Worth a thousand words: eviction

A heartbreaking image of our times. Brandie Barbiere, center, reacts as Weld County sheriff’s deputy Mary Schwartz arrives to evict her and her family from their home in Miliken, Colo. Barbiere said she had stopped making the mortgage payments 11 months before, after she lost more than half her home child care business due to the economy. See a photo gallery and learn more at WashingtonPost.com.

Photo by John Moore/Getty

UPDATE: A reader sent me this note:

I became somewhat obsessed with a Washington Post photo slideshow showing a family being evicted in Colorado.  I spent much of the day thinking about the family.  I started to Google for the name of the mother pictured in the photos and this led me to your blog…have you considered trying to help this family?  I would be willing to contribute.

That’s a poignant response — but I’m not really equipped to handle something like that.  And I suspect, even if I were, I’d soon be flooded with requests from others.  The best help any of us can give at this moment, I think, is prayer.  Meantime, judging from the reaction in some of the comments, I’d kindly ask everyone to take a deep breath.  We don’t know enough about the circumstances of this family.  But we do know this: none of us would want to be in their shoes.  Yet so many of us today are vulnerable.  Some who are reading this could very well be worried that one morning they’ll get that knock on the door, the same one that Brandie Barbiere got.  Pray for her, her family, and our country.