in-between, we don’t have much to write home about. When things get bad enough, we just make a new beginning, which we are very good at doing. Or we set a new goal or “vision” or “mission statement,” as we call it, which temporarily distracts us from what is going on right around us. Let me paraphrase something that Pope John Paul II once said as he addressed a group of leaders from Third World countries: Don’t look at the Western nations for models in your development.