Gracious reader,
The anniversary paperback edition of The Soul of Civility is available now!
You can order it on Amazon, or ask your favorite local bookstore to order it through Ingram. I would love for this edition to bring more people into the independent bookstores — essential third places that help our communities thrive.
Last week, I invited you to join the Porching Challenge. Today, I’m delighted to put this new edition in your hands and invite you to read it with others.
There are a few things that make this edition special to me:
A new anniversary preface
A frontispiece hand drawn by yours truly. The image is my attempt to give visual form to an idea at the heart of the book: civilization is a garden, and what grows depends on what we cultivate through our words, habits, and actions.
An invitation to join the Porching Challenge.
The ability to create custom editions of the book tailored to specific communities.
This Sunday, October 25, I’ll be speaking at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church here in Indianapolis. They have ordered 300 copies of a custom St. Luke’s edition, and I’m so excited to serve their community and empower them to build a civic renaissance— right where they are.
Our crisis of dehumanization is more prevalent than ever — and also close to home.
Earlier this year, my own city councilor, Ron Gibson, had his home shot at 13 times while he and his eight-year-old son were inside. A note opposing data centers was left at the house. Thankfully, neither was physically harmed.
Our public leaders are being reduced to their views on controversial issues. A person becomes a position to defeat, rather than a neighbor whose humanity places obligations on us, even when we think that person is wrong.
This is why I wrote The Soul of Civility. Civility is not politeness, manners or technique. It is grounded in respect for human dignity. It asks us to recognize the person before us without giving up our convictions or our responsibility to challenge what we believe is wrong. Agreement is not the goal. Learning to flourish across difference is.
St. Luke’s is choosing to gather people around that possibility. Through a community read and conversation, they are creating an opportunity to ask what they can build together.
You can create that opportunity where you live, too.
Here are a few ways to help launch the paperback and bring its ideas into your community:
1. Order a copy, for yourself or someone you’d like to read it with.
If you’d prefer to support your local bookstore, and I hope you do, here is a short note you can send them:
“I love The Soul of Civility by Alexandra O. Hudson and want it to be available in our community. Could you carry the new anniversary paperback edition so I can order it through you? It’s distributed through Ingram. ISBN: 979-8-9822060-0-8”
2. Join the Porching Challenge.
Gather a few neighbors, friends, or colleagues to read The Soul of Civility together and consider what flourishing across difference could look like in your community. You don’t need an actual porch, and you don’t need to agree with one another to begin.
3. Help someone else discover the book.
Forward this note to someone who might welcome it. Tell your librarian about it. If you’ve read the book, an honest review on Amazon would mean a great deal.
A note about our community
Starting today, everything I publish here is free to read, including more than 400 essays, conversations, and stories from the past few years. These ideas belong to everyone — in the hands of the mayors, pastors, teachers, parents, and neighbors trying to build something good across their differences.
Here’s what you can expect each week: a story of a community choosing renewal over division, an idea from the great thinkers who wrestled with these questions before us, news from porches across the country, and one practical way to act where you live. Each issue will also include a short roundup from my commonplace book: something worth reading, and why it matters.
To those of you who have supported Civic Renaissance as paid subscribers: thank you. You made this possible, and you’re now the patrons who keep it free for everyone. If you’d like to join them, you can become a patron here. Either way, I’m so glad you’re here.
I’m grateful to everyone who has read, shared, questioned, and brought these ideas into their lives over the past three years. This new edition is an invitation to keep building together.
What would you like to cultivate where you are?
I can’t wait to hear what you want to build.
With gratitude,
Lexi
P.S. If you’d like 25 or more copies for your institution, workplace, congregation, or community, reply to this email, and I’ll help you with discounted bulk pricing. For orders of 300 or more, I can create a custom edition with a dedication and a preface written for your community. I would love to hear what you hope to build.