Recently, I had the opportunity to read Jon Meacham’s insightful and moving His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope.

John R. Lewis was a politician and civil-rights leader, who devoted his life to end legalized racial segregation in the United States.

As detailed in my new book CALLED, Dr. John R. Schmidt was just out of medical school and his residency in 1941, when he was called to a life of service in Paraguay, South America. Among many other contributions to justice and health in that country, he founded and ran a leprosy hospital for the outcasts and poorest of the poor.

It’s easy for me to view these two men as extraordinary people, whose many extraordinary accomplishments far exceed anything I can come close to: An excuse for me to not do my part in today’s ongoing struggle for peace and justice.

But John R. Lewis admonishes ‘ordinary’ me. “Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.”

And John R. Schmidt was my father. I know that he was an ordinary man. An ordinary man with an extraordinary vision.

The legacies of both John R. Lewis and John R. Schmidt call me to do my part to get into good and necessary trouble to make this world a better and safer place for all.

I hope you’ll take the time to check out both CALLED and His Truth Is Marching On!