I was only dimly aware of him as he made his way across the yard where he had been playing by himself to the fence along the street where I was running. There he called out to me, "Hey, mister!"

Now, I am not an unkind person, but neither did I feel compelled to respond.

Though I am sure I heard his words, I suspect his greeting barely registered in my consciousness. And as I ran on down the street, I heard another cry, this one much more plaintive than the last, "Mister, why don't you talk to me?"

Now his words burned their way into my awareness, and I realized immediately that we had acted out a small but universal piece of a human drama that takes place every day, on nearly every level of life. For "why don't you talk to me?" is a question often asked in marriages and families as husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters either as children or as adults, struggle to get better connected with one another. Almost invariably, when couples or families present themselves for counseling, I can count on hearing somewhere during the first session, "We need help with communications." And there is a variation on this theme heard equally as often. Frustrated spouses, troubled teenagers, lonely singles, all may want to know, "Why won't you listen to me?”