Do you remember a time when you were thirsty, and what it felt like to take that first sip of cool, fresh water? Perhaps it was after a vigorous sporting event. Someone offered you a glass of water, and you rejoiced as the cool liquid trickled down your throat and quenched your thirst.

The gift of water may quench our physical thirst, but thirst comes to us in so many ways. We experience thirst as a deeper longing. Just as we long for food to nourish our body, for example, we long for friendship when we are lonely. We long to end pain and suffering. We long for meaning and purpose in our lives.

In the midst of our longing lies a consistent and enduring theme. This theme is notably found in the words of Brother David Steindl-Rast, who describes our seemingly unquenchable thirst as a search for “the More” and points out that “we will always want to have something else or something more.”

As I set aside my paper and pen and turn on the radio to listen to the news of the day, I almost unknowingly and without intention ingest the anxiety of our polarized world: the war in Syria; conflicts across the Middle East; gun violence in school classrooms; and the precarious state of the many undocumented, whose lives are soaked in uncertainty.

In the next moment, an unbidden awareness floods the landscape of my soul. I rejoice in the realization that today, as planetary people who live in the midst of turmoil, we can be reconciled and healed as we move forward to quench our thirst for “the More” as we take the balm of love that is like running water to the soul and mend what is broken, bring peace, overcome injustice, and renew the face of the Earth.