This extraordinary book about ordinary people sensitively portrays the whole range of human experience. The author, a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, presents brief and poignant stories that speak the language of the heart. They are modern parables about the poor in spirit-not just stories about third-world urban beggars or peasants eking out a hardscrabble existence from barren soil.
Here we meet ordinary, familiar people with names like Carol, Nancy, Harry, Margaret, Kevin and Andy. Here we encounter a migrant Turk working in Northern Europe, a young burglar serving a jail sentence, a Malaysian deck hand in love with a prostitute, an African bus driver, an Indian iron worker, a Hispanic lay pastor, a Japanese dril1-press operator, a long distance trucker. They have one poverty in common, that of the heart. Some are hungry, some are marginalized or handicapped. All, in the words of the author, "make a living by working too hard."
Their stories are contemporary parables. And like the parables of Jesus, they evoke the reign of God hidden among us. They tell us about essential spirituality and the importance of prayer and dependence on God. The author says they are meditations that are "worth stopping and thinking about." Indeed they offer a moment of contemplation, an hour of hope.