:42 | |
He was able to be impulsive and hotheaded, | 36:46 | |
undependable, volatile. | 36:49 | |
But Jesus gave him a new name, | 36:52 | |
Peter. | 36:55 | |
He said, I say to you that you will be Peter, | 36:57 | |
meaning rock. | 37:02 | |
And on this rock, I will build my church. | 37:04 | |
He challenged Simon Bar-Jonah to imagine himself as Peter. | 37:08 | |
And he became Peter. | 37:15 | |
Because not only did his Lord have an imagination for him, | 37:17 | |
but he was able himself somehow | 37:20 | |
to project that image on the screen of his mind, | 37:22 | |
that he would be Peter. | 37:25 | |
And so he was. | 37:28 | |
I am sure that the members | 37:31 | |
of the football squad know without my telling them, | 37:33 | |
the importance of imagination in that area. | 37:35 | |
Frank Leahy, when he was coach | 37:40 | |
of the then number one national champion football team, | 37:42 | |
Notre Dame was asked, | 37:47 | |
what was the single greatest reason | 37:49 | |
why they were the national champions? | 37:52 | |
He said, well, of course, you all know the importance | 37:55 | |
of conditioning, of training, | 37:58 | |
you know the importance of talent. | 37:59 | |
But he said, there are a dozen teams in America | 38:01 | |
that has the conditioning, the training, the talent | 38:04 | |
that we have. | 38:07 | |
Frankly, he said that | 38:09 | |
if he had to put his finger on one thing | 38:10 | |
that was more responsible for Notre Dame | 38:13 | |
at that time being rated as number one in the nation, | 38:18 | |
it was the fact that he had a number of players on his team, | 38:21 | |
who had great power of imagination. | 38:25 | |
They could see themselves actually doing things | 38:31 | |
which other players could not imagine themselves doing. | 38:36 | |
Coach Havens here will remember, | 38:45 | |
the thing which the coaches said a few years ago | 38:46 | |
when he and Erk Gregory were all playing on the same team, | 38:50 | |
which won the Cotton Bowl that year. | 38:53 | |
Erk Gregory was a spindle legged boy from South Carolina, | 38:57 | |
who came up here to play line. | 39:00 | |
Anyone looking at him would not have picked him out | 39:03 | |
as an outstanding lineman as he became. | 39:06 | |
But the difference between mediocrity and greatness | 39:10 | |
for Erk Gregory was that, | 39:13 | |
Erk could imagine himself really getting in the way | 39:14 | |
of anybody who came along. | 39:17 | |
He really could have imagined that he could stop anybody. | 39:20 | |
And he did. | 39:23 | |
It was more in his imagination than it was in his body. | 39:26 | |
This had to be true of Erk Gregory. | 39:30 | |
It has been true of almost every great football player. | 39:33 | |
It has been what he is imagined in his mind, | 39:37 | |
more than the sinews in his body that made the difference. | 39:40 | |
So it is with you and me. | 39:46 | |
The publication of a book written by Clifford Beers, | 39:50 | |
the title of which was A Mind that Found Itself, | 39:55 | |
had more to do with the development of modern psychiatry | 39:59 | |
than any other book that has been written. | 40:02 | |
It was the book which really gave modern psychiatry, | 40:06 | |
its big emphasis in the beginning. | 40:09 | |
The story in that book can be summarized briefly. | 40:14 | |
Clifford Beers had an older brother who was an epileptic. | 40:18 | |
And someone told him one day that epilepsy ran in families. | 40:22 | |
That if you had an epileptic brother, | 40:29 | |
you were going to be an epileptic yourself. | 40:30 | |
There wasn't anything you could do about it. | 40:33 | |
And so Clifford Beers said that a great cloud of anxiety | 40:36 | |
and dreads settled down upon him when he heard that. | 40:41 | |
And he could not free himself from it. | 40:46 | |
Day by day, he imagined that he was going | 40:49 | |
to become an epileptic. | 40:52 | |
It was simply a question of time. | 40:53 | |
When? | 40:56 | |
And when it happened, then his future would be black | 40:57 | |
and his present would be black. | 41:02 | |
So after a while, he began to have symptoms of epilepsy | 41:05 | |
and had epileptic fits. | 41:10 | |
And he was placed in a state insane asylum. | 41:13 | |
One day in the asylum | 41:19 | |
after he had been there a number of years, | 41:21 | |
he overheard a psychiatrist say | 41:23 | |
that epilepsy did not necessarily run in families. | 41:29 | |
And that if you had a brother who had epilepsy, | 41:33 | |
it did not mean at all that you had to have it. | 41:36 | |
And that it was curable. | 41:39 | |
Miserable as Clifford Beers had been in that institution, | 41:42 | |
highly motivated as he was, | 41:48 | |
to get out of there and to overcome epilepsy, | 41:51 | |
he began to wonder first | 41:54 | |
whether he needed to become an epileptic in the beginning. | 41:56 | |
Then he began to imagine himself as a well person. | 42:00 | |
He began to imagine himself going out that door | 42:04 | |
and returning home and never having epilepsy again. | 42:07 | |
And he clung to that image on the screen of his mind, | 42:12 | |
and saw himself as a well man. | 42:17 | |
And he became a well man. | 42:20 | |
And the beginning of his recovery, | 42:24 | |
was the time that he began to imagine himself a well man. | 42:27 | |
Yes, the imagination has great power, | 42:34 | |
very great power. | 42:38 | |
We have a tendency to become what we imagine we are. | 42:40 | |
As a man think of in his heart, so is he. | 42:46 | |
The picture he projects on the screen of his mind | 42:51 | |
is the picture he is on the way to becoming. | 42:56 | |
Are you Simon Bar-Jonah or are you Peter? | 43:03 | |
No matter what you are now, | 43:08 | |
you can become Peter if you imagine it. | 43:12 | |
There is a phrase in the New Testament | 43:17 | |
that I think has great truth in it. | 43:19 | |
To them gave he the power to become the sons of God. | 43:24 | |
All of us today can become children of God. | 43:31 | |
But first we have to imagine it. | 43:37 | |
We have to see that that's who really we are. | 43:40 | |
And when we do, | 43:47 | |
by God's help, we will become that. | 43:49 | |
Let us pray. | 43:54 | |
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father. | 43:56 | |
We thank thee that thou has given us scientific imagination | 43:58 | |
and artistic imagination. | 44:03 | |
That thou has given us an ethical imagination, | 44:05 | |
in which I spirit can work and move. | 44:09 | |
We open ourselves now to that spirit | 44:13 | |
and ask thee to come in. | 44:18 | |
So that we may dream dreams and see visions | 44:23 | |
of the kind of person we are going to be. | 44:28 | |
And we will give thee the praise through Jesus Christ, | 44:34 | |
our Lord. | 44:37 | |
Amen. | 44:39 | |
May we rise and sing our closing hymn. | 44:42 | |
(piano music playing) | 44:47 | |
(piano music continuing) | 46:00 | |
Now may the grace | 46:22 | |
of the Lord, Jesus Christ be with us all. | 46:23 | |
Amen. | 46:28 | |
(piano music playing) | 46:32 |
Item Info
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