I often begin my mornings sitting quietly in the living room with a cloudy mug of PG Tips, watching the traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge. The Tappan Zee is a fabled stretch of concrete and steel, desperately overwhelmed and showing its age. But, most days, it faithfully does its job providing mindless and safe passage over the Hudson to thousands of commuters.

I wonder at times, what would happen if my bridge gave into its age, sighed heavily and collapsed into the Hudson? Chaos would ensue; people would be instantly cut off from their jobs and communities would suddenly be disconnected. The old bridge is a tenuous vein that sustains life in the metro region. Without that bridge, the flow of life would end and communities would die of isolation.

Sometimes, as I stare at the bridge, I think of Robert. He is a hushed homeless man who hangs out on the peeling green benches in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park. The first time I met Robert, I kept staring at his hands. An African-American from St. Croix, Robert had vivid white hands, cracked and swollen from the cold and the alcohol. They were thick and heavy, folded into his ragged green sweatshirt.

Robert has no bridges. Some died, some moved away, and some he blew up. He is as isolated as an old bridge piling, surrounded by the Hudson. He sits quietly in the middle of the largest city of America, an island of rags with swirls of moms pushing strollers around him. Speech slurred, teeth coming out. Robert has no bridge.

Today, the New York Times has a cover photo of the ultimate bridge builder, President Obama. Fresh from a bridge building trip to Europe, he is shown warmly shaking the hand of Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez. Wasn’t Venezuela part of the Axis of Evil? Maybe they were just part of the League of Bad Places. But such bridge building! Are we going to build a bridge from the Keys to Cuba next (sounds like a shovel ready project to me)? Anyway, I love the way our President is connecting, engaging, and building bridges where they had faded from neglect or were hastily destroyed for economic gain.

President Obama is building bridges to countries; can we build bridges to people? I’m convinced that most poverty exists today because of broken relationships and isolation. On a state level, Zimbabwe is surrounded by paralyzed countries that can’t/won’t engage the tragedy next door. Zimbabwe’s roads are in ruin and the airports are closed. Isolated. Cut off. In the same way, Robert has no way to connect. While both have contributed to their state, we have grown comfortable with their isolation and have come to accept it. Someone needs to build a bridge.

I want to be a bridge builder. I won’t be meeting the President of Venezuela any time soon, but I can keep meeting the Roberts who live in my community. I can patiently and persistently lay blocks of connection, establishing a tenuous bridge of relationship that could someday sustain a trickle of hope and potential.