In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Baby Suggs told a group of slaves gathered in a clearing that “the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it.”
Few literary passages have impacted me as deeply. It was instantaneously etched in my memory.
The only grace one can have is the grace one can imagine. If one cannot see it, you will not have it. This is as true of grace as it is of peace. If we cannot imagine it, we cannot have it. If we cannot see it, we will not have it. It’s as true of grace and peace as it is of justice, kindness, fairness, equity, inclusion, and freedom.
Morrison’s passage speaks to the necessity and power of imagination in a way that resonates with what peacebuilder John Paul Lederach’s calls the moral imagination. See The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Peacebuilding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Lederach describes the moral imagination as,
“… the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist. In reference to peacebuilding, this is the capacity to imagine and generate constructive responses and initiatives that, while rooted in the day-to-day challenges of violence, transcend and ultimately break the grips of those destructive patterns and cycles.” (p 28)
Imagination can transcend the contingencies and limitations of the present and give rise to the possibilities of what may yet come into being.
It may well be argued that the imagination of our forebears (at least those who had the power and privilege to be heard and to act) has gotten us to where we are today. Their imaginations about an ideal society gave birth to visions of economic, political, and social systems and the institutions that form the scaffolding of our inherited reality–as imperfect as it is.
I am not naive. The world is and has always been subject to competing imaginations and the realities of power and greed curtail or co-opt the power of a truly moral imagination.
But where we are is not where we have to stay. Our imaginations can lead us to horizons well beyond what was imagined for us.
We must ask, then, what might a moral imagination be?
From my Christian perspective, such an imagination would value the inherent dignity of every human being, irrespective of who they are, where they live, who they love, what they look like, where they were born, how much wealth they have, and the ways they find meaning. It would value the environment. Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical Laodato Si’ explains,
“When we speak of the ‘environment’, what we really mean is a relationship existing between nature and the society which lives in it. Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.” (par. 139)
A moral imagination influenced by Christianity would be grounded in love and framed by the ethical imperatives of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). It ought to be nonviolent as it interprets the call of Scripture through the lens of Christ’s life and ministry, his violent death and resurrection. It would echo Christ’s demonstration of forgiveness and reconciliation.
A moral imagination from this perspective would value the marginalized, the outcast, and the poor. It would flip the script of imperialism and colonialism. It will give birth to visions of a new order and, in time, a new order itself.
Impractical? Maybe. But as Baby Suggs told that group of slaves gathered in a clearing: “the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it.”
I invite you to enter the clearing and imagine with me. I dare you to imagine. I dare you to see it. For if we can see it, we will bring it into being–together.
