I remember vividly the day my grandmother took food to two elderly women living in a shack in rural Missouri. I must have been 7 or 8, and I tagged along. The two women were dirt poor. I was stunned to see their toilet – a chair with a hole in the seat and a bucket underneath.

I remember vividly the day my grandmother took food to two elderly women living in a shack in rural Missouri.  I must have been 7 or 8, and I tagged along. The two women were dirt poor.  I was stunned to see their toilet – a chair with a hole in the seat and a bucket underneath. Somewhere between seeing the hole in the seat and the gratitude on their faces, the message “feed My sheep” finally got through. I had heard those words in Church, but never really heard them. Ever since then, it has been crystal clear that I need to reach out to those in need, just as my grandmother did.  I haven’t always been faithful in living up to this clarity of vocation.  But it has taken me into the humanitarian relief and public policy fields.  When I become self-absorbed or selfish, or both, somehow I am pulled again back to this vivid memory, this sense of calling.  And it is all because my grandmother infected me with the Social Gospel, an infection I pray will afflict me forever.