“The future enters into us in order to transform itself in us long before it happens.” --Rainer Maria Rilke
Transformative visioning is the dynamic element to create, articulate and activate a prophetic vision for the future. What gives it its transformative potential however is not some grand vision we might create at the end of it all. Rather, it is what happens to us while we are creating it that makes all the difference. Its power is not in a future that awaits us but in the sort of people we are becoming and the very purpose for our existence.
It is a journey that seeks to transform the very soul of a community through holy and intimate conversations, loving and reconciling exchanges, and communal discernment of God’s call. The process is organic, emergent, and iterative. The challenge is to live with the ambiguity, be comfortable with experimentation, know when to slowed down and go deeper, and when to move on.
Those who are in key positions supporting the community as it exists today will be in tension with the new that is emerging. The current system needs to break down in order to break through to a new system. We will need maximal participation to capitalize on our pool of talent and to develop the ownership we will need for engendering a cooperative spirit. The more members and partners involved in shaping the vision, the more creativity and wisdom will be generated.
Dunn, Ted, Graced Crossroads: Pathways to Deep Change & Transformation, CSS Publications, 2020, pp. 404-418
