Won't You Be My Neighbor? An episode of Article 13

Summary

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Faith Matters Podcast – Article 13: "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?"

Date: March 22, 2026
Host: Zachary Davis (Faith Matters Foundation)
Guests/Main Contributors: Pete Davis, Seth Kaplan, Karen Washington

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the decline of community life in America, pinpointing both structural and personal causes, and offering hopeful, practical steps toward rebuilding vibrant, supportive neighborhoods. Drawing on research, storytelling, and spiritual wisdom, it challenges listeners to reconsider the value of rootedness, mutual support, and commitment—even in an era that champions mobility and keeping options open. Through the lens of Karen Washington’s transformation from a frustrated neighbor to a community leader and insights from civic thinkers Pete Davis and Seth Kaplan, the episode sketches out "blueprints for a better world" grounded in the simple but powerful work of being a good neighbor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Karen Washington’s Story: From Absence to Abundance

• [00:29] Karen, a single mom in the Bronx, bought her dream house but struggled with a trash-filled vacant lot across the street.
• The turning point came when neighbor Jose Lugo began cleaning the lot to start a community garden. Karen joined in, sparking wider neighborhood involvement (Quote: “My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.” – Pete Davis, 00:56).
• The garden flourished, leading to the creation of the La Familia Farmer’s Market, eagerly anticipated by the community each year (Karen Washington: "We sat down, mapped it out...now we're eight years in the making. Love our community. Community loves us." – 01:39).
• Her work in the garden connected her to broader issues (school, hunger) and changed local families' habits: "I started to see a change and really saw how my children really started to like fresh food versus processed food." – Karen Washington, 02:15

2. America’s Community Decline: Data & Diagnosis

• [04:02] Guest Seth Kaplan notes that up to the 1960s, American neighborhoods were deeply place-based, marked by dense local relationships—even if not everyone was "friends," mutual support was expected.
• Over the last two generations, America shifted from township-based living to “networked and technologically driven” societies, weakening local institutions (churches, schools, civic groups) and the spaces (“third spaces”—parks, libraries, cafes—[05:22] Pete Davis) that brought neighbors together.
• Metrics underscore the decline:
  • Face-to-face socializing for men dropped 30%; unmarried Americans over 35%; teenagers 45% (2003–2022) ([06:18] Zachary Davis).
  • Only a quarter of Americans now know most of their neighbors; social evenings with neighbors have fallen from 44% (1974) to 28% (2022).
  • This erosion coincides with heightened anxiety, loneliness, and mistrust.
  • Quote: “There is no statistical record of any other period in US history when people have spent more time on their own.” – Zachary Davis, 06:18 citing Derek Thompson

3. The Power and Necessity of Community

• Kaplan emphasizes that relationships are foundational: "Relationships is the starting point for understanding any country...How much love and how much security are people feeling in their relationships?" – [08:00]
• The absence of local relationships increases feelings of anxiety, fear, and risk—especially for families and youth ([08:48] Seth Kaplan).
• Community is a prerequisite for health and well-being, as trust and belonging spread outward into politics, economics, and culture.

4. Fear of Commitment & “Keeping Options Open”

• Pete Davis explains that many resist investing in local communal life due to a cultural focus on maximizing personal options and flexibility ([09:59]).

  • Civic life requires routine and commitment (e.g., book clubs, neighborhood events), yet “the central creed of our time is keeping your options open.”
  • Quote: “If we’re maximizing keeping our options open, we’re never going to be able to make the commitments that are required to build the building blocks of civic life, which is committed relationships and organizations.” – Pete Davis, 10:51

• Both Davis and Kaplan note that community requires surrendering some personal freedom in exchange for security and belonging—something many now resist ([11:35]).

