One of the most beloved ballets of all time, The Nutcracker presents a delightful and wondrous tale of opulence, warmth, and, perhaps most telling, imagination.  As Clara's Nutcracker comes to life and grows into a full-sized soldier, the wide-eyed girl is treated to a remarkable journey through a tangled and marvelous fantasy world of gingerbread, sweets, mice, and tin warriors, princes, and magical forests.  It is a world that, when she awakens from what we are led to suppose was a dream, may be more real than we or she think.
     Or believe.  But isn't that essence of imagination?  Though neuroscientists tell us that imagination is the production of overlapping and accumulating metaphor, synapse, memory, and neuronal form and structure, we know that, for us in our day to day activities, imagination is what helps us make our lives real.  We dream, we imagine, and we dream and imagine again.  We believe, we feel, we speculate, and we believe, feel, and speculate again.  We make our lives stories--stories all our own--that we write.
     Imagine a mystery, a mystery you will never unravel.  Imagine a mystery beyond all form and structure, a mystery that exceeds the boundaries of even--and this is entirely possible--your imagination.  Imagine the mystery of God.
     And believe it is true.