The author, Bill Shore bshore@strength.org ,
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.
