From What Is to What If: Practicing Imagination

A Six-Session Community of Practice

Occurred on
•  April 20, 2021
•  April 27, 2021
•  May 11, 2021
•  May 25, 2021
•  June 8, 2021
•  June 15, 2021

Registration is closed.

 

Learn About Micro-Grants Projects

“Bringing about the world we want to live in, the world we want to leave to our children is, substantially, the work of the imagination, or what educational reformer John Dewey describes as ‘the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise’.”
— Rob Hopkins
Given the realities with which we live today — increasing inequality, climate change, political tensions, and racial uprisings — imagination is urgent and necessary in moving us toward the world we want to leave to our children. Yet it is often difficult to articulate our own yearning and desire for the new in the face of the anxiety, hurdles and potholes on the way to creating something hoped-for. What can help us to unlock our imaginations and unleash our creativity are companions on the journey; practices in community; wisdom from our faith traditions; and questions that evoke new and unexpected paths.
We invited you to join a co-learning community of practice to engage your imagination, to take the journey from acknowledging “what is …” to imagining “what if…”  Our time together drew upon  the work of Rob Hopkins, writer, environmental activist, and founder of the Transition movement, and others who inspire moral and ecological imagination, and were guided by a series of spiritually-based practices. We supported one another in imagining projects or endeavors that aimed to spark the imaginations of others in our communities.
Meeting together virtually for six 90-minute sessions, we worked around the Imagination Sundial, developed by Rob Hopkins. During these sessions, we engaged in practices intended to  build our imagination muscle — like an exercise class for your imagination! On weeks when we were not gathering via Zoom, participants  explored curated writings, podcasts, and other materials as a way of deepening understanding of the concepts and ideas related to opening to new possibilities. Additionally, the facilitators also offered individual or team coaching as participants considered how to apply these ideas to their own communities.
Do you have a seed of an idea you’ve dreamed that would help build community, start a conversation, even help others unlock their imaginations? How about a tool lending library for that infrequently needed but so helpful equipment? A multigenerational storytelling night? A community garden of raised beds in an unused part of your parking lot? What about a four-season labyrinth that highlights the connections between our seasons and climate change? Or a playful, monthly coffee hour that gives adults a change to play? Or community dinners highlighting the benefits of eating lower on the food chain?
Through shared readings and materials, conversation in group sessions, and a series of practices designed to inspire thinking and stretch imagination, participants were led to ask different questions relevant to their own contexts.
During the course of the program, participants had the opportunity to apply for a generous micro-grant from The BTS Center that would support the manifestation of their idea for unlocking imagination in their congregations / communities.

Meet Our Facilitators

The Rev. Alison Cornish serves as the Coordinator of the Chaplaincy Initiative at the BTS Center. Alison spent the first half of her professional life working as an historic preservationist and architectural historian, primarily in New England and on Long Island, NY.  After 20 years of work with museums, municipalities and nonprofit organizations, Alison attended Andover Newton Theological Seminary in response to a felt sense of call directly from Earth to address what is it that we are doing in our daily lives and habits that is destroying the planet that we inhabit.

Following CPE, field education in interfaith work and parish ministry, and ordination in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, Alison served congregations on Long Island while also embarking on studies with the Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy and Dominican sister Miriam McGillis. Alison became a GreenFaith Fellow in 2013, and a Climate Reality Project presenter in 2017. She has served as Senior Director of Programs at Partners for Sacred Places, Executive Director of Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light, Director of Seminary and Congregational Initiatives at Interfaith Philadelphia, and as the Affiliated Community Minister at First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia. When not working, Alison can be found along, on, and in, a local natural body of water, currently the Deerfield River.

Rev. Maria Anderson-Lippert is an ELCA pastor and spiritual director currently living in the Twin Cities metro area.  Her passion for walking with people in exploring the multitude of ways in which God’s grace shows up in the world – through poetry, and friendship, good meals, scripture, and social justice movements – brought her to ministry and she’s stayed a pastor for those same reasons.  She is an aspiring gardner and enjoys leading people through communal singing experiences.  Maria lives with her husband, Nat, their toddler son, Solomon, and their two cats.