The Christian Century

A tall stack of books on the floor of my bedroom greets me each morning. Its very presence is exhausting.

The traveler eats whatever food is placed before her; she aims to learn as much of the language as possible. A tourist sacrifices less.

I keep a 36-inch utility shovel in my church office. I use it to dig the graves that hold the cremains of our congregation's saints.

A poor person looking up at my residence could mistake it for one of the barns belonging to the rich man Jesus talked about—the one who didn't know his soul was buried beneath all that corn and sorghum.

Moral concern usually begins when one person makes an effort to become, in some measure, one with the other. Privilege impedes this.

Like Adam, we may end up treating God as if God were at the periphery. But where there is no center—or where we become the center—the circumference of life disappears.