Peter L. Benson is the president of Search Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the leading center in America devoted to strengthening how our nation supports children, adolescents, and young adults. He is widely recognized as one of the leading thinkers on social change, community building, and human development. Benson has published more than 100 articles and 15 books. On the first page of this short but thought-provoking paperback, he states:

"The capacity to generate vision is among life's most beautiful and unheralded gifts. It is a powerful act — this art of seeing and articulating what's possible. As with other human capabilities, however, too often we fail to recognize this power. And too rarely do we engage in vision-making, much less make a commitment to realizing our vision."

Vision, as the Declaration of Independence and Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech reveal, is inspired and inspiring. People are deeply moved inside and animated to take action for a better world. Another two characteristics of vision are its focus on the "big picture" and its emphasis on our interdependence:

"It is the spark that links us to what is meaningful about living in this world. Embracing a vision is a corollary to making a contribution. It follows from our innate search for meaning. It is in our nature to imagine what is possible."

Besides giving examples from his work as a visionary concerned with children and youth, the author pays tribute to some of his favorite visionaries including Albert Schweitzer, J. K. Rowling, William Sloane Coffin, Joseph Campbell, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Sir John Templeton, Geoffrey Canada, Marian Wright Edelman, Desmond Tutu, and the Dalai Lama.

Benson increase our interest in vision even more by giving us a potpourri of quotations about this this important human faculty. Here are a few examples:

• "Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for — because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything."
— Peter Marshall

• "Vision is perhaps our greatest strength . . . it has kept us alive to the power and continuity of thought through the centuries, it makes us peer into the future and lends shape to the unknown."
— Li Ka-Shing

• "A vision is not just a picture of what could be: it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more."
— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

• Deep in the human heart
The fire of justice burns;
A vision of a world renewed
Through radical concern.
— William L. Wallace

Try the practice of writing your own vision statement