We Need Imagination Now More Than Ever

Right now, many of us are mired in “crisis management” and trying to imagine the “new normal.” But we may not be able to return to our familiar pre-COVID reality. This makes me think a scene from the Wizard of Oz:

Dorothy: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.”

Glinda the Good Witch: “You’ve always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”

REALM believes the power of imagination — the capacity to create, evolve, and envision of things or situations that don’t yet exist — is the crucial factor in seizing and creating new opportunities, and finding new paths forward.

We help congregations do so much more than merely adapting to their “new normal.” With imagination, we envision alternative futures of life lived differently. In other words, by opening the space for imagination, renewal and adaptive strategies give way to visionary and shaping strategies.

The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s (BVM) imagination journey led them to a partnership with Presbyterian Homes and the co-creation of Mount Carmel Bluffs. Like Dorothy, the BVMs didn’t have to look further than their own backyard.