5. Restoring Community: Simple Steps and the Role of Repetition

• Start local and small: Kaplan suggests literally knocking on neighbors’ doors (12:48).
  • “If you tried eight or ten houses...I bet you’ll find one or two open to something. And that is a starting point.” – Seth Kaplan, 12:48
• Build on shared activity: Organize block parties, shared meals, or neighborhood projects. Doing things together builds relationships more reliably than “networking.”
• Find a few co-conspirators: Don’t try to tackle loneliness alone—seek a handful of allies for support and project momentum ([13:15]).
• Repeat, repeat, repeat: Routine, scheduled gatherings are the bedrock of real community ([14:15] Pete Davis).
  • “The way beautiful things are cultivated is usually through routines and routine gatherings and meetings...the basic building block of community life is a relationship. And one of the key things that goes into a relationship is a little bit of commitment.” – Pete Davis, 14:15

6. Overcoming Social Fear and Disconnection

• The episode incorporates voices from a New York Times video, highlighting the loneliness many feel in retirement or life transitions—“the isolation was deafening” ([15:02] Seth Kaplan).
• Quote: “Almost everyone is sitting alone wishing someone would knock on their door to come connect.” – Pete Davis, 15:45
• The hosts encourage: Remember, your neighbor likely feels lonely, too, and will often welcome outreach, even if it's awkward ([15:56] Zachary Davis).
• Asking for help ties the community together (“let each one of them know they are precious” – Pete Davis, 16:19).

7. Wisdom from Mr. Rogers and Tom Hanks

• [16:41] Tom Hanks, quoting Fred Rogers, recommends: “Go around to the people next door, introduce yourself and ask if they need any help. But it's also very important that you ask them for help, too. Asking for help lets people know they're needed, that they matter, and it binds you all together into a community that is...willfully interdependent.”

8. Reclaiming the American Dream & Social Wealth

• The hosts and guests reflect on how the American Dream has become more individual and materialistic and less oriented to social uplift ([17:48] Seth Kaplan).
  • Studies show millennial and Gen X priorities have shifted away from community (“affiliation”) and toward money/status ([18:08] Zachary Davis).
  • Kaplan urges listeners to pursue “social wealth”—rich relationships and belonging—as energetically as material advancement: “We may end up in that nice house but all alone. And that's not a recipe for a successful life.” – Seth Kaplan, 18:43

9. Choosing Place and Building Belonging

• Consider the impact of geographic choices: “Many people...aspire to go far away to college and then do a nationwide career search...Instead, we should expand our sites, consider settling in smaller towns or back in our hometowns..." – Zachary Davis, 19:04
• Real belonging (which brings health and happiness, according to the American Immigration Council) is now rare: 74% of Americans report “non-belonging” in their local community ([19:57]).

10. The Joy of Community: Lived Examples

• Pete Davis and Seth Kaplan share personal stories:

  • Davis: Community commitment leads to deep meaning and joy. Those who “completely ignored the advice of keeping your options open…felt full of purpose, they felt full of community…they committed to people, they committed to places, they committed to Communities.” – 21:36
  • Kaplan: Real support in daily life—neighbors help with emergencies, children’s crises, and more: “I walk down the streets in my neighborhood and I feel joyful...I know who's behind the doors...It's a reality check. It's a sense of support.” – Seth Kaplan, 22:05
  • Stories of neighbors coming together for medical emergencies or to support a child through chemotherapy ([22:50] and [23:20]).

• Kaplan’s Conclusion: “When you live in a security blanket and you have all these other people in there with you, your whole sense of the possibilities, your whole sense of who you are, everything changes…we need love.” – Seth Kaplan, 24:00

11. The Transformative Power of Committed Action

• Returning to Karen Washington’s story, Pete Davis shares:
  • “There are some people that say we should give up and just accept life is trash. I think there are some people that say we should move away and try to search somewhere else where there's not trash piling up. And then there's a third way, which is to transform the world...[creating community] is usually a great adventure that becomes part of your identity...With any commitment, you gotta just dive in, run across the street and say, yes, can I help? And who knows where that adventure will take you.” – Pete Davis, 24:54

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Memorable Quotes

• "Nothing deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America." – Alexis de Tocqueville via Zachary Davis, 03:28
• "We're anxious because we don't know our neighbors...everything about your life. We're anxious because we don't know our neighbors." – Seth Kaplan, 08:48
• "If we're maximizing keeping our options open, we're never going to be able to make the commitments that are required..." – Pete Davis, 10:51
• "Almost everyone is sitting alone wishing someone would knock on their door to come connect." – Pete Davis, 15:45
• “Let each one of them know. Boom. That each one of them is precious.” – Pete Davis, 16:18–16:19
• “We just have this norm that we’re here to be there for each other...” – Seth Kaplan, 22:05

