One of my best books is often overlooked, and I’m not sure why, but maybe it’s because it features homeless people as characters. The title, Our Pebble in the Pond, is based on a quote by an American journalist and social activist, Dorothy Day, which impressed me, but may not reflect the thoughts and feelings of some of my readers. It is quoted in the front of the book, but I’ll provide it here: “What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute...we can, too a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and dear God, please enlarge out hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.”
When I was writing the book, I came upon Dorothy Day's quote and realized that it reflected so much of what I’d learned as I’ve interacted with people in the homeless shelter that was named for my husband in 2003 (William S. Davies Shelters in Rome, Georgia. While the situation in my book is completely fiction, it reflects some of the things I’ve learned about homeless people and the way we tend to think of them.
If you get a chance, and haven’t read Our Pebble in the Pond, I encourage you to read it, and let me know what you think! If you live in Rome, it is available at Dogwood Books and Georgia's Rome Gift Shop. Otherwise, you can find it on Amazon.
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