Easter in Ordinary

A democratic society requires mature, public conversation about issues of importance. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has convoked " A Year of Books " to offer such an opportunity. This commentary is part of a series of commentaries on each of the readings proposed by Zuckerberg. My commentary on Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness will have multiple entries for this truly remarkable book. This is the second of those entries. Few things on stage have moved me more than when I first saw "Les Misérables." It was the summer of 1990 in Houston, Texas. Days before, I had devoured the novel by Victor Hugo. At various points during the stage show, I wept, perhaps none more than the final words of the musical: "To love another person is to see the face of God." The intertwined story of Inspector Javert, Fantine, Cosette, Marius Pontmercy, Gavroche, and, of course, Bishop Myriel, who, with an act of charit...