For forty years when I was working directly with children and teens, I frequently used the term “Hello dear heart” when greeting a young person who walked into my office for counseling. After school, I ran support groups, and at the appointed time I routinely said, “Okay dear hearts, let’s settle in and begin.”

Shortly after I retired, a former client from twenty years earlier, after hearing of my retirement, sent me a Facebook message saying that she always liked being called “dear heart,” because she never heard anyone use that phrase before. She ended her note using all caps, “Dear Heart Kevin, enjoy your retirement, and thank you!”

I can only hope that the way in which I honor and value the mutual existence of other people around me will be afforded to me as well by folks unknown to me throughout my day.

That said, however, I don’t treat or interact with other people in a particular way because I am expecting a kind of payback, or quid pro quo, if you will, that in some way benefits me in the end. How I see, hear, and experience my sisters and brothers, whether around the corner or around the globe simply is what it is. It somehow completes my own humanity in a way that is both unique and mysterious that is not easily expressed with words.

Many years ago, folk singer Arlo Guthrie, in the middle of a concert, stopped singing a song he was performing and said, “You can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in.” In his classic, impish way, there’s a simple truth in what he said.

From a spiritual perspective, I learned many years ago that “Light,” spiritual light, that which emanates from an experience of that which is Divine, will land you smack-dab in the middle of darkness and sometimes evil, where oftentimes, “Light” does its best work. Indeed, darkness, cloaked in fear, needs to be faced, understood, and navigated. The more light/Light there is in a place, or something we perceive as good, the more nearby is darkness.

Practicing gratefulness, and being grateful, in my experience at least, begins as a practice, which in time morphs into a mindset before eventually becoming part of the fiber of who I am as a person. Once there, how could I not feel more connected to the people I see and interact with every day? Whether it’s the panhandlers I see on the road, or my doctor, mechanic, barber, folks on this site, or the cop in line ahead of me at the coffee shop, we are all in motion, all becoming, and in need of one another.

Greetings, Christine,

At Dana Faber Hospital in Boston, MA, which is a large and renowned cancer treatment facility, there’s a grand piano that, by design, sits at the center of an open and airy lobby. Throughout the day, various musicians and all highly trained, come in at their appointed time and begin playing music, from classical to jazz and pop tunes, all for the enjoyment of patients, family members and staff alike. The sound wafts up from the first floor to the second floor, where patients are being admitted or having blood work done, before heading up to the tenth floor where cancer patients wait to meet with their oncologists to determine their mode of treatment.

I know that you know this scene all too well, Christine. But as I think about that beautiful grand piano sitting there waiting for the next musician to arrive, I picture you, in my minds eye, Christine, sitting at the keyboard and playing, from your heart, and with love, for those who will hear.