At different times in my life, different parts of the credo have loomed larger in my mind. When I was young and trying to decide what to do with my life, “do all the good” provided a guide. In 1970, as an intern for Marian Wright Edelman, I attended Senate hearings on the mistreatment of migrant farmworkers by large corporations and ran into several classmates from Yale Law School who had summer jobs at fancy white-shoe law firms. They told me they were learning how to buff up a corporate client’s dented reputation. For a moment I imagined what it would be like to spend my career doing that kind of work. Then I thought, Do all the good. I told them the best way for their clients to improve their image would be to treat their workers better.
Instead of corporate law, I decided in law school to focus on how the law could better protect children and families. I started consulting with the medical staff at Yale New Haven Hospital about child abuse, a problem that in the early 1970s was just starting to be acknowledged. I accompanied doctors on their rounds and saw children whose parents had beaten or burned them, left them alone for days in squalid apartments, or failed or refused to seek necessary medical care. One father who brought in his badly injured three-year-old claimed that he had beaten the boy to “get the devil out of him.” I was horrified. Could I stomach being a children’s advocate in a society that allows kids to be abused and exploited like this? Do all the good.
That’s what propelled me to a life of service, doing all the good I could in all the ways I could. As Marian often said, “Service is the rent we pay for living.”
Later, when I became First Lady, senator, and secretary of state, my horizons were wider, and there were more ways to do good and in more places. I traveled the world, speaking out for human rights and women’s rights, working to make peace and fight poverty. As secretary, I visited 112 countries. People would ask me: Why are you spending your time worrying about an LGBTQ+ activist in Uganda or helping women in India get cleaner cookstoves? Why are you going to places like little Togo, in West Africa, where no secretary of state had ever been before?
In all the ways you can, in all the places you can.
These days, I find myself thinking more and more about the end of Wesley’s famous phrase: do all the good you can… as long as ever you can. I may no longer be a high government official. I can’t write legislation or sign treaties. But I can still try to do a lot of good. You’ve read about some of it in this book. Teaching young people. Helping Afghan women escape persecution. Working with women bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. Supporting candidates and causes on the front lines of democracy. Trying every day to be a generous friend and a devoted mother, grandmother, aunt, and wife. I have no intention of slowing down. There’s no retirement from doing good, no statute of limitations on our call to service.
In Galatians 6:9, we are told: “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” My faith is a big part of how I shake off weariness and stave off despair; it keeps me engaged and in the fight. And throughout my life, it’s sustained me in difficult times. Faith is what I look to for guidance, for wisdom, for the strength to forgive, to ask for forgiveness, to pick myself up and start over again when I have fallen short.
I’ve often taken comfort in the wisdom of the mid-twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich. I remember sitting in my church’s basement in Park Ridge as Don Jones read aloud from Tillich about grace: “Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness…. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted.’ ” Years later, when my marriage was in crisis, I called Don. He said to read Tillich. I read it again after the 2016 election. Tillich says grace is reconciliation—it’s “being able to look frankly into the eyes of another”; it’s “understanding each other’s words”—“not merely the literal meaning of the words, but also that which lies behind them, even when they are harsh or angry.” He says grace happens. Or it does not happen. Be patient, be strong, keep going, and let grace come when it can.
I try to practice what the Dutch priest Henri Nouwen calls the “discipline of gratitude.” That means making the choice to not just be grateful for the good things in life—that’s easy—but also to be grateful for the hard things, too. To be grateful even for our flaws. Nouwen writes:
I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment…. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly. I can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of revenge and see grimaces of hatred.
Forgiveness—to forgive and to ask for forgiveness—is tough. It is not easy to let go of wounds, slights, and disappointments. It is human nature to look for people to blame—and sometimes they deserve it. It is human nature to blame ourselves. Sometimes we deserve it, too. In Arkansas, I used to teach a Sunday school lesson about forgiving ourselves. We all carry these enormous burdens around. Blame. Anger. Shame. And I’ve found one of the great gifts of faith is being able to let them go. It doesn’t mean that you forget. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to make amends. But if you begin to forgive yourself, then you can begin to forgive others.
