"Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future"

Pope Francis has a vision for a better world. It is founded on scripture, but in an interview conducted this year he articulated in profound and moving language humanity's current plight, its underlying causes, and a way to a better life for all.

This is worthwhile reading for EVERYONE. It is a message of hope in a disillusioned world characterized by alienation, suspicion, intolerance, indifference, smoldering anger, ignorance, selfishness, and an array of existential threats.

I will be posting excerpts periodically.

PROLOGUE

"I see this time as a reckoning... there are crises, like the one we’re going through, that you can’t avoid...If you get through it, you come out better or worse, but never the same.

"We are living a time of trial...we are all tested in life. It’s how we grow.

"In the trials of life, you reveal your own heart...Normal times are like formal social situations: you never have to reveal yourself. 

"In moments of crisis you get both good and bad...Some spend themselves in the service of those in need, and some get rich off other people’s need. 

"It’s not just particular individuals who are tested, but entire peoples. 

"In a crisis there’s always the temptation to retreat...but there are situations when it is neither right nor human to do so. 

"...we have to revise and modify our roles and habits in order to emerge from the crisis as better people. 

"... change...will come only from compassion and service...The world is always being made. 

"...we’re—if I can stretch the word—co-creators.

"We can slide backward, or we can create something new.

"Just look at the figures, what a nation spends on weapons, and your blood runs cold. Then compare those figures with UNICEF’s statistics on how many children lack schooling and go to bed hungry, and you realize who pays the price for arms spending. In the first four months of this year, 3.7 million people died of hunger...Arms spending destroys humanity.

"How will we deal with the hidden pandemics of this world, the pandemics of hunger and violence and climate change?

"If we are to come out of this crisis less selfish than we went in, we have to let ourselves be touched by others’ pain...the danger that threatens in a crisis is never total; there’s always a way out.

"This is a moment to dream big, to rethink our priorities—what we value, what we want, what we seek—and to commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of... Come, let us talk this over. Let us dare to dream.

"...We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded, and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that impact their lives.

"...what is revealed is the fallacy of making individualism the organizing principle of society. We need a movement of people who know we need each other, who have a sense of responsibility to others and to the world. We need to proclaim that being kind, having faith, and working for the common good are great life goals that need courage and vigor...

"I see an overflow of mercy spilling out in our midst. Hearts have been tested. The crisis has called forth in some a new courage and compassion.

"That fills me with hope that we might come out of this crisis better."