John Lennon’s song, Imagine, still gets a lot of play on the radio. Many of us enjoy mouthing the words as Lennon sings them. But few of us can really imagine a world like the one he describes. Past hurts and disappointments block our access to this dream.
But what if justice and mercy were the focus of our New Year, not just something that we think about when we are in a church, synagogue or temple when we are making a charitable donation. Can our society ever get past our preoccupation with greed and violence to make these a focus? Can we?
Take a minute and imagine what your world would be like if these were the values that drove our society. That drove us. Imagine.
Many of us have a very difficult time seeing this vision. Many would say it’s not realistic. But why not? Why couldn’t it be? Our world certainly has the resources to feed and care for everyone and to give every member of our society a meaningful role. But to create such a world, we must first be able to imagine such a world. Indeed, we must be realistic. The steps to create such a world are not easy ones. But we need this vision to give us direction. If these are really values that we believe, we should act on them. They should animate our behavior in the New Year. Imagine what our world would be like if they did. Imagine!
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