A Burden and An Ache is the title of a beautiful, heart-stirring book written by Clarence McConkey. It’s a series of word portraits of persons in the inner city, living around the church McConkey served as pastor, persons whose lives are down-beaten and ravaged even as the buildings around them.  People who are as torn apart as the shattered economic and social structures that have sustained them.  One of those persons is Ruby.  Let me introduce you to her in the first person as McConkey did:  

“Ruby is a child who sits entranced in the street.  She is four or five years old I would think.  The street which makes up her home is bordered by dilapidated houses, abandoned cars, stray dogs, and children.  Ruby is nearly always dirty and ragged.  Today she is clad only in underpants.  I don’t k…