How Can We Plan While We Still Lack Vision?

A few remain among us who remember the Great Depression. Except for those few, none of us have ever seen such a time of uncertainty as we have now. Even World War II, for all its deprivations, was a time of economic boom. Everyone was working, and very certain of who we were as a nation.

For those of us who didn’t actually endure the 1930s depression, the era carries a certain romantic appeal because it produced a vision for America that carried us through the end of the 1970s. Since then we have been chugging along on the fumes of a fading vision. Yes, we had the Reagan vision of neo-rugged individualism, but that was really a mini-vision, more like a convincing Madison Avenue sales hype than a true vision.

So now we come to a time of crisis that goes well beyond falling stock markets, and in our wish for vision we turn hopefully to a bright and personable young man who promises change we can believe in, but we’re not sure what that change will look like because we still lack vision.

Our new president, now less than two months from taking office, has been busy making plans. But plans are not vision. Plans are process. Vision is an understanding of what kind of people, what kind of nation we want to be. How can we craft an effective plan to get somewhere if we don’t know where we’re going?

In fairness, this is not a question that should be dumped on President Obama, and it’s certainly not a question best answered by economists and politicians. It’s a question that asks us to make a wish and to imagine if our wish did come true, who we would be as people. What would America look like? Finding answers will require more of the spirit’s warm-blooded intuition than the mind’s cold-blooded analysis. And while bank portfolios hang in the balance, we won’t find satisfaction unless we search our souls. For now we walk in the dark, seeking light, our spiritual leaders having failed us just like our economic and political leaders.

Over the past days two stories have dominated the news, starkly contrasting the throes of two dying visions. The first is the story of the automakers and their economic troubles. Much of the nation turns up its nose, accusing the companies of having created their own problems. But their problems are the remnant of that first powerful vision which carried us from the 30s to the 80s, a vision of great companies with well-paid workers who retire with health and pension benefits. That vision handed a steady and sturdy nation to what we call the baby boom generation. Then comes the story of Citigroup, emblematic of our financial meltdown and the vision that came from the Reagan era. That vision took the wealth created by the first vision and trusted the financiers to make it grow. But it turned out more like a trip to a casino where a few got rich and everyone else left dragging their feet. The broad benefits the new vision promised turned out to be a lie perpetrated to provide a shroud of hope to the many while the greedy elite gorged at the trough.

So now we hesitate to bail out the first vision because we wonder if it has any life left in it. And the second, though its stench fills our nostrils, we hold on to pathetically, fearful it will die without a successor and bring total chaos to the world. Suddenly aware that we don’t know where to turn next, we become angry -- and afraid. Confidence ebbs. The answers coming from our leaders are not believable, because they have yet to articulate a vision.

If there’s one laughable bright spot in this, it’s that we finally found something the right and left can agree on: We’ve all lost faith in our “experts.” Did you see President Bush and Secretary Paulson announcing the Citigroup bailout? They both looked liked wounded fighters trying to survive the 12th round. As for the incoming team, it’s been said that FDR didn’t begin with a vision but developed it by trial and error as his administration went along. Let’s hope that can happen again.

So why don’t we help them out? If you are a church leader or just a person of the spirit, work on a vision. You have a right. When Jesus came on the scene he didn’t wait for the leaders of his culture to come up with a vision. He knew that would be as fruitless as it has proven to be today. He picked up the book of Isaiah and found in it God’s vision of what the world would look like if the “the year of the Lord’s favor” came to pass. Then he shared it with anyone who would listen. Can’t we do the same? What’s your vision for America’s future? Where do we want to end up? When you think you know, tell your neighbor or your pastor, the people next to you in the pew, your congressman and the president, or write a comment telling me. God knows we are in need of vision, and it’s just as likely to come from the bottom up as from the top down.