“We are creatures who live by our stories…Narrative is the ‘central function of the human mind.’ We turn everything into a story in order to make sense of life. We dream in narrative, day-dream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticize, construct, gossip, learn, hate, and love by narrative. In fact we cannot avoid it. We are storied creatures.”
I love this quote by James Bryan Smith in his book The Good and Beautiful God. This idea, that each of us is deeply and innately storied in our daily life, rings true to me. Jonathan Gottshall, a psychologist who authored The Storytelling Animal, paints a vivid picture of the biological framework of the human mind to prove this point. He states that our minds are spinning stories in our sleep every night, whether we remember them or not. In our waking hours, an average person will daydream about 2,000 times per day, each daydream lasting around 14 seconds each. That would mean that we spend nearly half of our waking hours in a daydream of some kind! The math adds up to an average person spending two-thirds of his or her life in a subconscious story of their own creation. If this is true, then imagination, which moves these stories, is not reserved for those who have the time or capacity to rise above the grind of daily life; rather, it is subconsciously, universally, and continuously a part of that daily life. “Storied creatures,” indeed.
Gottschall, who does not profess faith in God, came to this conclusion by being a student of humanity and observing what is true historically and universally about human behavior. What does this mean, then, for those of us who have staked our lives on the belief that there is a greater Story that we are all a part of found in the narrative of the Bible? It would mean that imagination is a key part of our identity as image-bearers and points to something that is true of the One whose image we carry. Malcolm Guite, in his book Lifting the Veil, states that imagination and the arts can “awaken the mind’s attention, to help us, just as much as science might help us, to look out and see what is really there and to discover that reality is itself numinous, translucent with glimmerings of the ‘supernatural’, of something holy shining through it.” Imagination is a key part of how we experience God and the invitation to know Him more through the story of the Bible. If God has given us imagination as a way to know Him more intimately, then it follows that those with the most uninhibited imaginations would have an advantage in knowing Him, right? And who are the most imaginative people you know? They’re probably under four feet tall and are engaging in some form of story right now as you read this.
It’s an easy leap to say that children do story better than anyone else. Or at least more prolifically. Story and imagination are so intrinsically part of their being, particularly from the ages of 3-7 years old, that they can’t escape it! It flows out of them in their play and words and desires. That ability to "do story" is a profound gift when engaging with spirituality in particular because imagination holds mystery so well. In The Religious Potential of the Child, Sophia Cavelletti makes a compelling case that children are deeply spiritual beings and are capable of having rich lives of faith even from a very tender age. Their capacity for engaging with the spiritual world is a natural extension of their uninhibited imaginations. Children are spiritual before they are rational!
We who are charged with the spiritual formation of these very storied little creatures should recognize this if we are to do the sacred work in front of us. Spirituality is not something we have to plant in children; it’s already there. We don’t have to convince children that there is a richer world than their eyes can see and we don’t have to strain in order to communicate with them about an invisible God. Their imaginations hold this mystery easier than many adults do. Our work is to nurture that Story in them, with fear and trembling, knowing that their posture is naturally attuned to God and that same holy God has a posture attuned towards them as well. The work of nurturing their faith is important, urgent, and thankfully, communal. We have the privilege and responsibility as the church to tell this Story to the children in our care, and to nurture that Story as they grow.
Casey Cisco
Director of Redeemer Kids
