It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of

Host: The afternoon light slanted through the grimy windows of the old shelter, painting the air in streaks of dust and warm gold. The room smelled of soup, laundry, and the faint, enduring scent of human weariness. Outside, the city moved as always — cars honking, people rushing, no one looking too long in one place.

Inside, there was a different rhythm — slower, quieter, full of small acts that would never make the news. Jack stood by a long table, ladling stew into chipped bowls. His grey eyes looked tired but alert, focused on the work rather than the world.

Jeeny sat at the end of the line, smiling gently as she handed out bread. Her hair was pulled back, her sleeves rolled up, her hands moving with a kind of deliberate grace — tired but tender.

Behind them, on the wall, a hand-painted quote read in crooked letters:

“The mystery of the poor is this: that they are Jesus.”
— Dorothy Day

Jeeny: “You know, Dorothy Day once wrote something that’s been on my mind lately.”

Jack: “Let me guess — another line about finding Christ in the hopeless?”

Jeeny: “Close. She said, ‘It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of Hospitality and Farming Commune and supply our needs in the way of food and money to pay bills, than it is to keep a strong, hearty, living faith in each individual around us — to see Christ in him.’”

Jack: “Yeah.” He nodded, stirring the pot slowly. “That one hurts a little. Because she’s right.”

Host: The steam from the soup rose between them like a veil, the air thick with heat and truth. Jack’s voice came out low, not cynical this time — just honest, tired, but somehow still believing.

Jack: “It’s easy to trust some big invisible idea of God. Or a cause. But people — people disappoint. They steal, they lie, they waste your help. Try seeing Christ in that, and see how long your faith lasts.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that exactly what she meant? That faith in people is the harder kind — the kind that actually costs you something.”

Jack: “Faith in people?” He shook his head, chuckling bitterly. “I’ve had faith in people, Jeeny. I’ve hired them, helped them, fed them. Half walked away without a thank you, and the other half stabbed me in the back — sometimes literally.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you weren’t seeing Christ in them. Maybe you were seeing your own expectations.”

Host: The words hit like a soft slap, quiet but sharp. Jack paused, the ladle hovering mid-air. He didn’t speak right away.

Jack: “You think Christ doesn’t disappoint?”

Jeeny: “No. I think Christ never stops coming back.”

Host: There was a long silence, broken only by the clatter of spoons and the murmur of those eating nearby. Outside, a bell from the nearby church tolled, echoing through the walls — a reminder that somewhere, someone was praying for a better world.

Jeeny: “Dorothy Day lived among the poor her whole life. She saw the worst of people — addiction, anger, despair — but she kept believing there was something holy left inside them. That’s what makes her words so heavy. It’s not blind faith. It’s faith with scars.”

Jack: “Scars?”

Jeeny: “Yes. The kind you earn from staying when it would be easier to leave.”

Host: The light through the window caught Jeeny’s face, the weariness beneath her eyes and the small line of dirt on her cheek. But her expression — that quiet fierceness — made her look almost luminous.

Jack: “You know, when I first started volunteering here, I thought I was saving people. Thought God was going to be impressed with all the good I was doing.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I realize most days, I’m just fighting the urge to stop caring.”

Jeeny: “That’s faith, Jack. Not the feeling — the fight.”

Host: A man at the table — thin, unshaven, eyes red — looked up at them. “Can I get another bowl?” he asked.

Jack nodded, filled it, slid it across without a word. The man smiled faintly — a broken smile, but real — and whispered, “Thank you.”

Jack froze for a moment, then gave a small nod, almost like a bow.

Jeeny saw it.

Jeeny: “See? There it is.”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “Christ.”

Host: Jack laughed softly, but it wasn’t mocking. More like something loosening in him. He looked down at his hands, calloused, stained, holding the ladle like a strange kind of cross.

Jack: “You ever think faith would be easier if it didn’t have to involve people?”

Jeeny: “Then it wouldn’t be faith. It would just be comfort.”

Jack: “Comfort sounds pretty good sometimes.”

Jeeny: “Yeah. But comfort doesn’t change hearts.”

Host: The room had begun to empty now. The chairs scraped, the dishes clinked, the light grew softer — more evening than day. Jack and Jeeny sat for a moment in the stillness that follows work, their hands folded, breathing steady.

Jeeny: “You know, I think Dorothy Day saw something we miss. We want to believe God provides for our causes — our charities, our projects, our big dreams of goodness. But the real miracle isn’t that food shows up on the table. It’s that compassion survives inside flawed people.”

Jack: “Even the ungrateful ones?”

Jeeny: “Especially them.”

Host: Outside, the sky had turned amber, the light spilling across the floor in long, soft lines. Dust floated in the glow, tiny, golden — like souls suspended in forgiveness.

Jack: “You think Christ is in every one of them — the liars, the thieves, the angry ones?”

Jeeny: “I think He’s trying to be. The question is whether we can look long enough to see Him there.”

Jack: “And when we can’t?”

Jeeny: “Then we ask for better eyes.”

Host: The last of the soup was gone now, the pots empty, the voices quiet. Jack leaned back, sighing, his expression softer than it had been all day.

Jack: “You know… I used to think faith was about believing in God. Maybe it’s more about believing in people — even when every reason tells you not to.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s how God believes in us.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back slowly then — the two of them sitting in that tired old room, surrounded by the echoes of service and silence. The city outside kept moving — indifferent, relentless — but inside, something sacred remained.

The last ray of sunlight hit the wall where Dorothy Day’s words hung, turning the crooked black paint into gold.

And in that fading glow, one truth lingered:

Faith in God is easy. Faith in people is divine.

The light dimmed, the evening folded in, and the shelter — weary but holy — breathed in peace.