From the Author
A conversation about giving something back.For me, the most exciting aspect of a book's publication is its potential to create a kind of conversation, between you and me, about issues important to both of us.
I recently received a handwritten letter from a friend who left his job. He wrote "What I want to do next, in addition to making some dough, is something that counts." The letter was from Mike McCurry, President Clinton's former press secretary, and I started my book with a account of it because the sentiment seemed so universal.
Doing something that counts. Something that not only makes a difference, but has a lasting impact. It's a basic human need, like water or calcium. We can actually get by with surprisingly little of either, but we hold together better and longer when we get regular servings of each. There's a better analogy. We need it like we need love. It's the need we aren't sure how to talk about but that makes us feel whole.
In addition to the book's general themes of giving something back and creating "community wealth" and social change in a way that lasts, The Cathedral Within deals with two other issues that are especially topical
First, if the new wealth being created by our booming economy is spent to solve social problems in the same old ways, we will have tragically squandered our greatest opportunity to reverse the fortunes of America's most at-risk children. A new breed of social entrepreneurs across America is not focusing on inventing new social programs, but rather on making the most effective existing efforts affordable, replicable and sustainable.
Second, and related, is that the persistence of hunger, homelessness, and a variety of other social ills, particularly in the face of our sustained economic growth and prosperity, suggests we don't know how to solve such problems. But such evidence is deceptively easy to misinterpret. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are not many social problems in the United States we don't know how to solve. In one community or another, innovative approaches to hunger, homelessness, illiteracy, infant mortality, teenage pregnancy, and other seemingly intractable conditions have been developed, tested and proven. What we have not succeeded at is making those solutions sustainable, replicable, or grow to scale.
That, and more, is what the book is really about. I'd love to know what you think of it.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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