Ever watch Saving Mr Banks? My wife and I just found it about a week ago. A daughter falls in love with her father’s imagination and wants to save him from his bad side. She grows and writes fictional stories about an incredible nanny.
One speech caught my attention because of the parallels to Jordan Peterson’s advice about “saving the ideal side of your father." But the imagination plays a huge part in the redemption - imagination as serving life, rather than serving the historical-causal-material...
The movie is about making a movie from a book from the author’s imagination. It's a Disney movie that makes the Walt Disney character heroic. So, there are plenty of moments when the movie-makers tease and play with the audience. What might have “really” happened historically? That’s tricky. They weren't aiming at that.
What struck me was the elevated role of imagination in recovering faith - a daughter's imagination saving her father - not in the sense of material reality.
Instead, the imagination reveals what is really important - or what serves life. According to Peterson and others, what is “real” is what is important more than what is material or causal or physical or historical. Historically, life suffers. Imaginatively, life seeks.
Is the imagination this important to you? Does the imagination have this important a role in faith?
Cheers