Use your imagination

It was a wine tasting event, and I was the designated driver. The evening was to begin with a cocktail hour, followed by a presentation by a young couple who had just started a wine tasting event business. Their presentation was to be followed by a meal prepared and served by a chef who was well known and well thought of in local circles. The meal was to have been enriched by our new found knowledge of what wine goes with what food and why. It was all to be quite elegant.

I knew the minute we walked in the front door that I didn’t fit. The home was lovely, beautiful really, and all the guests were good looking and fancy. I have always been intimidated by cool, handsome people, so I was immediately uncomfortable. The trouble really began at cocktail hour. Everyone was overserved. Except me. I was the designated driver. Being overserved at a holiday party is, in and of itself, not a bad thing in my view. In fact, for some it’s the point. The trouble was the crowd of about 30 people, of whom I knew 3 or 4, became very chatty, exuberantly so, infused with spirits as they were. Again, that’s no bad thing at a party, however, this particular party included a presentation by the young couple on the finer details of fine wine. We were supposed to listen to the presentation not talk over and through it. 

No one listened. No one, except me. It was terrifically awkward.

We sat in a well appointed dining room in nice hard back chairs pushed up against the wall forming a wide perimeter. I sat at one end of the rectangular room and the young wine experts stood at the other end of the room directly opposite me. The partygoers connected us on both sides. The couple started their talk and the crowd of partygoers continued their talking too. From beginning to end I was the only person in the room listening to this young man and woman. The chatter from the partygoers was all over the place. It was like being in a room full of well-dressed, happy crickets chirping and laughing and carrying on with no awareness of anything beyond the content of their own conversations. 

I felt terrible for the young couple. I should mention here that I have no interest in the science of wine. I am interested in a lot of things. That’s just not one of them. But that night I leaned into the presentation listening to their talk about wine through the hum of the party with all my might as if it were my greatest passion. The strangest thing happened - at a certain point the partygoers became a backdrop, their chatter a simple, bubbly soundtrack to my time with the young couple. I can’t explain it other than to say that all the noise receded and seemed like it was just the three of us.

Mercifully, after about 30 minutes their talk ended. The partygoers rose from their chairs to move to the dinner table. The young woman walked directly across the room to me. I was still seated in my chair. She was attractive and well spoken. She stood in front of me and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

I was a little hesitant. The whole thing had been such a train wreck I couldn’t imagine what she wanted to ask me, but I said, “Sure.”

“Do you speak in front of people for a living?” she said.

I said, “Umm. Yes.”

She said, “I can tell. You listened. You were the only one.”

I said, “Yes. Sorry about that.”

She said, “How did you do it?”

“How did I do what?”

“How did you listen?”

“Oh, I said, Well, I don’t know. I guess I just tried to imagine what it was like to be you.” 

I paused. Then I said, “I imagined I was you.”

She looked at me for a beat. She said, “Thank you.”

I turned to go and so did she. We each took a step in opposite directions. She turned back toward me and said, “Hey.”

I turned and stepped toward her. 

She said, “Always do that.”

“What? I said. Always do what?”

“Use your imagination. Always use your imagination.”

That all happened about 20 years ago. I promptly forgot about that night and the encounter with the young woman until just last week when I was reading the Epiphany story. You know the one. It’s the story about the star over Bethlehem, Herod and the Wise Men, and how the wise men used their imaginations to go home by another road. 

The Wise Men used their imaginations to chase a star to see a baby. They used their imaginations to interpret a dream which told them to avoid Herod and go home by a new road. The road is love. And the call is to use our imaginations to walk the road of love in a creative way. Here at the trailhead of the new year Epiphany is an invitation to use our imaginations to love each other and all our neighbors, especially the ones who are struggling in a fresh new way. Let’s put down Herod’s fear and spend this year on love, imaginative love.