Where there is no vision, the people perish.~ Proverbs 29:18

Vision. In many organizations there is often much talk about vision. Groups create ‘vision statements’ that will hopefully guide their work for the future in some intentional way. Some look for a certain individual to ‘cast a vision’ that can then be adopted by others and acted upon. We often want to surround ourselves with ‘visionaries’, those people who can help us better move into some unseen future.Vision…”the ability to think about the future with imagination and wisdom”…”a mental image of what the future could or will be like.”

Today’s word for Lent is ‘vision’. I find it to be a complicated word and a challenging one. Perhaps we all want to possess a vision of what to do, how to live, what plans to make, who we would hope be become. Others may prefer to allow others to make those plans and simply go along for the ride. Often it is a little bit of both. We each want to be able to imagine what may lie ahead in our lives and we also want to execute that imaginative plan with wisdom and not go willy-nilly along the way. The specifics of casting a vision can often be tricky. Just when you think you have a fool-proof, iron-clad plan for the future something comes along to rock your world. An illness…a misstep…a force that had not been spinning in your circle before, arrives uninvited…and the vision, the plan, gets knocked off kilter. 

It has been my experience that holding a vision lightly might be the best practice. Even as the writer of the Wisdom book of Proverbs states: “Without a vision, the people perish.”, it might also be true that a vision held too tightly, too rigidly might be as challenging as having no vision at all. I imagine any vision statement worth its salt has wiggle room to move, to breathe, to evolve, to respond to the unforeseen experiences of life. 

I think of all the characters in the scriptures who had a vision for their future, a vision most believed was a God-given plan. Moses. Ruth. Abraham. Sarah. Mary. Paul. Jesus. The vision they each had for how the future would unfold was different than what eventually played out. But the vision of faithfulness was what really catapulted these characters into their respective futures. And perhaps that is the biggest difference. A vision of faithfulness to compassion, justice, kindness, inclusion, and eventually love will never fail. Though the details of the vision may get muddled and mangled, the end result is true and perhaps part of an even larger, cosmic plan that is often difficult for us to see. 

What is your vision for this day? This week? This season of life? This year? Are your hands gripped around it or are they gently open to the imagination and wisdom woven into its texture. May the Holy One be companion to the vision and to it eventual unfolding and may the vision always find us faithful