Hi Pogue,

Over the last few weeks I’ve found occasional moments when I have unwittingly slipped into dark thoughts. And believe me there is plenty of reason to go to that place. One episode of the daily news has the potential to send a weak mind into a tail spin.

But in so many situations, both at a personal level and at national and international levels I find myself with the same question repeating itself over and over. Where are the big thinkers? There are so many who, called to action, called to office, just lack vision for what needs doing and the will to set about doing it. Instead I continue to witness small mindedness, a sort of collective spirit of “its all about me or my group” and my best interests. From people I know right through to national leaders, there just seems to be an absence of vision. Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t the Bible say something about how the people perish where there is no vision? And the people, well that can be from a small group up to a nation. So I rephrase my question. Where are the visionaries?

Boy does this world need visionary leaders.

But we have an unfailing desire to tear down and destroy anything that is good and anything with potential for our mutual betterment. How ever good a thing may be there will always be people driven to act against it. Then, bizarrely, once we have destroyed a thing or person, with a little time, we begin to emulate it and lift he, she or it up as an example of how things could be. We need to think no further than King Jr., Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto, Kennedy. People who, I see, as looking beyond themselves to a bigger picture and a better future than the one that is currently looming.

Pogue, mindful of the current state of the world, the tensions, the posturing of nations, the potential for disaster perhaps greater now than any time in our history, can we agree we need a messenger of hope? Someone who will see beyond the current situations and hold up a better future. Indeed, at a personal level so many of us need to have a vision of a better future, a different day, a world where we’ve left our current problems behind. People need hope because without it, what meaning does life have?

Today I offer no answer other than we have to find it in our hearts to capture our own vision of what our future can and will be like. Such a picture, firmly held and looked towards, instills a seed of hope in our lives. And hope, nurtured and cared for, can grow. Hope exercised rashly and without care is soon wrecked. I would encourage you to work with the hope you can muster and extend it as far as you are able. Build it into anywhere you find you are able to dream with belief, no further. It will grow.

Here’s hoping, as we search, you and I can find the kernel of a better day and bring that to fruition.

Yours, searching for the dreamers,

Wic