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Actionable Steps (with Timestamps)

• Knock on a neighbor’s door; introduce yourself.
  [12:48] Seth Kaplan
• Partner with one or two others on a shared activity.
  [13:15] Seth Kaplan
• Create routine gatherings (e.g., block parties, meals).
  [14:15] Pete Davis
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help—it builds connection.
  [16:05] Pete Davis, [16:41] Tom Hanks via Fred Rogers
• Choose to invest in place and people, not just opportunity.
  [19:04] Zachary Davis, [19:35] Seth Kaplan
• Reimagine the American Dream as both personal and social wealth.
  [18:43] Seth Kaplan

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Final Reflections

The episode closes on a hopeful note—rebuilding community is possible, rewarding, and open to anyone who will risk reaching out and committing to a place and a group of people. As Pete Davis says, the first step is simply willingness: “With any commitment, you gotta just dive in, run across the street and say, yes, can I help? And who knows where that adventure will take you.” ([24:54])

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For listeners, the invitation is clear: You can help remake community, experience deeper fulfillment, and find unexpected joy—if you will just take the first step to knock on your neighbor’s door.

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Transcript

[Podcast Host]

Hey, everybody, before we jump into the episode, I wanted to let you know about a really special event that's coming up on Palm Sunday, which is March 29th. We're going to be gathering in the Tabernacle on temple square at 7pm for a palm Sunday musical celebration. This year, the Salt Lake Central Stake is sponsoring the Luke's Choir and Orchestra, and it's going to be a beautiful evening of sacred music as we begin Holy Week together. This event is free and open to the public, and we would truly love to see you there.

[Zachary Davis]

Karen Washington was a physical therapist and a single mom who dreamed of having her own house in the Bronx. She was able to make this dream come true, but it turned into what she called a nightmare because of the abandoned lot across from her home. It began filling with garbage, got infested with rats, and became a place where bad things happened. But her story turned into a different kind of dream when she saw a neighbor, Jose Lugo, starting to clear the lot.

[Pete Davis]

She told me that my eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. And she said, what are you doing? And he says, I'm trying to clear the trash to plant a community garden. Do you want to help? And she said, yes, can I help?

[Zachary Davis]

This is author Pete Davis, who related Washington's story in his book, the Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing.

[Pete Davis]

And what they did is they started organizing the whole neighborhood. They cleared all the trash. They started planting. Suddenly they had a garden with corn and squash and kale and collard beans and cantaloupe. Eventually, they got connected with all the other people doing community gardens across the city.

[Karen Washington]

Welcome to the farmer's Market, the La Familia Farmer's Market.

[Zachary Davis]

This is Washington in a Parent Earth feature describing how the garden became the launching point for a farmer's market.

[Karen Washington]

We sat down, mapped it out, and then got four farmers who were willing to come to our neighborhood and got it started. So now we're eight years in the making. Love our community. Community loves us. They wait for July to November to come on Tuesdays.

[Zachary Davis]

The garden also became Karen Washington's launching point for new kinds of involvement in her community.

[Pete Davis]

She started asking about life in the garden. Life, the life of different people who were hanging out in the garden. And they said, oh, you know, we got this issue at school. We got this issue with hunger. And then that got her involved in, like, school issues and hunger issues. And how could the garden help with this?

[Karen Washington]

Many families that I've talked to just in passing at the farmer's market, they said, you know, you know, my kids were eating candy and cookies. And so when, you know, I started going to the farmer's market and getting my kids involved in community gardening and eating healthy lunches, then I started to see a change and really saw how my children really started to like fresh food versus processed food.

[Zachary Davis]

Karen Washington's story is beautiful. More than that, it's a beautiful vision of the kind of life we might wish for ourselves. A life of community, a life of meaningful connection to others, built around common projects and mutual care. Unfortunately for many Americans, such life in community feels more and more out of reach. Welcome to Article 13, a podcast that brings together cutting edge research and spiritual wisdom to provide blueprints for a better world. I'm Zachary Davis. In this episode, we look at why community is declining in America and why this is partly caused by our own fear. We also take a deeper look at why community matters and how we can help bring our own communities back to life. Community was once America's great strength. When French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville made his study of America in the 1830s, he was particularly struck by how readily Americans formed associations. These were, he said, of a thousand different types. Religious, moral, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. Nothing, in my view, he wrote, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America. This drive to associate also showed up for generations in how Americans inhabited their own local communities.

