Vision...

              Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction. (Proverbs 29:18 NIV) 

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Proverbs 29:18 KJV)

 

This verse usually comes to mind for me later in the year, when I’m looking forward to starting out fresh and clean on the first day of January and really accomplishing something in the year that follows. But while my sister and her husband visited last week, the discussion almost touched on the subject for a quarter of a second, so it’s been in the background, waiting for a chance to be given a bit more consideration to which it’s due.

In general, what I wanted to explore but didn’t get a chance was the whole notion of communities developing a clear and compelling vision. I grew up in a manufacturing town in which (for roughly the first decade) “downtown” was the focus of community life. Then manufacturing moved out, and businesses left downtown for a mall outside the city limits. And 5 decades later, political campaigns still focus on bringing manufacturing back and revitalizing downtown. But if you look at the sign on the Bayfront Connector, what welcomes you to Erie is the Brig Niagara. It seems to point to the city’s historical place as its identity. What brings people to Erie to visit is Presque Isle State Park, the aforementioned mall, and other tourist spots. We have several colleges and universities: Behrend, Edinboro, Gannon, and Mercyhurst, plus LECOM Medical School and several business schools. But we don’t seem to have an overall vision. There is nothing that gives us direction as a community.

And Erie isn’t alone in this. From what I heard from my guests, their current home community doesn’t fare much better, and where I spend my winters suffers from the same problem. City hall spends out questionnaires in which they ask whether we want sidewalks or to maintain the feel of “country.” There are ongoing rants against snowbirds and old people and complaints about the level of drug use and poverty.

It is in these swamps of fog and darkness, where one direction looks as empty as the next, that prophets lift their torches. Some call for us to head one way. Others reject their message and strike out on a different path. As a result, the majority who follow these end up lost. This happens with the “We must revitalize downtown” folks – whether we’re talking about some part of the city and politicians or someone’s individual life and that person. “Revitalizing downtown” doesn’t give a city or a person identity or a vision.

It seems to me that I spend a lot of time in that fog. I have had arguments in which I contended that I was not a jogger, a gardener, a Christian, or any of several other things because… there was always some lame reason, but the truth is that I wasn’t those things because I didn’t have a vision of myself as those things. In some cases, my lack of identity (in my mind) was to protect that thing because if someone identified me with it, they would reject it because of me. Identifying myself with something also required that I commit myself to it. It’s not that I wasn’t committed, but that if I didn’t commit myself, it wouldn’t be as embarrassing or painful when they invited me to leave. And, if I didn’t commit myself to something, I could walk away when they made demands I didn’t want to meet. I’m more interested in revitalizing my internal downtown than in moving toward a vision.

But, without a vision or revelation, the good that can be generated by the vision or revelation can’t happen. So the question for all of us is – what is your vision? What do you wish to be but hold yourself aloof from because you’re afraid of its demands?