The world appears to be swirling with chaos right now. Nothing appears to be working, and all kinds of choices are presenting themselves that are non starters from the get go.

Let’s start with the health care debate, the line that pretty much sums up the situation is the Republican who said "get your government hands off my Medicare." Republican positions are a mass of contradictions, but Democratic positions are out of touch with reality.

Medicare will be bankrupt in eight short years as health costs are spinning out of control for employers and individuals, yet Democrats want to add millions of people to government care, and add preventive care. Noble causes, but according to no less than the Congressional Budget Office they will add to a cost which is already at crisis proportions.

Few commentators are yet dealing with the current reality that in 5-10 years health care will cost a third of the US economy, clearly an impossible position.

But it is not just health care. The economy is getting caught between a rock and a hard place as well. Government stimulus is what is keeping us out of a deepening recession, but as that continues deficits climb. The deteriorating economy is causing deflation over the short term, a bad sign of further weakening, but government efforts to contain it are resulting in massive debt which is eventually going to lead to huge and crippling inflation.

Which way to go?

In the midst of all this doom and gloom there is a quiet but steadily growing drum beat in the background of visionary thinkers putting the pieces together for a new world to rise out of these crumbling structures. New ideas are being put forth, those who are not afraid to see the chaos are picking through it to find their way to the light that lies beyond it.

The chaos is a crisis, and the crisis is going to get worse. But a crisis is an opportunity, and perhaps better put it is the destruction of an order that was failing anyway. The economy is forcing us to face up to problems that we have been avoiding. Is it any surprise to anyone that Social Security and Medicare are going belly up? It is painful to see the old house go down, but unless we clear away the debris we are not going to be able to build anything else in its place.

The most interesting reading now is not the political screamers of blame and partisan positioning, but those of writers who see the crisis and are already thinking past it. Books like "Reset" by Kurt Anderson and "The Tyranny of Dead Ideas" by Matt Miller, or even magazine articles like the recent piece on health care in the Atlantic by David Goldhill are a welcome respite from the noise.

We have had so many structures in place, for our economy, health care, government, and really all areas of society, schools, the way we build, the way we run government, the environment, transportation, pension systems, all in need of fundamental change and this crisis is finally forcing upon us the needed changes. This is actually a good thing, but is also the most unfortunate way to do it because so many will be hurt in the process. But, here we are, and we need to make the most of it.

It is so important now that we listen to the positive voices, that we listen to those with a vision of how there could be a better world out of these ashes.

The problems go all the way down into our very personal lives and social systems. One area that is of vital concern is community building. The major problem with our politics and much of our culture is how isolated and fragmented we have become over the last many decades.

There was a time when people knew all their neighbors, and helped them out on a regular basis. Common values and beliefs were much more widely shared within communities. It would have been much less likely then that a man could hide an enslaved girl in his backyard for 20 years in the middle of a neighborhood.

Our politics has become a disparate collection of special interests all clamoring for special favors for their own group, increasingly at the expense of the larger community.

There is a tremendous human need for belonging that is not being met and is a primary driver of a lot of the mental illness, partisanship, and just plain weirdness that you see more than ever in the world. People are disconnected and fragmented in many ways. We want to reach out, but we don’t know how.

A stronger sense of community and belonging is a needed remedy for our political conundrum. The economy is about to force us to make some difficult choices, and unless and until we reach some kind of consensus on what our values are and what our priorities are, we will be unable to do that. We need to step out of our special interest groups and start to try to relate to and understand other people’s concerns and needs. A new ethic of doing what is best for the community is going to evolve, and not a minute too soon.

Radical change is being forced on us by our own intransigence, and by the failure of many systems of our society. In the end I believe we will be much better off, and now is the time to start building stronger senses of community, of changing our political ethic from special interest and partisan politics to a shared sense of mission.