Imagination Anyone?

As usual, I got up in the pitch dark and tiptoed to our bathroom so as not to wake Janet. She was sound asleep, practically snoring in her own quiet way. She needed a good sleep. She hadn't been well for weeks, with headaches and hurtful hearing loss, which had been unexplained. finally the ENT specialist had found the cause -- earwax buildup over the past year or longer, blocking the hearing canals. a good but sore cleaning solved the problem. My wife was no longer in pain.

We were taking my mom to visit Jesse, Rachel and baby Sienna Rose today at their Manhattan apartment. Sienna was less than a month old, and granny had only seen pictures and a short video. she was dying to meet her.

I did my business, swished some Bentine, brushed my teeth, and splashed cold water on my face and hair -- my usual morning ritual. It was 3:30 a.m. I turned the light off, tiptoed to my dresser chair, and grabbed my jeans, top and socks which I had laid out the night before. I again tiptoed to the dining room then dressed. Another day. I put on my jacket from the kitchen, picked up my wallet, cellphone and keys, and headed out to Dunkin for my first of six daily coffees.

I quietly walked outside and lit a smoke, again, part of my daily ritual. I stood outside in the cool air, at the top of our driveway, wondering what the day would be like seeing my first grandchild. Oh! I'm a grandfather! Even for me, I was excited thinking of the years to come. As I paced a little I noticed a sports car parked down the street a little bit from our house, about three car lengths from where I normally parked my silver Civic. As I looked at it I could see the whole right side, the passenger side, was black with gaping holes, dents and deep dark, long scratches. "Ohh!" What happened there? I thought, wondering if the car belonged to a friend of our teenage neighbors sons.

I stared at the dents wondering how the crash had happened. A telephone pole? Another car? Was anyone hurt?

Then it struck me. It's my Civic! How did it get dented in like that? I stared harder. Then I saw what it was. The gaping holes and dents were black shadows backlit by our streetlamp, showering the shadow of our dogwood tree in our front yard onto my car.  Whew! It's only shasdows! I was relieved.

Imagination. The first human power, where everything starts and reaction originates. I remembered the two short pages from 'Abdu'l-Baha's book, Some Answered Questions, which we had studied last Sunday at foster Baha'i school. It was one of my very favorite passages, and I had memorized it long ago,

We all know the fiver outer senses of man; our five outer powers if you will: sight, hearing, smell, taste and feeling. Feeling, which covers all parts of the body including our brains. Five outer senses which are so common-sensical, understandable and well-known. But when I first read this treatise over forty years ago, I was also immediately stuck by the cogency of the descriptions of the five inner powers of man: imagination, thought, comprehension, memory and the common faculty, which interfaced the five outer and inner powers.

My dented car was a perfect example of the powers of man; my sight had perceived the "dented" car, my imagination conjured a certain reality, my thoughts explored the meaning, I finally comprehended the reality of what I saw, and my memory told me it was my car -- and it wasn't smashed in! I had parked it away from our house the evening before, so its position in the street was unfamiliar. I had moved it so the arriving guests for our Annual Meeting would have more room to park their cars.

And the common faculty had helped them park their cars, and me my car. All these senses and powers working together.

Man is an incredible creation of God, don't you think? I do.