Take A Walk on 9/11
As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, many of us are wondering how best to honor the many victims of that tragedy and its aftermath.
Here in Cincinnati, my wife Marty’s answer is inviting some of ou...
9/11 Walks: Remembrance through Reconciliation
OK, so imagine you had this great idea to help people all over the world to do something really meaningful on 9/11/11 and just four weeks to pull it off?
Actually, you don’t need need to imagine anything. ...
Being Poor Is A Lot of Work
Until very recently, I had no idea how hard it is for some of our friends just to find somewhere to lay themselves down to sleep at night. I knew that inner-city families moved around a lot, but I didn’t r...
Denying the Immortality of the Soul
Chester has been my Monday night dinner companion for the better part of five years. He's my friend, despite having never once lifted a finger to help or encourage me or anyone else, despite having often ex...
Hard-to-Learn Love
buy cheap soft viagra"240" height="156" />I won’t even try to describe all of the maddening details of finding a HUD apartment for a homeless, no-income family that consists of a mother, five kids u...
When Grace Backfires
In 1958 the Teddy Bears released the song “To know him is to love him, ” which might as well have been called “To know, know, know, him is to love, love, love, him, ” since that’s the way everybody reme...
Redemptive Poetry on a Night of Violence
It is Sunday night, and I am suddenly awake at the crack of too-close gunfire. I creep to the window without turning on the light, more curious than afraid until I remember I don’t know if my daughter Miran...
A Good Story: 'I'm Going to Kill You'
I often tell people not to ask me for statistics because in this work all the statistics are bad. Ask me for stories instead, I say, because even in the worst of times I always have a good story. Whether it i...
Bed Bugs: A Modern Day Leprosy. Seriously
Stanley is a dirty old man, and by that I don’t just mean he talks about younger women in inappropriate ways. He smells bad, too. Really bad. On the other hand, Stanley is about as gentle a fellow as you ...