Saint Paul reminds us that we all see through a glass darkly because of our limitations and imperfections. It’s humbling. It’s also comforting. Perfection is out of reach. It’s because of our limitations and imperfections that we must reach out beyond ourselves, to God and to one another. Faith—the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen—always requires a leap.
A few years after we started attending services at Foundry, it became what was called a “reconciling congregation,” meaning it publicly welcomed all people regardless of gender or sexual identity. This only added to our joy in being part of the Foundry community. It felt in keeping with Foundry’s commitment to “love God, love each other, change the world.”
Unfortunately, not everyone felt the same way. There were—and are—a lot of Methodists around the country and across the world who took a hard-line approach on gender issues. In 1972, as part of a broader conservative backlash to the social movements of the 1960s, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, which periodically gathers representatives from congregations around the world to make important decisions about church governance, voted to add anti-gay language to the Book of Discipline, Methodism’s rule book, including “We do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider it incompatible with Christian teaching” and “We do not recommend marriage between two persons of the same sex.” In 1984, the General Conference also banned gay clergy. A prohibition on using church funds to “promote acceptance of homosexuality” meant that congregations were barred from even supporting suicide prevention efforts for LGBTQ+ youth.
Foundry was part of a progressive movement within the United Methodist Church to push back on these moves and embrace a more inclusive, welcoming church. Over the years there were big debates whenever Methodists got together, with passionate disagreements about the right path forward. Similar debates were playing out in other mainline Protestant denominations as well.
I was glad to be part of a reconciling congregation because I saw it as a natural extension of the mission to heal, love, and serve. I respected that people of goodwill and good faith could see these questions differently, but I kept coming back to the fact that we’re called to humility, mercy, and radical inclusion. The book of Micah tells us “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” And in Hebrews we are told, “Let us not neglect meeting together—as some have made a habit—but let us encourage one another.” Jesus befriended prostitutes and cleansed lepers. So I just couldn’t see how we could close the church doors to people seeking fellowship. We may look and love differently, but “we have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.”
It pained me to see the United Methodist Church riven by disagreement. For me, faith has always been deeply personal but also communal. The institution matters. I want a strong, vibrant, united Methodist Church. But over the past several years, it’s been united in name only. As progressive voices within the church gained momentum—and as gay rights became more widely accepted in society—anti-gay traditionalists dug in. Conservative American congregations threatened to secede and join traditionalist congregations in Africa and elsewhere to form a separate church. There was ugly precedent for this kind of schism. In the run-up to the Civil War, the Methodist Church in America split between the North and South over the issue of slavery. It took until 1939 to come back together.
In 2019, a closely divided General Conference reaffirmed bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriages and actually increased penalties for violations. The conference also approved a process to allow congregations to leave the United Methodist Church. Despite their victories, many conservative congregations opted to take advantage of this provision. About a quarter of American congregations ultimately departed.
Secession prompted difficult legal and financial questions concerning church property, which technically belonged to the United Methodist Church rather than local congregations. Given how high passions were running on all sides, this proved difficult to resolve. I suggested to Tom Bickerton, then the bishop in New York, that he should talk with my friend Ken Feinberg, a lawyer and mediator who had served as special master for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and other delicate negotiations. Ken agreed to work with a committee of Methodist leaders free of charge and help them come to an equitable resolution. I was pleased but not surprised to hear that Ken managed the process with his characteristic deftness, and in early 2020, the committee proposed a Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace through Separation. “He kept us at the table when walking away seemed imminent,” Bishop LaTrelle Easterling said. “He defused tense moments with just the right balance of humor and hard truths.”
Before Ken’s protocol could be voted on by the General Conference, the COVID-19 pandemic intervened. It was not until the spring of 2024 that Methodists from around the world gathered again to grapple with the future of the church. This time, with many of the most conservative members absent because their churches had already left the denomination, the conference moved in a different direction. Delegates voted overwhelmingly to eliminate the anti-gay provisions added in the ’70s and ’80s. They blessed a new organizational structure that would give different regions more flexibility to set policies in line with local values and interests. The conference also declared that no one would be excluded based on their “race, color, gender, national origin, ability, age, marital status, or economic condition.” Altogether, it was a tremendous sea change representing a more inclusive, tolerant church.
