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Proyecto Visión 21

Ten years and 260,000 later, what is still unsaid?

Francisco Miraval

Ten years ago, I received the pleasant challenge of writing a weekly commentary, always exactly 500 words.  The idea was to share some ideas and thoughts about everyday issues and about all kind of issues. A decade later, 520 weeks later, 260,000 words later, what is still unsaid and what else can we say?

Regarding what we already said, our gentle readers will decide if there is any truth in our commentaries. Regarding what we can still say, I will summarize my answer in two words: a lot (and always in only 500 words per week.)

We still have many things to say because, first, everything keeps changing. Change has been a constant element in Western civilization since its very beginning and our time is not an exception.

Contrary to what happens in other civilizations and societies, both present and past, where the priority was stability and permanence, in our society everything changes all the time, including both ourselves and our ideas.

In that regard, let me share a couple of examples, one local (Colorado, where I live) and the other one global. In Colorado, this year the state legislature passed many new laws making Colorado a different state from what it was just a few months ago.

Those new laws include rules about the use of recreational marijuana, civil unions, gun control, driver’s licenses and in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, and a new sexual education program at schools. Clearly, these laws mark a change in attitudes and values.

At a global level, Pope Francis recently said that believers are not the only ones that are saved and that Christians should stop being intolerant. No doubts this is a change and Francis’ words could of interest for all “spiritual” persons, affiliated or not with the tradition represented by Francis. (For the record, I do not belong to that tradition.)

I like to say that the future is no longer what is used to be. Therefore, there many more things to be said about ourselves, about what is happening to us, and about what we are becoming.

But if everything is changing is because something remains the same, as early Greek philosophers once said, and it was expressed by a wise person for Antiquity when he said that “There is nothing new under the sun.”

From my personal perspective (very personal, indeed), what remains the same since the beginning is precisely the word, be it in the Greek sense of logos (connection with the cosmos, among many other meanings) or in the Hebrew sense of dabar (creating word.) Those words are not words we say or control, but words that come to us and we listen to, many times without paying any attention.

In summary, we are very grateful to those publications that kindly print our weekly columns and, about all, we are deeply thankful to all our readers, who transform us with their comments and suggestions. We only wish that, in spite of all the changes, our dialogue will continue.

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