Bootstraps, Really???
Some years ago, the local paper ran an article about a young man who decided to hop a train from Raleigh, NC to Charleston, SC with $25 in his pocket. Within six months, he...
Some years ago, the local paper ran an article about a young man who decided to hop a train from Raleigh, NC to Charleston, SC with $25 in his pocket. Within six months, he...
As I take people on a tour through Greenville, I use the term gentrifying. I often need to explain what that means. I’m challenged because gentrifying has both good news and bad news about...
Myth Busters Compiled by Beth Templeton, 3.30.18 Based on Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, Mariner Books, imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015 Not...
Holy God, you have said that we shall have no other gods before us. Are you talking about the gods that all people worship, no matter what name they use for you? Gods such...
Such huge dollar amounts are being thrown around these days: $14 billion for a wall between the United States and Mexico or $1.5 million for one condominium on a site where a small mom...
Purpose: We rarely realize how dependent we are on all kinds of people. This exercise helps us see that our lives are enriched by many other people in ways we often do not think...
When I was at a meeting with ministers, one of them asked me how a congregation decided what service ministries to support financially and what ministries for them to create or be involved with. ...
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...
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....
Are you a social capitalist? I’m not asking you if you are a socialist or a capitalist. I’m asking, “Are you a social capitalist?” Social Capital is the value of social networks and norms...
“Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism,” says Walter Brueggeman in The Prophetic Imagination. Compassion says that I feel what you feel, I experience the human frailty that you experience. The powers-that-be cannot allow...
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 is...
Not infrequently through the years, I have been asked to bring a program participant with me when I have talked with groups about poverty. People want to hear from someone who lives what I teach about....
Do we reach out to others because we want to change them or because we love them as they are? What a question. Of course, we want people to improve their lives. Why else...
I have often talked and written about the difference between charity and justice. Jim Wallis in a Sojourners article in November 1985 explained well that charity is not justice. He wrote: “Charity requires no...