This week we read Luke 16:19-31, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. What a rich and evocative story about wealth, and suffering, and isolation – about excess and need and compassion.  What blocks the flow of compassion in the different scenarios of this story, and in our own world – when is it a chasm, and when is it just a gate? What is the difference between having been told something, and knowing it – and how do we cross THAT chasm? What happens when we build a life that insulates us from all suffering – our own, and that of others?