We say God and the imagination are one... How high that highest

“We say God and the imagination are one... How high that highest candle lights the dark.” Thus wrote Wallace Stevens, the poet-philosopher of the inward divine, whose words shimmer like a flame held against the endless night. In this brief yet eternal utterance, Stevens unites two forces that humanity has long held apart — God and imagination — declaring them as one and the same. For he saw that the divine is not only found in temples or scriptures, but within the living fire of human thought, within that luminous power that creates meaning from emptiness. The imagination, to Stevens, is the holy spark through which man partakes in the act of creation — the mirror of the divine mind itself. And that spark, when lit, lights the dark that surrounds all existence.

To say “God and the imagination are one” is not to deny the sacred but to reveal where it truly resides. Stevens lived in an age when the old faiths trembled and the modern world turned cold beneath the shadow of reason. Yet he did not despair. He saw that though dogma might fade, the creative spirit — the power to see beauty where none is, to forge purpose where chaos reigns — still burns. In every act of imagination, the human soul performs a small miracle, transforming the void into vision. Thus, the imagination becomes a divine faculty, the bridge between the mortal and the infinite. Through it, we do not merely perceive the world — we re-create it anew.

Think of Michelangelo, who looked upon a block of marble and said, “The angel is trapped within; I must set him free.” That is the living truth of Stevens’ vision. To the ordinary eye, marble is stone; to the eye of imagination, it is divine potential awaiting release. In this way, imagination is not illusion but revelation — it reveals what reality hides. When Michelangelo carved David, he did not merely sculpt a body of stone; he gave form to the idea of courage, defiance, and grace. His imagination was his candle, and with it he lit the darkness of human limitation, showing us the divine that dwells in flesh and form.

Stevens’ “highest candle” is this very light of vision. It is the fire of consciousness, burning against despair, ignorance, and the void. The dark he speaks of is not merely the absence of light, but the emptiness of meaning that life can so easily descend into. Yet even in that darkness, the candle of the imagination shines — faint, trembling, yet unextinguished. It reminds us that to imagine is to resist. To imagine goodness in a cruel world, beauty in a broken one, truth in a world of noise — this is the highest act of the spirit. The imagination does not flee the dark; it illumines it, turning even suffering into the soil of wisdom.

Consider, too, the poet himself. Wallace Stevens lived not as a mystic in a monastery, but as an insurance executive — a man of numbers and contracts. Yet within him burned a secret sun. By day, he spoke the language of business; by night, he communed with the eternal through verse. From the ordinary, he drew the extraordinary. His life teaches us that divinity is not elsewhere — it is within the mind that dares to dream, even in the midst of daily duty. The divine, for Stevens, is not a distant deity, but the creative force that moves through human imagination, ever renewing the world through thought and art.

Let this, then, be the lesson for all who listen: the imagination is not a luxury, but a sacred duty. To imagine is to keep faith with the divine — to affirm that the world can be more than what it seems. Each of us carries within the power to bring light to darkness, meaning to despair, hope to the hollow spaces of time. When we create, when we love, when we see beyond the surface of things, we hold that highest candle in our hands. And though the night may be vast, a single flame, held steadfast, can illumine eternity.

So, dear soul of the future, never let your imagination be dimmed by the cold breath of cynicism. Keep your candle lit. For in every act of creative vision — in every poem, every prayer, every dream of a better world — you draw nearer to the divine itself. As Stevens proclaimed, “God and the imagination are one,” and through that sacred unity, mankind rises above despair and becomes once more the co-creator of the cosmos. Let your imagination, then, be your worship, your rebellion, your light — and see how high it shines against the dark.