Author R. Lee Sharpe (1872-1951) once told a great story about his dad. He wrote, “One spring day long ago Father called me to go with him to old man Trussell’s blacksmith shop. He had left a rake and a hoe to be repaired. And they were ready when we came, fixed like new. Father handed over a silver dollar, but Mr. Trussell refused to take it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s no charge for that little job.’ My father insisted.
“If I should live a thousand years, I’ll never forget that blacksmith’s reply. ‘Sir,’ he said to my father, ‘can’t you let a man do something—just to stretch his soul?’”
There is nothing that stretches the soul quite like giving to, or doing...