Conversation between Norman and his father about Paul's quandry

"You are too young to help anybody and I am too old,"  he said.  "By help I don't mean a coutesy like serving chokecherry jelly or giving money.
"Help," he said, "is giving part of yourself ot somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly.
"So it is," he said, using and old homiletic transition, "that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves.  Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. and even more often, we do not have the part that is needed.  It is like the auto-supply shop over town where they always say, 'Sorry, we are just out of that part.'"
I told him, "you make it too tough.  Help doesn't have to be anything that big."
He asked me, "Do you think your mother helps him by buttering his rolls?"
"She might," I told him.  "In fact, yes, I think she does."
"Do you think you help him?" he asked me.
"I try to," I said. "My trouble is I don't know him. In fact, one of my trouble is that I don't even know whether he needs help.  I don't know, that's my trouble."
"That should have been my text," my father said.  "We are willing to help Lord, but what if anything is needed?
"I still know how to fish," he concluded.  "Tomorrow we will go fishing with him."