Holistic Hardware: Tools That Build Lives

Faith-based Life and Job Skills for Restoring Lives in Crisis

by Joseph H. Holland


Formats

Hardcover
$28.96
Softcover
$19.62
Hardcover
$28.96

Book Details

Language :
Publication Date : 21/07/2000

Format : Hardcover
Dimensions : 5.5x8.5
Page Count : 164
ISBN : 9780738822785
Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 5.5x8.5
Page Count : 164
ISBN : 9780738822792

About the Book

The broken life is like a fallen house; to rebuild it, both the person hurting and the person helping must have all the proper tools and know how to use them.

Holistic Hardware is for individuals whose lives have fallen apart - anyone plagued by perpetual crisis. We’re all familiar with someone in destabilizing straits: the recovering addict who’s once again falling in with the wrong crowd; the relative whose reckless lifestyle has put stability and sanity in jeopardy; the homeless person who lives in the shadow of your residence, workplace, or commuting station; the coworker whose personal problems increase your workload and create tension in the entire office; or the friend whose recent unemployment has left him tottering on the edge of despair.

Broken people are not just those who are homeless, jobless, welfare dependent, incarcerated, or downtrodden by abuse or discrimination. Brokenness also encompasses those with less obvious problems - the hidden crises - people who want to grow beyond challenges that keep them at the threshold of extremity but don’t how to overcome them. The holistic tools can also be used wherever and whenever people are facing seeming insurmountable personal obstacles and sincerely want to change.  

And they are also for the person helping - the minister, counselor, social worker, mentor, or volunteer - anyone, in fact, with the desire and the heart to uplift another.

Perhaps you’re a soup-line volunteer with customers whose only aspiration seems to be making it back in line for free food the next day, week, or month; or you’re a mentor trying to steer a young person who lacks purpose and consistency toward a better future; or you help out in a homeless shelter serving residents who seem more interested in “three hots and a cot” than in creating a future beyond their temporary abode; or you’re a “home missions” church member really wanting to make a difference as you outreach to residents of a distressed community.

In short, the tools of this book can equip you with the spiritual resources and practical guidance to transform your own life; or they can help you make a difference in the life of someone in need, turning your heartfelt concern into effective compassion.  

Effective compassion is not easy. You should not underestimate the sacrificial, taxing, painstaking effort entailed in really making a difference in another’s life. The difficulty of successfully applying these tools comes not from the complexity of the process but from the level of the commitment it requires. Helping someone in crisis may be the greatest challenge that you will ever undertake, but it will also be the most rewarding. The seeds of progress you’ll plant are always worth the seasons of pain you’ll endure.

Using the tools requires personal change, a dual change - growth in the person hurting and the person helping alike. The former grows stronger to overcome personal crisis; the latter must grow spiritually to make compassion effective. The win-win is that both parties, having endured the often-stormy process of change, are better people. They become interdependent partners in each other’s spiritual progress.

The holistic tools are complementary. They break down into two categories, the two sections of this book:

1) Spiritual or life skills tools impart the values needed for attaining and maintaining self-sufficiency. The ten spiritual tools are responsibility, vision, self-esteem, faith, love, discipline, association, planning, work, and wealth;

2) Practical or job skills tools use a series of mnemonics that impart the strategies needed for attaining and maintaining gainful employment. The ten practical tools are harvest, productivity, skills, search, resume, correspondence, application, marketing, interview, and transition.

Though these tools are best us


About the Author

Joseph H. Holland is perhaps best known as the Harvard Law School graduate who has devoted most of his adult life to rehabilitating and creating economic opportunity for the homeless in New York City’s Harlem community. Joe has worked as a lawyer, entrepreneur, state official, motivational speaker, and playwright. He also started the Harkhomes shelter for the homeless, where he developed a holistic strategy for people in crisis. This approached evolved into holistic hardware, tools that build lives, the subject of this book.