This weekend marks my fortieth high school reunion. People have traveled from British Columbia, California, and Chicago. The trick is trying to remember names, when our bodies have gotten lumpier, our hair gray. But the relentless truth is that we have all endured forty years of heartbreak, wrestled with jobs and the economy, let go of dreams with a heavy sigh. It no longer matters whether we can prop up the facade that we are popular. Some of us have buried parents, children, marriages, careers. 

Yet there is a softness that comes after being pounded. The conversations are laced with attention to knees, and backs, and gall bladders. When we were seventeen those details were as boring as the world news. But now our priorities have migrated, many in a parallel direction, even though some of us have not spoken since the seventies.

It was a lot of effort to care about what we were wearing, or who we were dating, back in our teens. Clothes and the circuitous details of social life used up more than their share of our attention, with sporadic bursts spent on homework.

But now we are looking for something deeper, that cannot be quantified or hung on a wall. One friend is a pediatrician serving low income immigrants, whole families crowded into a single room. Another works long hours overseeing foster care cases, driving children to prison to visit their daddies. Another woman works with the homeless, helping them recraft their futures. Others are helping to raise grandchildren, and cobbling care for elderly parents. I interrupted one classmate midsentence to notice that we wore matching silver circles of scripture around our necks. 

The details are unique. The overarching themes are disguised in circumstances. But I have a hunch that God is working on all of us, incrementally urging us towards compassion.