Whenever I meet someone down and out, I remind myself that I don’t know their story.

The kid covered in tattoos sporting green-spiked-rooster hair was raped by two men in his neighborhood when he was eight. Didn’t tell his dad because he’d shoot the perps on the spot. The guy serving life only cracked his father-in-law over the head with a baseball bat after watching him assault, rape, and beat his mom for a decade. You learn this by serving in a prison ministry, and I taught creative writing to lifers for a decade.