Light Many Fires: From a Book to a Civic Practice

Light Many Fires began as a book called When We The People Lead, The Leaders Will Follow. It is becoming something more.

The book grew out of a simple but unsettling observation: America’s core problem is not that we are hopelessly polarized. It’s that most people—the exhausted, reasonable 70% majority—have gradually been separated from our sense of agency. We don’t vote regularly, we consume politics as entertainment, and assume that meaningful change is the work of others.

The result is a democracy that is loud and combative on the surface, but thin underneath—low levels of participation.

The book, When We The People Lead, names this condition and argues for a shift in identity: from consumer to citizen. It draws on research about democratic renewal, social trust, and nonviolent change, but it is written for ordinary people—people with jobs, families, doubts, and limited time—who still care about the common good.

As the manuscript took shape, two things became clear: insight alone is not enough and many people don’t read books.

Most of us don’t fail to act because we lack information. We fail because we lack paths. We don’t know where to begin to get our country back on track, or don’t know how to act without burning out or becoming extreme. We sense that democracy requires our participation, but beyond voting, we don’t know what to do.

That realization led to the second half of this project.

From Argument to Experience

Alongside the book is a highly interactive learning experience. It is not a course, a program in the usual sense, includes no PowerPoint slides, and is not partisan training. It is a guided way of helping people:

• Name what is draining their energy and attention

• Understand how disengagement became normal

• Reclaim a sense of agency

• Identify small, concrete ways to participate in strengthening democracy that fit their lives

The learning experience is designed to be used with others—in congregations, book groups, classrooms, community organizations, or informal circles of friends. It emphasizes reflection, discussion, and practice over instruction. The goal is not agreement on policy, but clarity about responsibility.

Where the book asks, “What has gone wrong—and what kind of citizen does this moment require?” the learning experience asks, “What does that mean for you, here, now?”

Why “Light Many Fires”?

Democracy is not sustained by a blaze of charisma or by a calamity-driven moment of unity, like a war or a bad storm. It survives because many people, in many places, choose to act regularly on behalf of something larger than themselves.

When citizens work to improve their neighborhoods and communities, they do more than solve practical problems. They practice the habits democracy depends on. They learn how to listen to people they don’t fully agree with, how to weigh competing needs, how to argue without dehumanizing, and how to accept partial victories. They see that outcomes are shaped not only by ideology, but by preparation, persistence, and coalition-building. In short, they stop being spectators and become participants.

Democracy thrives when civic engagement—in all its forms—is robust. Its fire goes out when we disengage, when politics becomes something we consume, perform, or rage about rather than something we do together. A nation cannot remain self-governing if most of its people no longer practice self-government anywhere in their lives.

Light Many Fires is built on the belief that renewal happens when participation becomes distributed—when people stop waiting for permission or certainty and start showing up where they already have standing: in neighborhoods, schools, faith communities, local boards, mutual aid efforts, and civic conversations that feel closer to home than Washington ever will. These are the places where democratic muscles are exercised, where trust is rebuilt, and where ordinary people rediscover that they are not powerless after all.

What This Site Is For

This website is the public home of that work.

Here you’ll find essays that explore the ideas behind the project, excerpts and reflections related to the book, statements by those who have experienced the learning process and/or the book, and invitations into the learning experience as it evolves. Some posts are analytical, others personal. All are written with the same audience in mind: people who are tired of despair, allergic to extremism, and still quietly committed to democratic life.

If you’re looking for certainty, this may not be the right place. If you’re looking for permission to begin where you are, it might be.

Democracy does not renew itself all at once. It is renewed when many people decide that the common good is worth the effort.

That is what Light Many Fires is for.