I followed the developments at the General Conference closely and rejoiced at the outcome. I felt that we Methodists were finally living up to our responsibility to “incline our ears to wisdom and apply our hearts to understanding.” I am proud that my grandchildren will know a church that welcomes all, loves all, and serves all.
A few days later, Bill and I joined Chelsea for a Sunday afternoon service at Park Avenue United Methodist Church. It was a celebration of the retirement of Reverend Cathy Gilliard, who led the church for more than thirteen years, and drew a wide range of distinguished clergy. We listened as they spoke about Reverend Gilliard and also the momentous decisions of the General Conference. Reverend Stephen Bauman of Christ Church UMC in New York said it was the most important General Conference in half a century and “a glimpse of what lies ahead.”
His words echoed the theme of the sermon that day, delivered by Reverend Willie James Jennings from Yale Divinity School, who had taught Reverend Gilliard at Duke University Divinity School during her mid-career shift to ministry. He spoke about experiencing “glimpses of God.” It can be easy to fall into despair in this broken world, Reverend Jennings said. We see so much hate and violence; we face so many crises. It’s not hard to see why many people today lack hope. But God through Christ and the Holy Spirit promises something better, Reverend Jennings reminded us. Just as God lifted the veil from Moses’s eyes for a brief moment in Exodus 33, Jesus’s life in the New Testament is a series of glimpses into a promised future of peace, healing, and inclusion.
As the choir sang an energetic rendition of “Goodness of God,” I sat thinking about “glimpses of what lies ahead,” for the world and for us. I have reached a place in my life where many are content to “sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree,” and I love playing the proud matriarch surrounded by grandchildren. Yet I feel the pull of an active faith and the push to “do all the good” as keenly today as ever before. There’s no time to sit still or grow weary.
Faith remains for me a great gift and a great challenge. I hope it always will.
STRONGER TOGETHER
Most mornings find Bill and me lingering in bed, on our phones playing Spelling Bee. That’s the New York Times’ online game where you rearrange seven letters to form as many words as possible. After a few minutes, Bill will sidle over to compare lists. “Have you found ‘pizzazz’?” he’ll ask. “Oooh, ‘pizzazz’!” I’ll say. After a few more minutes, he’ll call out, “Queen Bee!” That’s the highest score, when you find every possible word. “Still working on it,” I’ll reply, wondering, even after a half century at his side, how he does it so fast. We’ve been together a little longer than we’ve been in politics, both of us going to work for George McGovern’s 1972 campaign against Richard Nixon a year after we met at Yale Law School in the spring of 1971. The firestorms of national politics—the relentless pace, sky-high stakes, scrutiny, and criticism—can as easily destroy a marriage as forge an indestructible bond. Well, we’re still here, living, laughing, loving, and pursuing our life’s work—together.
Like all marriages, ours took work. Lots of work. Unlike most, ours existed on a bright spotlighted stage. You know the public stories but not the private ones, not the everyday joys and setbacks. Not the special challenges of public life. Being a political spouse is an act of sublimation. You can say “two for the price of one,” but there can only be one Queen Bee at a time. Especially if your partner is president of the United States, the pecking order is always clear. That was the life I chose and I never regretted it. And to his credit, when it was my turn to take center stage and reach for the presidency, Bill embraced his role in the wings with enthusiasm. He was my biggest booster and most trusted advisor. Nobody believed in me more or worked harder to help me win. When I lost, nobody felt the blow more deeply. He still does. As he has been polishing up his latest memoir, Citizen, I can see him losing sleep every time he revisits the chapter on 2016 and has to relive those events.
But he lost much more than sleep. Even today, I am angry and carry a lot of guilt about what my run for president cost Bill.
Let me rewind. In February 1998, I went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and delivered a speech to an audience of powerful CEOs, philanthropists, and politicians. I wanted them to think more expansively about what it takes to build a healthy society—and how they could help do it.
For too long, American politics had been stuck in a reductive binary. On the Left, there was still a belief that big government programs were the answer to nearly every problem. On the Right, conservatives demonized government and claimed that unregulated markets were a magic solution to just about everything. Bill won two presidential elections and presided over a historic economic boom by pioneering a third way. He said government and business needed to work together. I went to Davos to highlight another important dimension of this approach.
