A young man recently said to me, “I can’t talk to my parents any more.  They don’t listen, much less understand.  What am I to do?”

A teenage girl ran away from home and wrote this letter back, “Dear Mom and Dad, I hate you, but I love you.  I need you and then I despise you.  I wish you would die, but then I would feel guilty like I always do.   Why can’t I understand you like I want you to understand me?”

A woman agonized in a recent counseling session, “But I don’t want a divorce.  Please help me!”

The need and the plea are loud and clear.  Estrangement, not only between individuals but the ruptures in our society, are all so obvious.

The Cottonpatch version of the New Testament has this word from St. Paul: “God was in Christ, putting His arms around the world and hugging it to Himself.”  That’s what persons need to do.  To be an in-between people -- bridges or reconciliation, with our arms around the world.