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The study showed that children that were coming out of schools that were not being educated, were more likely to end up in prison. So instead of improving the schools, the money went into building the prison, which is called New Horizons—really a sinister kind of irony. There was a school right across the street from this prison where $6,000 to $7,000 a year is spent per pupil. In the prison it's a little over $130,000 a year per pupil.

Incarceration is very popular among conservatives, and yet many conservatives are Christians who don't often make the connection between the amount of money we're spending to incarcerate people versus the amount of money it would take to do preventative work and get a good education.

You talk about a lesson that you learned from Miss Ellie from St. Johns Island. It was one of the most wonderful examples of how we in the modernized, fast-paced world have lost the nature of being human. And it had to do with something you did for Miss Ellie that you thought was going to help her, and you came to learn a lesson.

Miss Ellie lived on Johns Island off of Charleston, South Carolina, way out in an area without electricity and just dirt roads. She lived out on her own. She was old, almost 100 years old, cutting her own firewood. And she had a good friend named Netta that she would go to visit. But to reach Netta she had to walk miles through thick, tall grass and, I used to feel really sorry for her. There were snakes in the grass and it was really hot.

Actually her friend didn't live that far away, but there was a stream that cut across her path. And she had to go pretty far to find a place where it narrowed enough that she could go across. So I came up with this great idea. I thought of building a bridge to make a shortcut for her. I found an area where it was really narrow but very deep, and she couldn't go across. I got the wood and cement to build this little bridge. And I went to see her and I was all excited. So we went off, and I showed it to her.

I had expected her to look all excited. And she said, "Well, what's this?" And I said, "This is a shortcut for you to visit Miss Netta." And she looked at me like I was the one that needed pity. She started telling me about all the friends and people she'd visited and the friends she'd made on her way to visit her friend. And the person she'd give some quilts scraps to and someone that she brings biscuits and they give her some raisin wine, and all the relationships she developed along the way. And then she just looked at me and said, "Child, if you want friends in this world, if you want love, there are no shortcuts."

What is your hope from this book, now that you're in a different ministry?

When I was on sabbatical for a few months, which is when I did part of the writing of the book, I visited a church in Manhattan one Sunday where the gospel text was Jesus calling Peter to get out of this boat. And it just was one of those moments where it felt that God was speaking and saying, "Heidi, get out of your boat."

That was a very threatening kind of thing to me. But it turned out that I really did feel God was calling me to a new ministry. And it was not, it was something I resisted but, in fact, it's how I felt God calling me. I guess in my book I'm hoping to call all of us to get out of our boat a little bit and to get into a boat with our sisters and brothers and see things in a new way.

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March (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48