[Seth Kaplan]

So if we're thinking that America had a pretty healthy society two generations ago and we don't have a healthy society now, what has changed?

[Zachary Davis]

This is Seth Kaplan, the author of Fragile Repairing American Society, One zip code at a time.

[Seth Kaplan]

Until about two generations ago, people were very place based. Where they prayed, where they shopped, where they met people. Everything was pretty close. So if you went, let's say, in the 1950s or even into the 60s, and you went up to a street, kids played on the street, parents hang out on their porch, they knew each other. And again, it doesn't mean that they were friends, but they had relationships. They had expectations that each other would be there to support them. I think this was the norm mostly everywhere until recently.

[Zachary Davis]

Over the last two generations, Kaplan wrote, for after Babel, the US has moved from a township society in which neighbors regularly communicated and collaborated with each other, to a networked and technologically driven one in which local neighborhoods, schools, churches, and civic organizations are less important and have weakened over time. Two of those key features Kaplan describes, institutions and place based community have disappeared. The physical spaces that used to bring Americans together don't exist the same way.

[Pete Davis]

We're seeing a decline in what are called third spaces. Third spaces, a place where you meet in community. A plaza, a park, a library, a cafe, a bar. If we see a decline in those spaces, you can also going to see a decline in community.

[Seth Kaplan]

I'm thinking 10 minute drive from where I live. Wonderfully nice houses. There's nothing that connects those people. There's just roads. Where are the institutions that bring those people together? You drive to church, you drive to school, you drive shopping. Your civic engagement is not local. There's nothing that brings people together.

[Zachary Davis]

The country has also lost many of the associations, like unions and civic groups that used to gather people together.

[Seth Kaplan]

And so when I say fragile neighborhoods, I first and foremost mean places in which relationships are weak, institutions have thinned out or disappeared, and people just live next to each other and they have very little that brings them together.

[Zachary Davis]

And with nothing bringing us together, it's no surprise that we aren't getting together. Between 2003 and 20, 22 hours of face to face socializing declined for American men by 30%, for unmarried Americans by over 35%, and for teenagers by over 45%. As Derek Thompson writes, there is no statistical record of any other period in U.S. history when people have spent more time on their own. And in particular, we're not spending time with the people who share our local space. The Institute for Family Studies reports of recent surveys, only a quarter of Americans said that they know most of their neighbors. The share of Americans who spend a social evening with a neighbor at least several times per month has declined from 44% in 1974 to 28% in 2022.

[Pete Davis]

We've started seeing community as less of a key part of our life. We think it's all about, you know, what we do with our immediate family, nuclear family, and what we do with our careers. And there's been a decline in this other huge part of our life, which is our interactions with friends, neighbors and fellow citizens in community life.

[Zachary Davis]

And this decline in community has taken a visible toll on American life, writes Thompson. Solitude, anxiety and dissatisfaction seem to be rising in lockstep. Surveys show that Americans have never been more anxious about their own lives or more depressed about the future of the country. What such data reveals is that community isn't just one good thing among others. It's a prerequisite for many, many other vital goods for both individuals and societies, something Seth Kaplan, as a global analyst, is uniquely positioned to see.

[Seth Kaplan]

My lens for thinking about this question is always the idea that Relationships is the starting point for understanding any country. When I work in Libya, I work in Nigeria, I work in the United States, we must always remember that the nature of relationships informs institutions, affects politics, society, economics. And so the question is, how much love and how much security are people feeling in their relationships.

[Zachary Davis]

The relationships that build and define community also define how much people will thrive in many other areas of their lives. As place based community has declined. As we participate less in local decision making, as we see and trust our neighbors less, as we have fewer people around who know us and look out for us, a plethora of social ills has increased.

[Seth Kaplan]

Your neighbor determines so much about what goes on in the social life and what goes on indirectly on how you are feeling and everything about your life. We're anxious because we don't know our neighbors. Most people, they have no one to go to who's near them. They're afraid to let their kids out. They're safeguarding themselves. Day to day, your whole mindset changes. Your feeling of joy and happiness is not there because you feel alone and at risk. My argument is that everything from deaths of despair to depression, to the problems we have with lots of youth, to the problems of mistrust and polarization, these lie downstream from how our relationships have changed in neighborhoods.

