“A bridge between economics and spirituality... ” That is how Dr. Edgar Cahn, co-author of “The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective” and inventor of Time Banking, characterizes his new social structure dedicated to System Change. That is also what this book hopes to inspire: the building of more bridges between social economics and lived spirituality, starting with my community of origin and my spiritual community of choice. My family, Black DC residents for five generations on each side, is an intimate part of DCś African-American community, singing and worshiping at Mt. Zion UMC, St. Augustine's, and St. Lukeś. We also form part of the history of Black-Jewish community cooperation in the city, back to my adoptive great grandfather Adolphus Johnson, who worked as head tailor at Kannś Department store for many years (“Can's” as they used to pronounce it). My mother, Antoinette Bourke, shares recollections of Jewish shop owners Rose and Herman Gerber, who ran a small store on the corner near her home at 1905 Lincoln Rd, NE. The Gerber's and other Jewish-owned shops, like that on the corner of 10th and O St., NW, frequently extended credit to their colored* customers. In starting at Calvin Coolidge Senior High School in 1964 with classmates from the Hebrew Academy, my mother also recalls learning about Jewish culture and sharing diverse heritages in that tense decade after desegregation. At about the same time, in the same city yet another world away, Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn were pioneering Black-Jewish cooperation, on the social and legal fronts. Both DC families, old and new, drew on the faith which had kept them going, and used that faith to inspire hope in a new generation, which took up the torch to carry on the struggle to light the lamp of cooperation across yet more communities.