The dictionary defines intention as an idea that you plan to carry out; a goal or purpose or aim; something you mean to do whether you do it or not. In this context the intention is often self-focused, on our own plans, and not looking to a far and elevated horizon.
If we look deeper into the word though, we find something different, more profound and, perhaps, more suited to the times in which we live.
Its Latin meaning is to ‘stretch out’ and to ‘turn your attention to something.’ Further back, in very early English, it also meant ‘heart, mind or understanding’ alongside ‘purpose or aspiration’. These meanings take us beyond the more immediate and self-centred aims at the heart of our more casual application of intention and into something deeper, higher and perhaps greater good focused.
In a world that is uncertain and increasingly fractured, where challenges mushroom daily, where the possibility of better is so tenuous, our attention to intentions for a better world are surely worthy of our energy and striving.
Each of us can take a lead in this, in actions small or large, holding (in those Latin and old English descriptions) an aspiration for a better world in our hearts and minds. We can take this aspiration/intention into our deep reflection and we can stretch out consciously with every thought, word, and deed in service of its realisation…
That peace in the Middle East holds and deepens, that the war in Ukraine (and wherever there is conflict) ends, that we begin to erode the iniquities of our world, that we work together to solve our problems, and that we begin to recognise each other as fellow souls in unity.