Signs do not always make for Actions

Even a “No Sign” Sign is a sign, however ironic it may be.

Joe Hoover, a Jesuit playwright, actor, editor and author writes a provocative piece in Image Journal titled, Spiritual Exercises in Jayville – a rambling essay that manages to touch nerves and speak softly to our cultural condition. Using the fictional anywhere USA town of Jayville, Hoover imagines what it means to be spiritual in tumultuous times.

Hoover alludes to an observation Charles Taylor made back in the 90’s:

Our age makes higher demands for solidarity and benevolence on people today than ever before… Never before have people been asked to stretch out so far, so consistently, so systematically, so as a matter of course, to the stranger outside the gates.

However, Taylor goes on to observe that “this kind of philanthropy may be capricious, subject to the whims of trends and what makes people feel good…