Features
Expectant giving: Handouts are wrong (usually)
A few months ago, I knowingly harmed an indigent woman named Jacqueline. She was standing at the end of the exit ramp, holding up the predictable sign: "Homeless. Please Help." I parked the car and doubled back to talk to her. She and her "old man" had come from a city a few hours east, she said. For the last few days they'd been sleeping under a small cluster of leafy trees a stone's throw from the Interstate.
Voices
Barbara Brown Taylor
Surfeit of significance
One of my worst fears recently materialized in-of all places-the post office. It was lunch hour on a busy day. When I came through the door, ten people stood in line with cardboard boxes, postage machines and priority mail envelopes in their hands. All I needed were some pretty stamps, but since a return trip later in the day would obviously cost me more time than waiting, I decided to wait.