"My mother used to collect stray people the way some people collect stray animals. She never did it on purpose, it's just that she'd meet someone who was sad or lonely or without a home for a short time, and the next thing I'd know it that Mrs So-and-So would be joining us for supper. After we had stopped living on the boat, we moved into my grandparents' home on Long Island. It was a large house, with two spare bedrooms even when all our family was at home. People who had fallen on hard times, recovering alcoholics and homeless and jobless foreigners - my mother welcomed them all. For the years I was in secondary school, I can't remember a Thanksgiving dinner without at least a few extra guests, some speaking only broken English and some dabbling their eyes off and on throughout the meal. My mother would let them talk, cry, eat and sleep, eventually, after a few days or weeks, they would be able to sort out their lives, and move on."
Christina Rees, "The Divine Embrace: Discovering the Reality of God's Love.
Christina Rees, "The Divine Embrace: Discovering the Reality of God's Love.
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