At 8am in Los Angeles on my way to work I am within ten feet of a million people every day but never meet a single one. In a small mountain town somewhere in the Rockies my truck spins helplessly in a pile of soft snow while taking my daughter to school. It is five degrees with a biting wind. I try to dig us out with the ice scraper but am only rescued by three high school boys who get out of their truck to help me dig and then push us to flat ground. One of them is the older brother of a classmate of my daughter. I will be sure to tell his mother of her son’s good deed.

In the big sub(urban) metros of this country there are few problems we depend on a neighbor’s kindness to resolve. Daily life has been made nearly frictionless by advancements in technology, public programs, and the invisible labor of an immigrant underclass we dare never acknowledge. What sacrifices might you make for the strangers in your community? Unless you go out looking for them, are there even sacrifices to be made?

In the flyover country where these programs and services are not so robust, life is less determined. There are unforeseeable private needs and public goods that must be tended to through whatever means are presently within reach and without the guiding hand of an agency dedicated to such matters. When you see a stranger stranded on the side of a cold road, you stop to help because he is no stranger, and neither are you.