Inspiring and insightful, Our Better Angels: Seven Simple Virtues That Will Change Your Life and the World celebrates the shared principles that unite and enable us to overcome life’s challenges together.
“When the waters rise, so do our better angels.”―President Jimmy Carter
Jonathan Reckford, the CEO of Habitat for Humanity, has seen time and again the powerful benefits that arise when people from all walks of life work together to help one another. In this uplifting book, he shares true stories of people involved with Habitat as volunteers and future homeowners who embody seven timeless virtues―kindness, community, empowerment, joy, respect, generosity, and service―and shows how we can all practice these to improve the quality of our own lives as well as those around us.
A Vietnam veteran finds peace where he was once engaged in war. An impoverished single mother offers her family’s time and energy to enrich their neighbors’ lives. A Zambian family of nine living in a makeshift tent makes room to shelter even more. A teenager grieving for his mother honors her love and memory by ensuring other people have a place to call home. A former president of the United States leads by example with a determined work ethic that motivates everyone around him to be the best version of themselves.
These stories, and many others, illustrate how virtues become values, how cooperation becomes connection, and how even the smallest act of compassion can encourage actions that transform the world around us. Here are tales that will make readers laugh and cry and embrace with passion the calling of our better angels to change the way we take care of ourselves, our families, our communities, and the world.
Jonathan Reckford has served as chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity International since 2005. Under his leadership, Habitat has gone from helping 125,000 individuals annually to more than 8.7 million people last year alone build strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Reckford earned his MBA from Stanford and went on to managerial positions at Goldman Sachs, Marriott, Walt Disney Company, and Best Buy. Reckford also served as executive pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Edina, Minnesota. In 2017, Reckford was named Influencer of the Year by the Nonprofit Times.
Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He authored several bestselling books, including White House Diary and Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Raised on a peanut farm in Plains, Georgia, he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1946 and served in the Navy for seven years before entering politics, becoming governor in 1971. Elected president in 1976, he championed human rights and achieved significant milestones, including the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and the Panama Canal treaties. After his presidency, he and his wife Rosalynn co-founded the Carter Center, a nonpartisan organization working to advance human rights and democracy, resolve conflicts, and relieve suffering from disease and hunger around the world. He lived in Plains, Georgia, until his death in 2024 at age 100.
