CASA Share: Dreaming of the Saints Next Door!
Have you seen the Pope’s new book, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future? It encourages people to dream bold new futures coming out of the pandemic. Mine is to start something called “CASA Share.” CASA stands for Community, Arts, Spirituality & Activism.
Imagine a national network of existing homes or BePods that you share with trusted, kindred spirits who share your values. If you’re an active baby boomer with grand kids in more than one city, CASA Share would allow you to spend time with each of them, rotating by season and enjoying a “gap quarter.” We’re not going to live forever, so the gap quarter would allow you to Dream Big as the Pope encourages — to do some kind of mission work, explore Life Reimagined or make that long-awaited adventure.
Here are some excerpts from the Guardian’s review of the Pope’s book to seed your dreams to a better, shared future:
http://bit.ly/LetUsDream_GuardianUK (share on social media)
“As patients fought for breath in overwhelmed intensive care wards, our streets fell silent and lockdown brought the world to a shuddering halt. Calamities such as this, says Francis, can be a “threshold” experience, dividing one era from another. “This is a moment to DREAM BIG,” he writes, “to rethink our priorities – what we value, what we want, what we seek – and commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of.
The Covid crisis, argues the Pope, has given the lie to a “’myth of self-sufficiency”…The doorstep applause for the nurses and doctors risking their lives, and the key workers who kept essential services going, was a collective lightbulb moment: THEY ARE THE SAINTS NEXT DOOR who have awoken something important in our hearts … the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves: not preserving ourselves, but losing ourselves in service. What a sign of contradiction to the individualism and self-obsession and lack of solidarity that so dominate our wealthier societies!’”
Different spiritual traditions offer ways to TRANSFORM PAIN into growth, “…those turning points – “personal Covids” reset the dial of individual lives.” The Guardian’s review recognizes, Let Us Dream as the holy father’s call for fraternal care:
If we “…let ourselves be touched by others’ pain,” the pandemic can become “…a launchpad for a new politics of the common good.”
The Guardian concludes, “this book should be read as a work of prophecy and hope rather than analysis. In the final section, Francis writes that Covid has taught us ‘no one is saved alone’.
‘Fraternity,’ the pope insists, ‘is the new frontier.’
Let Us Dream thus joins a growing body of Covid-era literature calling for a communitarian reset of liberal values and institutions.”
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It’s not the first time that communitairan thinking has sought to build Heaven on Earth. There’s an exhibit at The Fruitlands Museum in Harvard Massachusetts called “Recruiting for Utopia” is in it’s final two weekends. Any potential homebuyers or fellow baby boomers who live in New England want to visit together before it ends 3/21/21?
Alternatively, you can watch the four part video overview of the exhibit as we read and discuss the Pope’s book? Let’s see what can learn from Utopian dreamers who have gone before us!
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