Our Second Saturday Conversation in November was held on the third Saturday! November 15. A one off. I drew on a 1965 book by William Lynch, SJ., titled Images of Hope: Imagination as Healer of the Hopeless, and focused on two of Lynch’s insights. One, that imagination seeks and serves reality. (This takes imagination out of the category of fantasy.) Imagination seeks what is real. What is real is essential for human well being. (This begs the question what is real, what is reality….) A second insight is that we all struggle with an absolutizing instinct, a tendency to take what is a part as the whole and magnify it, absolutizing it, making it something it is not. When we are well, says Lynch, we can walk away from absolutizing instinct. When we are unwell (psychologically unwell) it tyrannizes us. Imagination, says Lynch, is the enemy of the “absolutizing spirit.” We had a great discussion engaging in Lynch’s ideas. Let our conversation here prompt your own. Thanks to all for the insightful and challenging conversation.
