guests on every corner

They know no bounds in deeds of wickedness;

they judge not with justice

the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper

and they do not defend the rights of the needy.

Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord

Jeremiah 5: 28-29

By the McDonald’s on the corner, I saw a man begging for $1.50, for a coffee or a sandwich.

I stopped. I didn’t have any cash for him. But I asked him his name. “Juan,” he said.

And I saw his face change. To exchange our names, to be known, is to make a stranger into a neighbor. And a neighbor is he who will always have a place at your table, and has a right to be your guest.

Our city blocks would be different if we took just one small step of seeing them not as blocks of strangers but of neighbors.