Yesterday, I went to the soup kitchen with four kids from school, including Micah. My job was to chop vegetables for a salad while the boys were given sixty pounds of green beans to wash, de-stem and slice.

          After around fifteen minutes, they formed pairs to see who could slice the beans fastest. There were flying stems and the rapid-fire staccato of blades against cutting boards, plus a whole lot of hurled insults and cheers of triumph. I told the boys to keep it down. One of the full-time cooks just smiled. “They’re just having fun.” He had a point, which was that fun and service aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. And in the end, the important part was that that night, people would be enjoying my good and earnest salad along with a side of green beans, heavy on the laughter.