Why a child’s imagination is so important

After a summer rain, occasionally a rainbow forms in the eastern sky out the front door of our house. The first child who spies it is quick to run inside to announce the news. Soon enough all eight of us tumble down the front stairs to admire the beauty of light and water hovering high out over the Mississippi River valley. A few of the children climb the magnolia to get a better view, a few hang on the fence. We are all amazed. Every time. It never gets old.

In school, I was taught that a rainbow is a phenomenon related to the refraction of light through water droplets in the atmosphere (beyond that I cannot say in more detail; science isn’t my strong suit). Despite knowing the facts and having at least some scientific vocabulary to describe the formation of rainbows as a generalized abstraction guided by laws of nature, each particular rainbow is clearly so much more.

There’s a reason that the sight of a rainbow fires the human imagination with thoughts of gold treasure, ancient floods and divine retribution and promises, and yes, in the mind of our toddler at least, dreams of unicorns with shimmering wings. Who’s to say that the imagination provides less insight than the pure, physical facts?

By that, I don’t mean to claim that it’s true and healthy to believe that unicorns are literally flying around right now in the upper atmosphere or that my young daughter is anywhere near as educated as a scientist. We don’t need to go flying off into inner imaginary landscapes and immerse ourselves so deeply that we become lost. What I do mean to say, though, is that the impulse of our imaginations, the clear thrust of our wondering eye as we gaze heavenward in awe, is to percieve the rainbow as a sign of something greater.

The beauty and mystery of it is more than a scientific abstraction. A rainbow is a poetic image indicating that reality is more than what meets the eye.

The example of the rainbow is how Owen Barfield begins his book Saving the Appearances. Barfield was a friend of C.S. Lewis, and the two men had a long-running dispute on the role of the imagination. Barfield was quite confident that imagination provided insight into truths not accessible to intellectual, abstract knowledge. Lewis was initially skeptical but eventually seems to have been convinced.

In the first chapter of his book, titled “The Rainbow,” Barfield writes that “our perceptions, the familiar world which we see and know around us – the blue sky with white clouds in it, the noise of a waterfall or a motor-bus, the shapes of flowers and their scent, the gesture and utterance of animals and the faces of our friends ... is a system of collective representations.” By this, he means that what we see at the surface level and the fullness of reality itself are not quite the same. What we see is accurate enough but isn’t the whole truth.

Here’s where the imagination comes in. We take in what we perceive around us and creatively modify the images as we contemplate their inner meaning. By doing so, we encounter the truth more fully, because reality is not merely physical appearances.

When it comes to my children, I know it’s important for me as their father to cultivate their imaginations because the imagination fuels their desire to learn, develops problem-solving skills, and assists with creative thinking.

The last thing I want to do is dryly inform them that the rainbow is nothing more than water droplets in the air. I do want them to know those true facts about the rainbow, but I also give them space to gaze more deeply. We should not merely be content with the surface-level appearances of phenomena. Rather, it’s a both/and scenario in which reason and imagination work together.

Imagination is much more than the sum of its educational and psychological benefits. I don’t encourage my children to dream because it’s a shortcut to practical benefits. I encourage them to dream because I’m hopeful that, all their lives, they’ll be the sort of people who peer deeply into the mysteries of existence – who we are, why we’re here, and how it is that this world became so heart-breakingly beautiful. Imagination cultivates wonder and gratitude, the intuition that there must a source to all this beauty, and the closer we get to that source, the more we arrive home to ourselves.

In other words, imagination provides access to the truth. Just like Barfield says. Underneath the appearances is a reality of which we can hardly dream.

However, he does offer a caution. The imagination is not an unmitigated good. Because we are flawed, we have the capability of twisting the imagination towards evil. It’s our responsibility to form our imaginations towards the good.

Parents can assist their children by promoting holiness, humility, and love for God. Holiness entails thinking on good things and learning to love them. Humility teaches us prayerfulness and patience in the presence of imaginative images that are beautiful and true (think of how Christ has his disciples meditate on flowers, sheep, and fish). Love for God turns our hearts towards his invisible heart beating at the center of creation. As we are converted to God, we perceive his presence breathing life into each individual thing, creature, and person.

My parental duty is to give my children good things to dream about. As we take in our surroundings, participate in them, think about them, and contemplate them, the wondrous mystery of existence is amplified. All things are being redeemed. Imagination assists in this process as it modifies and transfigures images, turns an apple into paradise or a field of wheat into a poetic expanse, a heaven on earth. Or better yet, by lifting earth up to heaven.

A single rainbow is a vast cosmic light, a promise that this world which so haltingly reveals beauty is unfolding into greater glory. Underneath the appearance lurks a second world, a perfected luminous world already overlapping with this one in increasing power and strength. One day it will embrace us into its fullness.

This is not a truth that can remain a mere idea or abstract notion. It is embodied as beauty and joy and imaginative wonder. Every single thing is surround by a shimmering, colored halo and is far more than meets the eye.