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Letter: Jesus and the INN Between

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jorge Cocco Sant‡ngelo's Getsemani or "Gethsemane," oil on canvas, 2016. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church History Museum presented two new art exhibits, Thursday, May 17, 2018. Paintings created by Argentine artist Jorge Cocco Sant‡ngelo and large-scale images taken by LDS Church staff photographers Cody Bell and Leslie Nilsson will be on display beginning May 17 through October 9, 2018 and January 2019, respectively.

“There but for the grace of God go I,” I thought, as I read about The INN Between in the Tribune Dec. 16.

That thought comes to mind frequently. I know I could have ended up on the street, and still could if I lose my medical insurance.

I’m not religious, but my parents sent me to Sunday school for Bible lessons, and I still remember a few snatches. As I try to survive this season of the national potlatch, with its profligate glorification of consumerism — a graven image if there ever was one — sometimes I hear talk about a child who was born in a shed. I seem to recall that, as an adult, he chose a life of homelessness. There was something else, something about lepers, I think. Whatever.

It seems to me that he was not the sort of guy to cast out poor people who were sick and dying, not the sort to insist, “Not in my neighborhood!” (If he’d had a neighborhood, that is.) I think he was more the type of guy who would give his last shekel to The INN Between.

Robert Argenbright, Salt Lake City

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