Vision: The Work & Community

A powerful vision can hold people together in community perhaps like no other force. Not even necessity seems to have the social glue that 'vision' does. Think of the Mormon faithful trekking across the North American Continent to settle in what is now known as Utah. Think of the millions who have 'envisioned' for themselves and their families a better life in the 'New World.' Think of the radicals and revolutionaries who have cohered together in groups large and small in the effort to transform the world in accordance with the vision of some prophet, guru... or charlatan.

The power of such visions, though intangible and largely unseen in 'this-worldly' terms--as it cannot be touched, tasted, smelt, held physically or pointed to in space or time--are monumental in their ability to remake the world in both healthy terms and pathological ones. Perhaps the neo-conservative agenda for the remaking of the Middle East--as evidenced in the ongoing War in Iraq--is an all too stark notification to us of the consequences of envisioning on a communal basis. Visions can kill. Just as they can give birth and create new worlds--if not New World Orders.

When you go to an interview for a job at a prospective employer you may hear the following question touching upon your ears: 'How do you see yourself contributing here? What can you bring to the company?' Even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant job, can carry with it a vision of contributing to a community. The prospective employer wants to understand how you 'see yourself making an impact' to the benefit of the already established community at work. Whether a Corporation, a Church, or a College, there is this realization of how immediately powerful is the capacity for human envisioning.

If you can see yourself making a positive contribution then you probably can; just as if you can see yourself eradicating Jews from 1930's Germany when interviewing for the SS, then you probably can. That points to a law of work and life that seems to hold true no matter what: that the capacity to imagine what we can do precedes our capacity to actually do it. Vision comes first.

Why did/do Native Americans and other Indigenous Peoples send their children out to 'vision quest?' Was it because they realized that a life without a vision is a life without meaning? Was it because they understood that a contribution to the community can only come through the receiving of a Vision via the Grace of Spirit? Was it because they innately understood the primacy of vision?