What is a visionary? It is a person who brings forth something previously unknown, unthought of into our world. There are writers, artists, poets, philosophers and certainly great religious leaders who have been visionaries— who brought from the uncreated realm something new to humanity. In the twentieth century, we think of giants like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa or Picasso or James Joyce. But there are others who have made significant contributions to the well-being of humanity during this century who were also visionaries in their own way. Thomas Edison had over a thousand failures before his first successful lightbulb. It's said that he threw each failed lightbulb out of the window of his second story house, and eventually he had a two-story pyramid of failed bulbs. Someone asked Edison, "How could you continue after a thousand failures?" Edison replied, "They weren't failures— they were just tries that didn't work until, finally, one try did work." May each of us have the perseverance of Edison to bring forth our vision into this world.