[Zachary Davis]

You may be one of those many Americans who feels alone and at risk, who doesn't have a community to support them the way most Americans once did. If so, you may also be wondering how you could possibly address this problem when there are so many vast structural reasons behind it. But there is in fact a reason behind community decline that lies much more in our individual choices. It's what drove Pete Davis to write his book Dedicated.

[Pete Davis]

I was trying to think of like, what is going on? What is the first step that would be needed to start rejuvenating civic life in America or communal life in America? And what is our resistance to that first step? And when I reflected on it, what kept coming to me was the idea that we are scared of making the commitments that are required to sustain in civic life. Because civic life is kind of made up of a series of commitments. It's a book club, the basic unit of civic life, a book club or something, or a neighborhood association or a block party that happens every year or something. It involves you getting involved in something and tying your future down a bit. You know, every first Thursday of every month I'm going to go to the book club meeting or I'm going to make a commitment to be there for the block party and Help set up beforehand. All of that requires going against what I've kind of identified as the central creed of our time, which is keeping your options open. If we're maximizing keeping our options open, we're never going to be able to make the commitments that are required to build the building blocks of civic life, which is committed relationships and organizations.

[Zachary Davis]

Community stopped being a priority for many Americans, in part because another priority took its place, an emphasis on maximizing one's own individual possibilities and opportunities.

[Pete Davis]

The dominant message people my age were receiving, and I sometimes call it like the creed of our time, is the message of keep your options open. Open. Don't commit to anything, because you never know when you'll need to be in a different place or with a different person, or part of a different group, or working on a different cause. Keep your options open.

[Zachary Davis]

According to Kaplan, a community requires a commitment to a certain social order, and usually to a place that by definition must contrain some choices. In return for security, support, and belonging, members surrender some of their freedom. Kaplan found the same thing Davis did. Creating community in America today is so difficult because few want to compromise their ability to make choices. But the problem with always trying to keep your options open means there is one option you will never have at all. The option to experience life in a rich, supportive community. That option only becomes available. As Kaplan notes, with commitment, we have

[Pete Davis]

a fear of regret that, you know, in our one precious life, we're going to commit to one thing, and we should have committed to another thing. In fact, we are going to regret not making a commitment. We're going to miss out on the depths of all the deep commitments we're going to make. And we're not going to build the types of deep identities that root us. If we never make a commitment here,

[Zachary Davis]

we do find something that lies within our own choices, choices about how we invest our own commitments. If we want to rebuild community, we can start by rededicating ourselves to the people and places closest to us.

[Seth Kaplan]

First, you can look out your door and you can imagine there's probably eight or ten houses right there. And the first thing you could simply do is you could knock on a few doors. I will guess that if you tried eight or 10 houses, you might not always succeed. But I bet you'll find one or two houses where they will be open to something. And that is a starting point.

[Zachary Davis]

Once you meet a few people, the possibility of group activities opens up.

[Seth Kaplan]

Can you have a block party? Can you invite some people over for a meal? But of course, it's always easier if you have one or two other people with you. Imagine there was three of you. It's best not to tackle loneliness alone. Can you find two, three, four other people in your broader area? It may not be in your immediate neighborhood. Who cares about these issues? And can you cooperate with them to do something? Because if you can get us a few people who say, we care, we want to activate that good nature or that desire to be with other people among our neighbors, and a few of you do something together, it can have a cascading effect. So I'd be looking for those few neighbors I'd be looking for what activity can you start? Can you repeat that activity?

[Zachary Davis]

The repetition part is absolutely key. As Davis research showed, to build community, you need to commit to showing up for certain things again and again.

[Pete Davis]

The way beautiful things are cultivated is usually through routines and routine gatherings and meetings. So you're probably not cultivating something unless it has. The most significant thing is like the third Thursday of every month where you're, like, sitting together and you have this desire to do something together. So I think that's a huge part of the story of community life, because the basic building block of community life is a relationship. And one of the key things that goes into a relationship is a little bit of commitment.

