You never know where you’ll find one, and you may be the oddest couple anywhere, but if you’re open to them (and if you slow down enough to make the connection), kindred spirits are all around you. None of us is lucky enough to strike up conversations with all of them, but when we find even one, it’s such a treat.

It happened to me less than an hour ago. I went to the gym late — morning got away from me, I had an 11 a.m. business meeting, another at quarter of 1 — so I worked out at a time of day that’s really unusual for me. At the very end of my routine — I’d done cardio with Dr. Phil, then a lot of stretching and a lower-body set with weights — I went to find an elevated platform for calf raises,  I’d wandered to the back of the gym where the serious muscle guys tend to congregate. They weren’t there at 4:30 in the afternoon, though. In fact, no one was there except a young trainer, leaning on the machine I wanted to use for a purpose other than what it was designed for. I asked if I could and he said okay. We chatted about exercising in the p.m. versus the a.m., and when I told him I worked at home and arranged my own hours, he thought that was cool and wanted to know more. I shared with him about my books and he told me that he was in college, studying the religious history of African-Americans.

We had the best talk: he was studying religion, and my degree is in religion; we agreed that spirituality is often the safer course than something organized, however; and we talked about the mystical underpinnings of religions and what a pity it is that people tend to spend so much time arguing about the details that they miss the majesty.

I don’t think we chatted more than ten minutes, but it was such a rich conversation. I’m going to work out in the afternoon more often, just to run into Veron and talk philosophy and make eye contact with somebody who also gets excited about the Great Mystery.

Now, if you were to look at the people in the gym at that time and try to plot who might be kindred spirits, chances are you wouldn’t have picked Veron and me. Other than the fact that we both have names that start with “V” we appear to have nothing in common. He’s twenty. I could be his mom — almost his grandmother. He’s black, I’m white. He’s a native New Yorker, I’m an import from the Midwest. He’s a college student trying to save up to study in Asia. I’m a writer and speaker and coach who’s been to Asia more than once and don’t really need to go back. He’s looking at life from the start of it, and I’m looking at it from well into the middle. But that’s only what you see on the inside. If bodies were invisible and souls showed, Veron and I would look like brother and sister. And at that soul level, we are.

I’m convinced that Spirit is trying to get kindred spirits together, like some cosmic social director. Help out by talking to the people who talk to you. Or start up the conversation when someone looks interesting, or gives you some indication that you might not be in the same room or on the same bus by mere chance, but rather by divine appointment.