I am always impressed by people on the ground and in a variety of contexts who grab the moment and come up with what looks like simple actions or projects that turn out to be life transforming for many, including themselves (that is the ones who have grabbed the initiative). These people I call visionaries. They are not the usual leaders’ that media and organisations hyper-ventilate over. They are ordinary people who would claim no gift of seeing into any future. What they see into is the moment and the people and circumstances around them, and this is what makes them extraordinary. This is what I sensed in my recent viewing of the movie Defiance (2008) - a true story about four Jewish brothers from West Belarus in Poland who escape from the Nazis after their family is murdered and decided to resist.
The general trend of most of our lives is organised around the principle of living for tomorrow, for the future, rather than the moment. Hence, with the downturn in our economic life, pundits immediately raise concern about the future of the economy and pensions. I was made aware of this when I recently called my aging parents in Guyana to find out how they were faring in that part of the world, which was once my home. They could not understand my concern. Not even my younger brother, a university lecturer in natural sciences, nor my aunt, a British citizen and a retired nurse living in Greater London, could be bothered with all the fuss.
In fact, it was my aunt who pointed out to me that as a person of faith one needs a different perspective in life – that is, to live it one day at a time. Tomorrow, she suggests, is always a day away. Now, as person keenly concerned about the environment and the future, this becomes a hard idea to swallow as rights of the future have implications as to how one lives at the moment. Yet, in the grabbing of the present, without too overwhelming a concern of the future, is precisely where visionaries are grown and come alive.
There is something sharply liberating in just doing what is needed to be done and trusting it would all work out in the end. Whatever the religious stripes of visionaries, they all share two things in common: faith that transforms and faith that making a difference is possible by taking the risk to grab the moment and believing in hope, contrary to all the evidence around. What difference are WE going to make this day, ripe with anticipation and possibilities?