I argued that a healthy society is like a three-legged stool. An open and dynamic market economy is one leg. An effective and accountable democratic government is a second leg. And the third, too often overlooked in political and policy debates, is a vibrant civil society. “It is the stuff of life,” I said. “It is the family, it is the religious belief and spirituality that guide us. It is the voluntary association of which we are a member. It is the art and culture that makes our spirits soar.” Instead of pitting government against business or trying to solve problems in silos, we needed all three legs of the stool.
“We are not stable if we are only on one leg, no matter how strong the economy might be, no matter how strong a government might be. We are also not stable if we rest merely on two legs of the stool,” I said. “Rather we need to see the independence and connection among the economy, the government and the civil society.” I wanted the powerful men and women (but mostly men) in Davos to think more deeply about how they could work with and empower activists and non-governmental organizations, community organizers and labor leaders, artists, academics, and scientists. We could unlock so much potential if we just got the right people around the table to think creatively about solving complex problems.
That metaphor of the sturdy three-legged stool has stuck with me in the decades since. And as secretary of state, I made it a priority to defend and promote civil society all over the world.
The other highlight of that visit to the Swiss Alps was the fantastic skiing. With Secret Service agents following gamely behind, I spent three and a half glorious hours flying down the snowy alpine slopes. There were no trees, just wide-open trail, stunning views, and a lovely cup of hot chocolate waiting at the bottom. It’s been way too long since I last put on a pair of skis. The fear of falling crept up on me with age, but I still treasure the carefree memory.
When I got home, I told Bill about my trip and suggested he think about going to Davos himself at some point. Two years later, he did, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to attend the conference. Bill was energized by the conversations he had at the World Economic Forum and became a regular attendee once he was out of the White House and had launched the Clinton Foundation. But something was missing. “All these people leave Davos every year full of energy. They want to do something, they don’t know what to do,” Bill told me over dinner one winter evening in the early 2000s, when he had just returned from Switzerland. “They’re all asking: What’s my assignment?”
I could see a plan was forming. I know that look. I’ve seen it a million times. When he latches on to an idea—especially an opportunity to solve an old problem with new thinking—he can barely sit still until he sets it in motion. I love watching Bill’s brain work. It’s so different from mine. Though he rarely plays the saxophone anymore, he’s still a jazz musician at heart, leaping from idea to idea with brilliant improvisation. I am more practical and linear. When we go for walks, Bill prefers to wander. In our town of Chappaqua, he stops to talk with people, compliment good-looking dogs, and engage in long conversations about politics inside Starbucks or the Village Market or on the street. If he’s alone walking, he’ll tell me later about whom he met and what was on their minds. I enjoy that as well, but I usually prefer to go to the Rockefeller State Park Preserve and walk for an hour as quickly as I can. When I get home, I will have gotten my heart rate up but won’t have as much to share, unless I saw a coyote or an eagle.
Thinking out loud over dinner, Bill said there was too much talk but too little action at Davos and other places where the global elite gathered. Too many CEOs saw these gatherings as a chance to network and do business deals instead of as an opportunity to make concrete commitments to take on urgent global challenges. And even when they did, like Marc Benioff’s commitment to the One Trillion Trees Initiative, they are the exception, not the rule. There had to be a better way to harness all the energy, leadership, and resources of the private sector and civil society and channel them into measurable concrete actions.
In September 2005, Bill and the Clinton Foundation launched the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to coincide with the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly every September in New York. Everyone who attended CGI’s annual meeting—world leaders, business executives, philanthropists, activists—would be expected to make a commitment to take a specific action to help solve an important global problem.
It was a simple yet transformative idea that would reinvent philanthropy for the twenty-first century. By 2023, CGI’s commitment-keeping had improved the lives and livelihoods of more than five hundred million people in 180 countries, with more than ten thousand groups, companies, governments, and individuals making four thousand commitments to action on everything from solar panels to clean water to the gift of hearing aids to deaf children. Nearly one million doses of lifesaving naloxone have been distributed to schools and community organizations through the Overdose Response Network.
