The Power of Imagination

I am not in love with the J.K. Rowling adoration that goes on these days (I mean, really, the whole Doctor Who/Shakespeare episode last season was ridiculous!) but she is, nevertheless, a very good writer. Here is an excerpt from her Harvard commencement address:

"If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."

Great words, lofty goals - that's what graduation speeches are made of. But her essential point is just that - essential. We are uniquely gifted in our ability to put ourselves in the place of others. God has given us this empathy in order to pull us together as the Body of Christ. We are such disparate beings: without the imaginative ability to understand one another across borders, cultures and oceans we cannot work together to accomplish His work.

Read the whole address if you have time - it's all good. And thanks to Instapundit for the find.