Dear Saints,

Human beings are predictive by nature. This is a good and necessary gift on many fronts. It would be impossible to read, for example, if our brains weren’t wired to predict the next word. It also helps us anticipate what another person might say or feel. Ultimately, our predictive instinct enables us to navigate the world with a sense of order. Indeed, it’s essential for survival, empowering us to assess threats and interpret our surroundings in time to react.

But beyond the power to predict, there’s also something much more divine in our nature: the capacity to imagine. Imagination does not merely crunch probabilities and assess likelihoods; on the contrary, it envisions something altogether new. Imagination propels us to dream, hope, create, and participate in God’s own creative work. Through it, we glimpse the world not just as it is and might be, but as it could and should be: redeemed, renewed, restored.

It is essential that we not confuse the two gifts, for when our capacity for threat assessment masquerades as imagination, it turns into worry. Worry, in turn, is the exact opposite of imagination’s purpose. Far better for us to entrust ourselves to God’s providence and direct our thoughts not towards what might go wrong, but rather towards what might yet become possible.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