[Zachary Davis]

Now that first step can feel daunting. It's not easy to knock on a stranger's door, even if that stranger lives next door. One thing that might help is asking yourself how they might be feeling lonely, too. In 2023, the New York Times created a video to give voice to the lonely. Americans shared stories like these.

[Seth Kaplan]

I was important, right? I mattered to people. I thought I did. And then I retired and the isolation was deafening.

[Zachary Davis]

You look at the time and you

[Seth Kaplan]

go, it's three o', clock.

[Zachary Davis]

And you have so much your day. And the phone doesn't ring. No one's connecting with you. And you wonder how you can make

[Seth Kaplan]

the day go by.

[Zachary Davis]

If I can get myself to pick up the phone and call somebody, somebody else will say, you know, I'm feeling exactly the same way. And then, poof, you're part of the human race again.

[Pete Davis]

I am more confident of this than almost anything. That is the case of being communal. Today, almost everyone is sitting alone wishing someone would knock on their door to come connect.

[Zachary Davis]

Consider how welcome a knock on the door might be, and that might make it easier to go ahead and knock. And when you do, keep this recommendation in mind.

[Pete Davis]

Sometimes we have to ask for help, and that's okay.

[Zachary Davis]

I think the best thing we can

[Pete Davis]

do is to let people know.

[Zachary Davis]

Boom.

[Pete Davis]

That each one of them is precious.

[Podcast Host]

Hey, Mr. Rogers, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

[Zachary Davis]

A beautiful day for a neighbor. Please won't you be my neighbor?

[Seth Kaplan]

That was wonderful.

[Zachary Davis]

In an interview with Classic FM about playing Fred Rogers in the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Tom Hanks was asked how to be a good neighbor. His answer included this advice. You should go around to the people next door, introduce yourself and ask if they need any help. But it's also very important that you ask them for help, too. Asking for help lets people know they're needed, that they matter, and it binds you all together into a community that is, as Kaplan puts it, willfully interdependent, where everyone has a gift to offer and those gifts are in demand. In fact, the best platform for building community is often some project that asks everyone to share their gifts and efforts. A project like cleaning up the vacant lot.

[Seth Kaplan]

I tend to find intentionally looking to meet people is not as good as if you're doing something with people. If you have a goal, we're going to work together to help so and

[Zachary Davis]

so knocking on a neighbor's door, joining an organization, these are things we could do this week. Other changes will take longer, but are no less important. One such change involves rethinking the American Dream.

[Seth Kaplan]

The American dream, originally, when this term first came into fashion, we're talking, I believe, the Progressive Era. It was about uplifting people, uplifting all of society. Somehow we went from a more societal worldview to a worldview that's very individual and very material.

[Zachary Davis]

In a 202012 study, psychologist Gene Twenge examined three generations of boomers born post 1945, Gen Xers born post 1961, and millennials born post1981. The study found that compared to boomers, Gen Xers and millennials placed a higher priority on life goals connected to money and status and a lower priority on goals connected to affiliation and community. Kaplan believes we need to change these priorities. We need to aspire towards social wealth as much or more than material wealth.

[Seth Kaplan]

If we all think about ourselves and we all think materially, we're all a great many of us are going to be left behind, and a great many of us may chase that dream and end up in much worse shape. We may end up lonelier, we may end up more depressed, we may end up in that nice house but all alone. And that's not a recipe for a successful life.

[Zachary Davis]

What's needed, says Kaplan, is a substantial shift in our goals. Many people right now aspire to go far away to college and then do a nationwide career search seeking jobs in cities like New York, Los Angeles or Washington, D.C. instead, we should expand our sites, consider settling in places like the American heartland, in smaller towns where we can get to know people better, or even back in our hometowns. We can adapt our work lives around our community lives. This is Kaplan with Shelley Doyle on her podcast the Communiverse.

[Seth Kaplan]

I have a former classmate, a class, not a classmate, a student, she says. I'm moving back to Cleveland. I can continue my career. I can do it all virtually. I'll just fly when I have to and I'll live near my parents because we have a better community in Cleveland and we can stay vested in smaller places, places where people actually know each other, care for each other.

