Comment from the Author

Hi, I’m Jack Calhoun and welcome to the world of HOPE MATTERS with a peak at my new book:

Mary Gonzalez strolls the streets of Chicago’s meatpacking district every evening, keeping a watchful eye over “her” neighborhood kids. Tony Ortiz encourages young men in California state prisons to break free of the brutal gang life he once knew all too well. Joe Hynes, Brooklyn’s district attorney, champions women and children, not wanting them to suffer as he suffered.

They, and the twenty-one other amazing people interviewed are reshaping lives and communities across America. They include Christians of every denomination, Muslims, Jews, and others, some who pray five times a day and some who are, frankly, “not that religious.”

But there’s much more to the story.

You may have heard of some of these Americans. Several are in the news. The good works of all shine brightly in their communities. What you haven’t heard about is the underlying force, the hidden source of their seemingly endless energy and selflessness.

It is faith—a deep and, in some cases, unsuspected spirituality. They have the unshakeable sense that they work not only for their organizations—and each individual they encounter—but especially for God.

I was once an eager divinity school student, hungry to make a difference. Through the years I rose to national prominence in the field of public policy, spending twenty-plus years as the founding president of the National Crime Prevention Council. However, something wasn’t right. Caught up in a parade of committee meetings, speaking engagements, and policy and program initiatives, I had lost touch with the bedrock of my vocation. It took an encounter with an unusually clear-sighted volunteer to reconnect my daily work to my faith in God.

Reinvigorated, I embarked on a two-year cross-country quest to find out how faith motivates some of America’s hardest-working public servants. They pursue a range of innovative and ambitious plans to help their communities, and their accomplishments are impressive. And all are people whose shared faith tells them, “I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper.”

Some recent books have laid divisiveness and hostility at faith’s door. Hope Matters brings to light the togetherness and reconciliation that faith truly engenders when good people heed its call to action. I wrote this book to give a worried, tense public the other side of the faith story—an affirming, joyous side. I want these stories to inspire people to ask, “How can I be there for my neighbor?” Is there a more important question as we go through life together?

Mary, Tony, Joe and the rest have no sermon or script to follow. They are grounded in a ministry of open arms and second chances—and their stories just might inspire you to make your own “place of worship” a little bigger.

Jack Calhoun,
President of Hope Matters
For further information and to read an excerpt from the book, visit my web site: www.hopematters.org

To order copies of Hope Matters, please call toll free at 1-800-953-9929 or visit www.BartlebythePublisher.com