St. Joe 2.0: Geography of Faith
The goal of this experimental, collaborative map is to create a LIVE map of real estate consumers who are praying to St. Joseph to help buy or sell a homes. Over the past decade, the press has written repeatedly on the practice of burying St. Joseph statues upside down to help sell homes. The location of some articles and blog posts are shown on the maps with selected pull quotes, and others will be added on an ongoing basis. While some ask whether the practice is superstitious, others are devoted to it. The St. Joe 2.0 map is open to both communities of thought. To those who promote the practice or are experimenting with it (estimates run from "hundreds of thousands" to two million households annually), we invite you to add the location of your home to the map, including photos, links to listing, and most importantly, your personal experience. We are particularly interested in thoughtful reflections of your experience from a spiritual perspective, rather than the specific results of your real estate transaction. (Those who have experienced some form of divine intervention in the past are also invited to map the location of the home you bought or sold and share your story.) To those who think the practice of burying St. Joseph statues upside-down is "misguided," we invite you to help recreate a more meaningful ritual or expression of faith consistent with Catholic Social Teachings; and to share ideas and initiatives with us. Here's a one example, plus a 60 second video, inviting real estate consumers to honor St. Joseph by responding to the needs of millions of AIDS orphans. According to the executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, "orphaned children remain the most orphaned element of the global AIDS response. The UN estimates that there will be 20 million children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS by 2010, and only 3 to 5 percent of these children receive any care and support." Against that backdrop, the ultimate goal of this interactive map is to create a meeting place for those who believe spirituality and spiritual practice, from every faith tradition, have a place in real estate; and to share the diversity of those expressions on an interactive map which reflect our collective geography of faith or our spiritual home. Between March 19th and May 1st, the two Catholic feast days devoted to St. Joseph, we invite: (1) Boggers to link their posts to the map: and (2) Religious bookstores and websites who sell St. Joseph to place a link, banner ad, or Widget on your website. (Better yet, post a regional version of this map to your site, so your clients can add the location of their home and personal testimony using photos, audio, or video directly to the map); and (3) Fellow real estate philanthropists (like RealtyBridge.com and DonateAtClosing.org) who can use the St. Joe 2.0 map to invite millions of home buyers and sellers to "give a percent of the proceeds from your sale" to a charitable cause as recommended by Author Stephen Binz in his book, St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent (see page 111). To help everyone get started, we've set Platial's new Slider to automatically locate existing churches, hospitals, schools, and other places which use the keyword: "St. Joseph." Contact The Real Estate Cafe at realestatecafe [at] gmail [dot] com for more details, or call us at 617-661-4046. NEWS FLASH: Special thanks to Inman News for their article: 'St. Joe 2.0' samples the many forms of faith. Readers are invite to participate in one of our upcoming LIVE chats to discuss the article or map.