Why Broken Friendships Hurt

As I headed off to California for the installation of my old friend Matthew J. Hall as provost of Biola University, I commented to my wife, Maria, “I wonder what the most-repeated sentence I’ve ever said to or heard from Matt Hall would be.” And what we landed on was “Well, that was crazy.”

Matt and I have had many opportunities to say that to each other since we first met—back when he was a call screener for a talk-radio show I sometimes guest hosted. His job was to filter out the...