A few years ago, my son attended the funeral of a classmate whose life had been tragically cut short by an automobile accident. Though Stan did not know him very well as they were both relatively new to the school, he said the boy was “soft-spoken and very kind.” After he came home from the service, my son and I talked some about it.

And for some reason, all these years later, I woke up this morning thinking about that conversation. Specifically, something Stan said that has never left me. In the process of describing the Muslim service, he explained that although it was very different from what he was accustomed to, he was struck by the fact that, “The tears of the family looked just like those (he had) seen in our world.”

“In our world…”

And immediately I knew what he meant. I knew, in his thoughtful way, he was indicting not only his, but the universal human tendency to make our own small, provincial “worlds” the whole world. To unconsciously, with a passive, unrecognized selfishness, assume a soul-diminishing, world-damaging narrowness.

That day, as my son bore witness to a family’s suffering, the world expanded. At least for him. No, the planet didn’t physically grow. Of course not. It was the world within my boy’s heart, the Universe within his mind. Something profound and soul-making happened in my son on that saddest of afternoons. In ways an entire semester class of Comparative World Religions could not accomplish, the world inside of my son grew, an immeasurable Universe opened within him.

I woke this morning thinking of that story and hoping against hope that humanity might learn more fully how to connect through the tears of things, that bridges of common suffering and joy might be built across the devastatingly wide chasms between us.