Will D. Campbell, a Protestant preacher and social activist, describes his seventeenth book of meditations as "bubblings from the depths of one man's soul." The author of Brother to a Dragonfly has made a vocation out of disturbing the comfortable in the name of God. Dom Helder Camara counseled that we must carry a reverence for justice as a mother carries a reverence for her unborn child. Campbell has fulfilled this high and holy calling in his life and writings.
With typical prophetic sharpness, the author suggests the following solution for the problem of the homeless: "Let every congregation adopt one person who lives on the streets. Ask no questions as to their worthiness. Who among us is worthy? Just find them a lodging, a job, friends — give them hope." Instead of just attacking protestors outside a prison crying "Fry the bastard!" Campbell reflects on his own culpability as he recalls a time when he celebrated the death penalty just as crudely by exalting the killing of hundreds of thousands of Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. He also has some startling things to say about race relations, flag burning, ethnic cleansing, legislated morality, and the killing of children in our history.
