I recently read two non-fiction books, each very inspiring:
Whose Child is This? by Bill Wilson and
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle. Both authors have dedicated their lives to living their faith by working daily in some of the most challenging neighborhoods in the country.
Wilson lives in a very rough part of Brooklyn, and runs one of the largest Sunday School programs in the country. Having been abandoned by his mother as a child, he has paid forward the kindness shown to him by a mechanic, who sent him to a church camp that changed his life.
Boyle is a Jesuit priest who lives in Los Angeles in the middle of gang territory. He started Homeboy Industries, a group of workplaces where former gang members are hired, often to work side by a side a former enemy. Boyle speaks about the tragic childhoods of many of these young men, who have managed to choose a different path for themselves.
Both men greatly humanize people in the most challenging of circumstances. As Boyle says, "Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it."
Both men also minimize their own "heroics" in choosing their vocations, sending the message instead that they have gained as much as they have given.
Regardless of your personal beliefs, there is something to take from these books for anyone who is interested in people...in the humanity that connects us all and how to bridge that which threatens to divide us.