In the last two weeks, I’ve spent a total of about 46 hours sitting in planes. What to do with such a time-span becomes a challenge.Some hours I spent sleeping (although not as many as I’d have liked); some were spent watching films (although the ones I really wanted to see weren’t showing and the ones that were available I’d either already seen or hadn’t bothered to see previously – and for good reasons). Which left a good few hours which couldn’t all be filled with eating.
So, I played “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” on the on-board screen. In fact, I played lots of games of “Who…..?” Part of the challenge was that the version available was an English one so there were (for a Kiwi) some pretty obscure questions which occasionally meant an embarrassing exit from competition on the first question or (and even more annoyingly) a crashing halt one round short of becoming a millionaire because I didn’t know the answer to a very localised question.
Nor were the so-called “Helps” a great deal of use – particularly when “Phone a friend” produced such helpful responses as “I haven’t got a clue but I’m sure it’s B” (and it wasn’t!).
However, just before landing in Auckland from Singapore I finally made it to being a millionaire: success I can attribute to a number of factors including having had the opportunity to play the game for hours and so having seen all the correct answers to each question over time. As a result, I can claim that it is possible to become a millionaire in this game if one (a) has a good memory and (b) sits in a plane for at least 30 hours.
That, of course, isn’t the only way to win the game.
Another way is put forward in the film “Slumdog Millionaire”, which has won a number of Oscars. The film is based on the book Q and A which I wrote about in the Newsletter of December 2005 (and this might therefore be the first instance of where I’ve used a film for my article after I’ve already used the book!).
Back then, I wrote that “Essentially, Q and A reminds us never to underestimate the potential in each person, nor to underestimate the value of a person’s life experiences (including our own).”
The book is excellent; the film is also very good – but the focus isn’t quite the same. Inevitably, there are concessions that need to be made to the story line in order to compress it into two hours and to make it appealing to a wide cross-section. The result, I think, is a film is well worth seeing in its own right – but it doesn’t have the same depth or impact as the book on which it is based.
In a sense, Q and A could be said to be a vision of what life could be for someone apparently totally disadvantaged in modern-day India while “Slumdog Millionaire” could be called a dream.
Is there a difference? I think so – and I think it’s fundamental to the way we approach things.
It’s hardly new, of course. We’re all familiar with the words of the prophet Joel: “Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions”. (Joel 2:28)
We, too, have a Vision Statement which has come from last year’s Chapter.
It’s a statement we will each to be asked to reflect on – individually and in Communities – as part of this year’s pre-15 March material. It’s a statement we will hear and read a lot about over the next few years because it is absolutely fundamental to where we are heading as a Province.
And because it is so fundamental, I think it’s good to begin the year by reflecting on it in general.
For a start, we could look at some differences between a “dream” and a “vision”. A dream, it could be said, focuses on what might have been; or was; or never can be. A vision, on the other hand, focuses on what could be or is possible.
And its worth keeping in mind who, according to Joel, does each! Old men dream dreams; young men see visions.
On that basis – and looking at the age structure of the Province – we might well wonder why the Chapter didn’t produce a Dream Statement. Physically, we are not young – and we’re not getting younger (“The Curious Life of Benjamin Button” is not a film about life in the Society of Mary nor of individual Marists!).
But we don’t have a Dream Statement – we have a Vision Statement because the Chapter has called us to live something: and in the very act of living it, we have life and energy.
The greatest way to kill off any energy and hope in the Vision Statement will be to either actually or mentally laminate it and hang it on a wall either in our own rooms or in the Community Room!
By its nature, the Vision Statement says we have somewhere to go and that we are not there yet. It’s asking of us energy and commitment.
In some ways, it is our version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” It’s called “Who Wants To Be a New Zealand Marist in 2012?”.
To be part of it we will – individually and as Communities and as a Province – have to answer questions over the next four years that demand something of us, including taking risks.
That response will be based on prayer and on our special relationship to Mary. There will be times when we will need to use the life-lines that are provided: to Phone a Friend (in other words, to listen to our confreres); to Ask the Audience (the people we work for and with) and to take the 50- 50 option: when we’ll be on our own and will have to make our personal individual responses to what is being asked of us by the Province.
To live the Vision Statement, we don’t have to sit in a plane for hours or see all the correct answers before we finally succeed. But to have a chance of succeeding in responding to what the Chapter is asking of us, the first question we each have to respond to is: “Am I willing to take part?”