2020 vision too rich and too troubling to resist

Looking at the calendar, long ago this early January editorial on 2020 vision was scheduled. The metaphor is too good to pass up. Getting past the cliches and rhetoric is worth the challenge.

But no view is clear, whether on our home turf in and around La Conner, in Skagit County, Washington state or nationally.

The vision is even more cloudy now, for assassinations escalate conflict, they do not end it. Rockets from drones blow up more than people. Bombs make huge craters withing as well as between nations, chasms that will not soon be crossed.

All our problems have the same root, whether that is in the soil of our local community or nationally. Little gets done without a shared vision. Visions are not shared without strong relationships. Relationships won’t develop without trust.

In every situation the key question is whether people are going to stick together in a relationship or not. And, if the relationships are poor or hardly exist, will folks have the courage to put aside animosity and work toward genuine relationship? Only by both sides developing trust can progress on problems be made. That process is slow, difficult and essential.

If we do not have a shared vision we flounder. That can be our Congressional representatives, our stand-ins for “We, the People,” or it can be the we here at home making up the La Conner school district: staff, administration, board, parents and residents.

And rhetoric, whether to protect our troops or that the children come first, has already failed. We are all for the children, but common ground was not found in our schools in 2019.

The bridge between vision and relationship is trust. If we do not want to reach that common ground together, there is no need to start or stay engaged in the hard task of getting to a common goal and agreeing to a course of action that has all parties jointly navigating the route.

Genuine effort will not be made if genuine trust cannot be developed.

There is no shared future anywhere, whether it is our local community or internationally, if disparate parties are unable to agree on sharing a common future.

Nationally, there is no common ground if the only course is the scorched earth of winner-take-all conquering. Neither an easy nor an ultimate victory comes via assassination. One sided victories are not possible in Congress or with Iran.

Any side can choose not working together. But that old word “statesmanship” is, by definition, won and proven by the hard effort built from time and trust and therefore relationships. That steady, quiet commitment builds bridges to agreements that advance all parties into a clearer, shared future.

Trust, relationships, agreements, common ground. Each is rhetoric, empty words without personal humility and recognizing the worth of the other side.

For American citizens in 2020, voting is a small, essential matter. But November’s victors are not our solution or salvation at home or abroad.

If we do the hard work of developing a shared vision this year, the result will be proven by our ongoing commitment to maintain the “republic, if you can keep it,” the challenge Benjamin Franklin voiced at the end of the Constitutional Convention.

The only clear certainty is that, as sailors on our Ship of State, we have very rough sailing ahead. And, we cannot get off, either.

Other than that, my crystal ball is clouded with uncertainty.

– Ken Stern