I love reading book reviews.  This weekend a friend bought me a copy of the Financial
Times and I read about two books that really look fascinating.  The one is on how infants think, “The
philosophical baby”.  In the review
the following lines jumped out at me:

“The human capacity
for wild imagination … presents a puzzle for a species whose survival depends
on representing reality as accurately as possible … [I]magination is not a
betrayal of reality so much as the use of existing knowledge to construct
alternative models of how the world might be.  Truth and fiction are mastered in parallel.  Both depend on the elaboration of the
child’s theories (or “causal maps”) about how the world works.  Infants’ brains are equipped to soak up
as much information about reality in as short a time as possible.  But, critically, they also lack the
neurological processes which inhibit those flights of fancy.”

When I read that statement (while watching my two year old
at play) my heart started to beat faster and it was as if I tapped into
something primal.  Also very Jesus;
according to Him we have to become children in order to live in the kingdom.  That whole ‘being born again’ thing,
the phrases that got my blood pumping was “alternative models of how the world
might be”. 

South Africa needs an alternative story to live in – a different
story than apartheid and neo-capitalism. 
This will require imagination – which will go contrary to what most of
us call commonsense.  Alternatives
are usually weird or out of step, and takes courage to live into.  It also requires fellow pilgrims. 

Thankfully Lollie and I have friends who are stepping into
alternative models of how the world might be. We also follow a Leader who
constantly creates ‘alternatives of how the world might be’.  He taught us to pray – “may your will
be done and your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”

I would like to end this post with words penned by the
Mennonite John Howard Yoder,

“This is the original revolution, the creation of a distinct
community with its own deviant set of values.” The original revolution: essays on Christian pacifism.