“isn’t that what friendship is all about,” asks Henry Nouwen, in his book, Being the Beloved, “giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness?”

To me, there is a sacredness to talking to those who are never  spoken to, to listening to those who are never heard, to feeling the pain of people we may not know or see.

If you are like me, you yearn for the person, thing or event that will come along to give me the feeling of inner well-being that I want to much. Yesterday, on the Mansion Boat Ride on Lake George, I had that feeling, again and again and again.

I was with people of compassion, we spoke heart to heart, we shared the common experience of listening and loving, of empathy.

This, I thought, is what our world should be like. This, I thought, is what Washington should be like, this, I thought is what our leaders should inspire us to do every day in our lives.

I saw clearly yesterday on that boat that each human being suffers in a way no other human being suffers, so I know I need to get closer to the experience of being broken.

As I  want people to understand it in me, so must I understand it in them.

The suffering I most see is the suffering of the broken heart. When hearts touch, it is healing.

Audio: Our Brokenness