Last weekend I finished an OK read called The Cathedral Within by Bill Shore. I was looking for some inspiring stories of people who are doing amazing things in the non-profit world. I found a few such examples, but I had to dig through a lot of nonsense to get there.
Much of the book seemed to meander around pointlessly, with dozens of pages talking about the authors kids and his relationships with them. Nothing wrong with that, except that's not what the book was supposed to be about. If the author was drawing a metaphor, it was completely lost on me.
I suppose my key take away was the need for non-profits to develop permanent organizations (i.e. just like cathedrals, meant to last forever) that deliverage widespread, large-scale results to the world's problems. Too many people with great intentions get so caught up in the emotions of their charitable work that they lose sight of the big picture, resulting in hopelessly minimized results.
They can't all be great reads, I suppose. Fortunately I just received a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate - by-passing my long-time embargo on the buying of new books - so I've got new inventory to dive into soon. I'm half way through an interesting history on pre-Muslim India now, details coming soon.
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