My friend and former classmate Wendy Bilen's book, Finding Josie, has just been released. It's a moving, often surprising story about how Wendy's quest to learn more about her grandmother led her to discover a whole new way of living. A sample:

If her life were mine, would I consider it enough? Would I consider it enough to help a pair of preschoolers or a rejected boy? Would I consider it enough to cook and do laundry for a bunch of misfits? Would I consider it enough to shelter a family of eight children, some of whom don't even like me? Would I consider it enough just to love people in very concrete ways, to serve and give as they come across my path, spending myself on them? I haven't been able to say that I would, and that's one of the most shameful admissions I've ever made.

In looking for a life of greatness, of humanitarian wow, I see now that I deluded myself into thinking it would be possible to help lots of people without much personal cost. Maybe some slide into significance, but I suppose that most have to work at it, one day at a time, one person at a time, as cliché as that may sound. And the truly great never think of these steps as a means to an end but as the end. Your life is the big thing, pain and all. Stop looking, and start living.

(Image © Wisconsin Historical Society Press)