With all the hoopla surrounding the "Hillary" and "Harry" books, and since I must choose good, hot reads anyway before I go on vacation (June 26-July 6), I am devoting this column to books that make a difference. Here I review and commend five books, four of which made the New York Times Bestseller List. Pick one to mentor you. Tell your friends, and let me know if you'd like to discuss the book further.

The first two are pithy but quick reads (finished in a week or two), both commended by a colleague of 29 years who knew my growing edge.

Thinking for a Change by John Maxwell (Warner Books, 2003) identifies 11 ways that highly successful people approach life and work. The book's title is a pun that challenges us to change our thinking style if we want to change our world and ourselves. Maxwell is both inspirational (with memorable quotes from famous people) and practical (with many how-to's, quizzes, and ideas for action). As a personal and professional mentor to many CEOs, Maxwell shows us "big-picture" (beyond-our-own-needs) thinking, "focused" (no distractions) thinking, "creative" (out-of-the-box) thinking, "shared" (collaborative, team-building) thinking, and much more. The chapter on "reflective thinking" helped me dream dreams, draw insights from three decades of ministry, and tap into my deepest desires. These dreams, decades and desires then took shape in MOM's Annual Report for 2002, released just this week (available upon request or on our web site).

The second book, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of A Man's Soul by John Eldridge (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), I read just in time for Father's Day. This provocative book delves deeply into the heart to explore the desires, passions and dangers that lie within every man's soul. Eldridge laments that most men have lost their boyhood dream of being a hero, being a warrior, living a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, many men--aided by a wimpy Christianity--become nothing more than "really nice guys" who avoid church and are too often passive and bored to death. Other men have ventured out, only to die at a soul-level from the wounds from the wounds inflicted by self or others. There is a battle raging within and a war without, and we must take our stand for authentic masculinity without resorting to a "macho man" (aggressive) mentality. I'm still using this book to figure out my deepest longings before sharing it with my wife - for fear she might figure me out first.

While the first two deal with mind and heart, the next two books on my summer must-read list deal with family and work.

Final Gifts, by hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley (Bantam Books, 1992), is a tearjerker, at least for me. I get weepy and squeamish when faced with death. When a loved one is dying, I hardly know what to say, what to do, even how to listen or what to look for. No more. After reading this insightful and helpful book, I will be in a position to understand the special awareness, needs and communications of the dying. I will then give this book to my mother, a hospice volunteer. She's held hands with two dozen dying friends, bearing witness in her silent tradition to our eternal hope.

Since I help train Stephen Ministers for this work of care-giving (as reported in this column two months ago), and since I am losing my own dad (at 91 years of age, with Alzheimer's), it behooves me to rehearse and prepare for death all that I can. Now, through Final Gifts, I am experiencing death vicariously through the many beautiful first-person and second-hand stories collected by Callanan and Kelley. The authors hear and see so much more in the communications of those near death that I will never again slough off the mutterings of the dying as just so much "confusion." Neither will you, after reading Final Gifts.

The fourth gift on my reading list lifts up the millions who are trying to eek out a living on poverty-level wages. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich, is a book one must read and pass along to friends. The MOM staff will be reading this one--as may Mayor Doug Zwank's Affordable Housing Commission, if they have the time and inclination. Reading the book will change the way we see the working poor in our own community. This New York Times bestseller capitalizes on Welfare Reform, which is a bit ironic, since the author has genuine passion, humor and insight and moral outrage at how the "other side" lives.

To test the welfare mantra that "any job leads to a better life," the author lived out an experiment, as she moved from serving in Florida, to scrubbing in Maine, to selling in Minnesota. Everywhere she went, Ehrenreich took low-wage jobs--wait staff, nursing home aide, Wal-Mart sales clerk, house-cleaner, and hotel maid--to support herself and afford even the cheapest lodgings. She discovered what millions of Americans already know--that tremendous mental agility, physical effort, and emotional balance is required to survive. The desperate survivor strategies shown in this nitty-gritty book convey--with equal parts outrage and humor--how low-wage America has been "nickel and dimed" (almost) to death. MOM clients and most readers of Nickel and Dimed will agree that jobs are not enough, that minimum-wage jobs require public subsidies, and that making a life takes more than making a living.

The last book on my recommended reading list, Fundraising for Social Change by Kim Klein (Josey Bass, 2001), will help me to do something about the injustice of being "nickel and dimed." This masterful textbook on grassroots fundraising is essential reading for small nonprofits. It's the "Bible" for fundraisers like the MOM board and me. We have no development department; rather, fundraising is part of an overall plan of work. I don't expect any of you to read it, but I'd better--if I expect to meet all the financial challenges presently facing MOM.

© 2003 Middleton Outreach Ministry

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