It’s easy to forget that these are all regular, normal people. Just like us, pretty much just like me. Whether it’s in California or Puerto Rico or Myanmar.

I live in Southern California. We’re having fires, too. Across the street from my home is a church. A guy is parked there for several days now, living in his camper, having fled the fires here.

Last night I was in a local restaurant. I know the server. He was choked up describing families who’d come in the night before, having just that very day lost their entire homes. They were just sitting in the booths, trying to act normal. He said he and the staff had no idea what to say, how to react.

When he first greeted them, not knowing any of this, he’d said, “Hey! How’s things going today?”

“Not too good. Our house just burned down and we’ve lost everything.”

I think about the old stories of the itinerant monks, who wandered from one village to another, who had nothing other than robe, sandals, walking stick and a bowl. And at times I think that’s a wise life. But they had no family, did they? They slept in the dirt or under a bridge.

But in most of America, we don’t allow that, do we? There’s no room in the inn, so to speak. No room for the poor or the destitute or the victims of tragedy. What’s happened to us?