where there is no vision ...

“If a nation is not guided by a vision of God, the people will perish; but the nation that obeys God’s law will be happy.” (Proverbs 29:18)

I ran into a colleague recently. She mentioned she had been roped into an Anti-Bias Coalition by a local rabbi. Having worked in nonprofit organizations her entire career, she is very selfless, very collaborative. I had heard about the Anti-Bias Coalition but I had forgotten about it.

I said it’s tough to treat a negative behavior just by being against it. It can be more effective, I suggested, to transform a negative behavior by offering a positive vision, one that would neutralize the negative behavior. She agreed. But we could not at that moment think of a compelling vision for neutralizing bias.

This is a microcosm of our spiritual and political situation today. In the absence of a compelling vision for overcoming individualism, racism/sexism, and capitalism, it is tempting to simply be against those things. Anti-racist. Anti-sexist. Anti-capitalist. Yet where have efforts in anti-ism gotten us? And where are they taking us? What is the vision of an anti-capitalist society, for example? Simply being against capitalism will not bring about its demise.

Yes, capitalism will likely collapse under its own weight, just as communism did in Russia. But what took the place of communism in Russia? The void did not last long. In the mindfulness world, vision-less reform (aka godless reform) is no reform at all:

“When a corrupting spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn’t find anyone, it says, ‘I’ll go back to my old haunt.’ On return, it finds the person swept and dusted, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits dirtier than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse than if he’d never gotten cleaned up in the first place.” (Luke 11:24-26 MSG)

Indeed, Russia seems bedeviled by some kind of corrupting spirit. Perhaps it’s not as bad as before the fall of communism. But the point is that reforming oneself through healing is better than simply casting off an old way of being because it will likely be replaced by something just as bad or worse.

So we lack a vision. Not just any vision will do. We need a prophetic vision, one that heals what ails us by aligning us with the love of god.

Transforming unjust systems is healing work. Transformation and healing are more than merely opposing and resisting. Resistance and opposition are part of the story, but they are not the whole story – unless they are rooted in love: both a loving vision and loving means for achieving the vision.

To use a medical lens on a present-day system, how do we stop the disease of sexism? Merely by being against it? Anti-sexism is like an anti-depressant: both manage symptoms. Anti-depression medication solves the problem of depression well enough for many people, including people I know. However, an anti-depressant doesn’t necessarily cure the disease.

I have suffered from depression. Twice. Medication did not help me much, because it did not treat the underlying conditions that contributed to my depression. I needed more purposeful work, more meaningful relationships, more mindfulness knowledge and skill. Those things cured me of my depression. Twice.

So what is a vision for healing what ails us? One that aligns with The Way with a Thousand Names? That’s easy. The Way is full of healing visions:

• from oppression and slavery to a land flowing with milk and honey. (Judaism)
• from suffering of samsara, beyond the three planes of existence, to the Pure Land (Buddhism)
• from democracy, and other corrupt forms of government, to the commonwealth of philosopher-guides (Ancient Greek philosophy)
• from captivity, blindness, and oppression to the Kingdom of God. (Christianity)
• from a mind filled with thought, identified with its own perceptions, to Tao (Taoism)

I am calling the end state of all these visions The Land of God’s Love. Naming it is the easy part. Today our challenge and the opportunity is to make this healing vision a reality. When I see my colleague again, I’ll have to invite her to The Land of God's Love! Of course that is just the beginning.

Part of my job here is to imagine, together with you, new systems that can challenge the status quo by loving god and loving neighbor in a new way, a way rooted in The Way with a Thousand Names. But imagination is not enough. We need to experiment. And both our vision and our experiments need to embody The Path of Love. Because there is no guarantee that a vision of god will lead to the land of god's love. Visions of god get corrupted too. Just look at Christian nationalism, to name one.

Finally, I know a vision of The Land of God’s Love does not appeal to everyone. I get it. Loving god does not appeal to everyone. I get it. But the premise of this project is in the title: love god. And loving god leads to The Land of God’s Love, or whatever you choose to call it. That’s what the sages say, and their lives are the proof. Their lives bear witness to that truth; they made it to the land of god’s love. So it’s not for everyone. I get it. But it is for lovers of god. It is for me. May it be for you too. May we pursue it together.