"This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others." Elie Wiesel

This week in my hometown a woman killed her two children, then took her own life. The details of this tragedy will come out like entrails at a vulture picnic, but they are almost not even necessary. Three people who were working and playing and talking with neighbors yesterday, are now gone.

Our American culture is so young, and so homogenized that the very thing we pride ourselves in-our independence-is also our own albatross. Most older cultures have rituals and ceremonies, there is a sense of family and community, there is a sense of belonging. I think we have lost that along the way to the uber-independence in our culture. We live in our little houses, working like dogs to pay our mortgages, and then often the people you are closest too live miles and miles away.

Would it be possible for us to find our way back to some sense of community in the midst of such a mix of culture and diversity?

I remember the day that September 11th happened, there was this immediate sense of connectedness with every single person you met. In the grocery store, at the gas station, in the workplace. We were under attack, and you had the sense that all of us were pulling together, circling the wagons against the forces that would seek to take away our very homeland.

I liked that time, just afterward. I felt a sense of connectedness with total strangers, and it felt good. We were one people and we were scared, and mad and worried. People reached out to others, and talked more.

But then the crisis abated and we went back to business as usual.

This week NPR discussed the topic of fame, and how most people want it, but then when they get it, they wish they didn't. Reminds me of the folk tale of the dancing shoes.

I think at a very basic, almost cellular level, what we all want is not fame, but just to know that we are KNOWN-that we are seen, that we have value, that our life here matters somehow.

I wonder about the woman that took her life, and her children's lives too. I wonder if she had any friendships, any connections in the community. I wonder if she passed by people everyday and said Hello, wishing that someone would connect with her, would see her. In the end it is a diagnosis of some kind of mental illness that creates this type of tragedy, but you wonder if she had confided in someone, if anything would have changed.

My life as I grow older is more concentrated, and I taste life with more attention to detail. I am pretty certain I will never be famous, but is it possible for me to make a difference in the life of others? I think that is a goal I can try to accomplish.

I want to have kindness and compassion be my compass. I hope to be present in people's lives, in good times, and in bad. I want to really SEE the people who move in and out of my life, and honor what ever they have to give, and give them all that I can.

Elie Weisel is a true example of someone who LIVES this way. His life, so full of loss and tragedy, is such a shining beacon of hope, that in the midst of life's brutality, one can find the hope to continue to reach out. His life's work is a masterpiece of love and forgiveness.

Connecting. That is what I am contemplating.