This Is What I've Learned...When Words Fail

   A couple months ago I wrote an article for the paper on broken relationships. Since then, I’ve reflected many times on two of the quotes I included in that piece…and so, this is what (else) I’ve learned…about broken relationships, in the quiet solace of an old pacific coastal white oak, back on the ranch again, in Santa Ynez, California; From my heart to yours…

   Henri Nouwen said, “Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.”

   Sometimes, when words fail, distance may be the only cure for you and a person you’re in conflict with. For words do lose their meaning, when you’re too close…emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, to a person you have an unreconciled difference with.

   By continually trying to make a bad situation better, between you and the person you’re in conflict with, we often just make things worse — no matter how much you may love, care about them and desperately desire restoration with or at the very least, some kind of peace-filled closure. 

   The heartbreak of unreconciled differences can be excruciatingly painful, exhausting and exasperating, whenever words begin to fail…and we come to know, “that without silence words lose ...