Nouwen: Reimaging and Reimagining

“When we believe that we are created in the image of God himself and come to realize that Christ came to let us reimagine this, then meditation and prayer can lead us to our true identity.” —Henri Nouwen in You Are the Beloved (Convergent Books, 2017).

Much of my professional life has been spent imaging children with X-rays, ultrasound, nuclear imaging, CT, and MRI. I am intrigued by Nouwen’s insight that the Incarnation is a reimaging of God. Reimaging in radiology usually means taking a second look. If we are not quite certain of what we saw the first time, we make another image. When we see something we cannot quite understand, we produce another image to see if it is still there. We want to verify that what we saw the first time was real—so we take another picture, sometimes at a different angle.

Reimagining, on the other hand, means to form a new concept. Jesus came to reimage God, to show us a God of love with skin on. He also came to help us reimagine God, to enable us to realize a new relationship with a loving God. The Incarnation is pivotal in bringing us new concepts of love in our relationship with each other and with God.

Reimage and reimagine that.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com