Bishop Tom,
We tend to limit our “human kindness” to those famous “deserving poor” just to avoid personal problems and inconvenience.  In the days and the country where Jesus was born, the shepherds were famous -- but not for their poverty. humble simplicity and goodness, but rather for their clever thievery from their neighbors’ flocks:  the wool, the milk and especially the new-born lambs recently birthed  out in the open common fields.  For us this is what makes “the shoe pinch” .