Who are your current most favourite people?
Sometimes the people influencing you most aren’t the ones you see every day, but the ones whose words you carry quietly in your pocket. If I could send postcards to the thinkers and voices grounding me right now, they might look like this.
Postcard to Kate Bowler
Dear Kate,
Thank you for naming the places where life is heavy and good all at once.
Your honesty steadies me more than you know.
Postcard to Parker Palmer
Dear Parker,
Your pages remind me to lead with integrity rather than performance.
You’ve taught me that courage can be quiet.
Postcard to Andrew Leigh
Andrew,
Thank you for reminding me that public life can be intelligent, decent, and generous. Your work keeps my civic imagination awake.
Postcard to Tracy Westerman
Tracy,
Nothing stops you. Nothing.
Thank you for widening my understanding of justice with grounded, necessary truth.
Postcard to Nick Cave
Nick,
Your words give grief its own strange beauty.
Thank you for showing that lament can rise into something like grace.
Postcard to Wendell Berry
Wendell,
Your poems slow me down in all the right ways.
Thank you for keeping my imagination close to land and neighbourliness.
Postcard to Phil Cummins
Phil,
Your work reminds me that character isn’t theory but practice.
Thank you for being a steady companion in forming communities that shape people well.
If these postcards ever reached their destinations,
I hope each one would carry this simple message:
Your voice has been a gift to me. Thank you.
The Afterword 
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