CLEVELAND — As a congressman, governor, and presidential hopeful, John Kasich has met many people through his long career in public life. The ones that left the lasting impressions weren't the heads of state but rather the heads of movements that started small but, through the help of community and faith-based institutions, grew to have large and lasting impacts.
"Faith is not just about, you know, kind of what you think, but it's also about what you do," Kasich said.
What he's done is put together a collection of stories telling how people through their churches, synagogues, mosques have tackled everything from hunger to human trafficking, literacy, autism and more and put them into his latest book "Heaven Help Us: How Faith Communities Inspire Hope, Strengthen Neighborhoods, and Build the Future."
"What this book allows you to do is to find, I hope, to find a purpose for your life, and secondly, in the process of finding that purpose building a stronger community," he said. "I get so excited talking about it, because I'm being lifted to talk about these things. And I know that this is a solution for many of the things that ails our country and can bring us together. Because when you get involved in a project and fixing something, it's amazing. The people you're working with, they don't care who you voted for. It can turn enemies into friends."
Something lacking in society with the political divide often taking precedence over issues of importance.
"As somebody told me the other day, once we feed all the hungry and we help all the poor and we help heal the sick in whatever way we can, then we can start talking about this political, you know, mumbo-jumbo. But in the process, in the meantime, let's find the real meaning of faith, which, again, is love, forgiveness, grace, all those kinds of things," he said.
Kasich continues to follow closely the latest from Washington, especially the ongoing battle over tariffs.
"It was an unforced error. We shot ourselves in the foot. We really hurt the markets," Kasich said of the all-over-the-place approach. "Look, some of these countries have had free rides, but we didn't need to do it with a sledgehammer, we didn't declare them as our enemies. These are people have depended on us for many, many years.
"Here's what's happened, because of our incapability of really defending Ukraine, and because of this whole tariff business, there are people around the world, leaders around the world, who kind of wonder who America is today. It's created doubt. And with doubt, doubts are one of the most serious problems we have in life."
Another reason he said he wanted to stress the positive in this latest project, highlighting how change in your own communities can come from the bottom up.
"What this book allows you to do is to find, I hope, to find a purpose for your life and secondly in the process of finding that purpose building a stronger community," he said.
