"You'll never know how much it means that you showed up."

We heard this sentiment twice in the past week, once at the ICE offices to fight a neighbor's detention (and ultimate deportation this past weekend) and again at the vigil to honor the life of Percy Lee Hawkins III, a neighbor murdered by the Las Vegas police a year ago on Saturday.

Both the daughter of the neighbor who was deported and the parents of the neighbor who was killed couldn't put into words what it meant to them to have the community show up. To know that suffering in their families was felt as suffering for our entire community.

Kindness isn't just fluffy "random acts of kindness" actions. Kindness is deep community care and showing up when our neighbors are suffering. Kindness is letting neighbors know that they're not alone. Kindness is resisting injustice that is happening to people around us.

It's also resisting the seductive promise of individualism that says, "I'm fine, I don't have to care if it's not directly happening to me". That's not actually how it works when we're a web of humanity all sharing the same home on Earth.

May we start imagining a world where every single neighbor shows up to support all community members and we get to show up together in our joy, not only our grief.