The Way of Imagination

Prize-winning essayist Scott Russell Sanders explores the role of imagination in art, science, and ethics. He shows that bold acts of imagination are key to healing our divided society and damaged Earth. If it were not so common a talent, we would recognize imagination as a superpower rivaling anything dreamed up for comic-book heroes. How astonishing, that the mind can envision possibilities not present to eyes, ears, or fingers. How astonishing, that a painter can see shapes and colors on a blank canvas, a composer can hear notes amid silence, a mathematician can formulate equations never before written. How astonishing, that people suffering under tyranny can foresee liberation and survivors living among ruins can lay out a path to recovery. Woven through his reflections on issues vital to human survival and flourishing, Sanders tells the story of his own intellectual and moral journey from a childhood religion to an adult philosophy of life. He reveals how that philosophy is tested when his son is diagnosed with stage-four cancer. He recounts how he and his wife, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, leave their beloved old house and build a new one to accommodate her needs, and how they turn their handsome new shell into a home and their raw city lot into a garden--