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The Well-Fed Imagination


Original thinking is seldom original.
—Robert J. Morgan

For a long time, I didn't consider myself creative. The very term intimidated me. I'm a traditional guy at heart, a little staid and stuffy. I don't bungee-jump or tie-dye. I prefer Bach to rock, and G. F. Handel to M. C. Hammer. I enjoy the doxology on the Lord's Day, and we still have Sunday night services.

But I wasn't always that way.

As a child, my imagination resembled a kitten in a room of windup toys. I chased every idea, scratched every itch, and pounced on every adventure. My secondhand bicycle became alternately a helicopter and a powerboat. I unraveled mysteries and swept starlets off their feet. I composed poems and plays.

When I lurched into adolescence, my imagination followed like a shadow. It questioned boring traditions, dreaming of better ways and better days. It wondered why no one had ever done a thousand doable things. I was an impressionable teen when Bobby Kennedy campaigned for the presidency with his passionate ...

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March
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