Angelika’s Christmas
An excerpt from Angelika’s Journal about her Christmas: December 1 We’ve left Ber-ber’s but we’re not where I had in mind. We now live in a shelter for women and children. Thank goodness my...
An excerpt from Angelika’s Journal about her Christmas: December 1 We’ve left Ber-ber’s but we’re not where I had in mind. We now live in a shelter for women and children. Thank goodness my...
Change is inevitable. Sometimes it is pleasant. At other times it is uncomfortable. Still occasionally change is neutral. In just the last few weeks, our world has experienced shooters in restaurants, theaters, and office...
People ask me, “What can I do to help people who live in poverty?” and that’s always a hard question for me to answer. Each one of us has a particular passion or interest...
November 1 is All Saints Sunday in the Christian Church. The following from Henri Nouwen’s “The Garden of the Saints,” in Bread for the Journey, seems particularly appropriate: “The Church is a very human...
Based on very conservative spending assumptions Wages: $11.00 an hour job, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Net take home: $8.25 /hour or $1430 a month. Housing: ...
I have the opportunity on a regular basis to help people begin to look at their community in ways beyond what they know, feel, and think. Sometimes people are extremely grateful that they gain...
Our Eyes Were Opened, Inc. Annotated Bibliography for Recommended Reading Berreby, David, Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind, Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2005. Berreby shows how science tackles questions of group...
August is a CRAZY month for poverty simulations. Schools want the experience for their faculties before the students come back for class. The Greenville Health System’s newest class of Medical Students are arriving and...
August 1 Journal Entry I’ve been feeling a tightness in my insides. I look at Mama and she says that she’s already eaten when she gives us our supper but she looks skinnier and...
The Bible talks a lot about the rich and the poor. The Bible never talks about the middle class. One is either rich or one is poor. There seems to be no in-between. This...
Last week I facilitated a poverty simulation for the MedEx Academy sponsored by the Greenville Health System. Participating were high school seniors and college juniors and seniors who are planning careers in the medical...
The poverty tour that I take interested people on changed forever for me on Thursday. It’s not that we went anywhere different or that I changed what I said…okay, maybe a little. However, we...
I was recently asked to comment further on a statement that I made publicly about dealing with Unseen Greenville. I said that change requires dealing with structural and systems issues. The person who asked...
Simone Weil wrote in Waiting for God: “ I have the essential need… to move among of every class and complexion, mixing with them and sharing their life and outlook, so far that...
Protector of All Who Trust, be with people who suffer because they are different. Lead them to people who can celebrate their differences rather than denigrate them. Uplift them with pride in their uniqueness...
What defines a good act? According to Parker Palmer, good acts “are those that allow people the freedom to choose their own destinies.” (Active Life, p. 47) If we use this definition, how many...
Edward Everette Hale penned these words that I’ve seen on posters and quoted many times. That must indicate that he said something significant! You decide: “I am only one, but still I am one....
In my previous blog posting, I wrote about the man that my husband Jim and I found lying beside a major thoroughfare. I have now talked with Nick Bush of United Ministries Place of...
On Saturday my husband Jim and I headed out in the car. As we passed the corner of Randall Street and Rutherford Road, Jim said, “There’s a guy lying in the grass over there.”...
I love taking an idea and playing with it. Putting questions, thoughts, and insights on paper to see how they develop and what I learn in the process is great pleasure for me. For...