A few years ago, I achieved sainthood. Or at least that’s what some people said. Here’s how it happened. A woman who attended my Quaker meeting, but who had a difficult personality, became very ill. In many ways, Sally was a good person, but few people were able to spend much time with her. Like almost everyone who came into her orbit, I avoided her. When the pandemic struck, I did not reach out to her, even though I knew she was very isolated, without family and living by herself on a mountain at the end of a terrible road.

I wanted Sally to be someone else’s problem.