Why write a memoir? Especially, why write a second memoir? My earlier one, A Little Left of Center (DreamSeeker Books), was published in 2000. It highlighted my family background and my professional life. What more can be said? Quite a bit if I would find the energy to pull it together.

On occasion when I meet old friends, they ask what I am “doing.” Others are more specific: “What are you writing?” Well of course, as editor of Gospel Herald from 1973 to 1990, I used to write nearly every week. Perhaps this memoir is to demonstrate that I can still write.

I hope the following variations on a theme will provide a unified message. We composers of memoirs write partly to justify ourselves. This volume might be characterized as a confession: a confession of faith; a confession of accomplishments; and especially in the chapters on housing and transportation, a confession of involvement with some systems that probably do not have long-term durability. They are based on environmental exploitation that is not sustainable.

I acknowledge that I have been a part of this losing battle over the natural resources. I hope that solutions will be found to the environmental dilemmas and that human life on this planet may continue, but the signals are not all hopeful. Some who would be in a position to do something about the problem resist the evidence, and others are distracted by what seem to them to be more pressing problems.

In the meantime people of faith are invited to present the good news and to accompany this with responsible efforts to protect the environment. I hope they will respond to these opportunities.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania