Beautiful thoughts, wondrous words. What more is needed?

I want this column to be good. I want it to be so good, it wins a prize. One of those big prizes, like the ones they hand out every year in Stockholm.

I want it to be subtle and full of goodness and infuse all humankind with hope. Let me be clear: I want it to be uplifting, conciliatory and bold. In fact I want it to carry some miraculous quality.

I’ve traveled the world, seen the forgotten silos on the plains, the rusting railroad cars, the forbidding watchtowers, the scavengers in the garbage, the fatigue-smudged faces, the refugees sprawled on the school room floor, the lonely lingerers, the freighters hardening the horizon, the beautiful and the damned.

Along the way I’ve learned this: We deny our connectedness at our peril. Let me be clear: This is the 21st century.

I’ve heard the infant’s cry, the sobbing of the bereaved, the old man’s sigh, the whispering of the valley, the stirring of desire, the echo of war, the village bells, the ram’s horn rising, the muezzin’s pre-dawn call to prayer.

That’s a lot of different sounds. So let me be clear: As children of Abraham we are all responsible for one another. This is the age of responsibility.

I’ve known the walls that divide us, the propaganda of hate, the crops that wither, the seas that rise, the networks that go down, the tires that go flat, the light bulbs that go out, the subways that stop and the delays at O’Hare Airport.

... contd.