In Waltham’s First Parish UU, 5-10 parishioners get together once a month to discuss a book on social action. In Waltham we are currently reading Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time by Paul Rogat Loeb. Each month we discuss three chapters and the relevance of the messages to our own social action work.

Also in the queue for future discussions:

• Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam and/or Better Together by Putnam and Cohen – addresses the decline in social capital in America and what can be done to address our need to connect w/ each other and to rebuild our communities. Better Together provides some intriguing case studies/best practices including a very intriguing youth service project.
  
• Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and Relin – a saga of how one man literally stumbled upon an urgent social need and the transformational process he has used to build many schools in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
  
• Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block - an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation: How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? He explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.

  What’s great about these books is that they talk about how even small and simple social action builds powerful people, communities and results.... issues at the heart of many UU dialogues these days.