[Zachary Davis]

There's definitely been a theme that's been running through my recent conversations about the return those hero's journey. And so many of us go on this big worldwide exploration only to really feel the yearning to return. But returning with fresh eyes In 2023, the American Immigration Council and over zero did a study on belonging. They found that feeling you belong means you experience decreased pain, stress and loneliness, better general health and greater satisfaction in life overall. But the study also found that a majority of Americans report non belonging. 64% of Americans reported non belonging in the workplace, 68% in the nation and 74% in their local community. As you plan for your future, make this something you consider. Where can you feel that you belong? Where can you know others and be known? Where can you build and share social wealth? Finding the right community may well add more happiness to your life and your families than following the topmost job or moving to the most cutting edge city. As you're making big life choices, ask yourself, in what kind of community will this choice place me? The work of rebuilding community will take time. Progress will start off slow. But what Pete Davis found is that small changes build momentum. As one person shares their vision, others catch it and join in. And for those people who do dedicate themselves to cultivating the life of one neighborhood or one place, this long term effort is often a long period of joy.

[Pete Davis]

I was noticing that there were people who were full of purpose, they felt full of community. They were connected with all these people. They felt like they were living a really deep life. They were having an impact. They completely ignored the advice of keeping your options open. They committed to particular things, they committed to causes, they committed to people, they committed to places, they committed to Communities.

[Zachary Davis]

Joy is also how Seth Kaplan describes how he feels around his neighbors.

[Seth Kaplan]

These are people. We are all together helping each other. We feel like we live in a common boat, so to speak. We're sort of all going in the same direction, and we just have this norm that we're here to be there for each other. And it just. I walk down the streets in my neighborhood and I feel joyful. I don't know how you feel, Russell, if you walk down the streets in your neighborhood, but I feel a sense of joy because I know who's behind the doors. I know some of the good things and bad things they're experiencing. I know their kids. I walk around and I always see somebody I know. And it's a reality check. It's a sense of support.

[Zachary Davis]

Kaplan has seen countless examples of such support in his neighborhood. One involved his young son who fell on the cement one day and cut open his chin.

[Seth Kaplan]

My wife picked him up and took off down the street, and she came back about a half an hour later, and he was all banded up. So what did she do? She took off to the nearest nurse. I could probably name eight or 10 nurses or doctors, houses where nurses or doctors live. I vaguely know who they are. I've seen them. A couple of them I know a little better than the rest. It doesn't matter. If I knock on their door and I have a problem, they're going to be helpful. And that's just the norm in my neighborhood.

[Zachary Davis]

Another example concerned a friend of his daughter's who had to undergo chemotherapy.

[Seth Kaplan]

Neighbors come together. This community school comes together. People come together to support. It's doctors in the neighborhood. It's people checking up on them. It's people volunteering to help them. It's the type of social support they get that that girl feels so much confidence and encouragement. She even went away for a special camp for a week, something called a nonprofit in my neighborhood. So they got help on many, many levels to get them through this crisis.

[Zachary Davis]

Living in this kind of neighborhood has changed the very way that Kaplan experiences his life.

[Seth Kaplan]

When you live in a security blanket and you have all these other people in there with you, your whole sense of the possibilities, your whole sense of who you are, everything changes. Key thing is people need love. I mean, it's such the most basic concept. We need love. I live in a neighborhood where I have a couple of good friends, but I have hundreds of neighbors that I just have enough of a relationship with that we trust each other, we're there for each other.

[Zachary Davis]

Unconditional love. Is transformative, said Kaplan in one talk. And very few, too few Americans are experiencing it. We can help transform our communities and the lives of our neighbors if we are willing to step forward and offer some of that love. That's what Karen Washington did when she saw that trash piling up in her own neighborhood. It's what we can do in our own neighborhoods, and it's how we might find our own joy.

[Pete Davis]

And I think there are some people that say we should give up and just accept life is trash. I think there are some people that say, say we should move away and try to search somewhere else where there's not trash piling up. And then there's a third way, which is to transform the world. And that's what Karen and Jose and others have done. And what they discover is not that it's this kind of arduous thing where it's like, oh, you got to do the hard work of doing this. It is hard work. But what you find is it's usually a great adventure that becomes part of your identity. It becomes part of your heroic story of your own life. It introduces you to all these new, interesting people who become your friends. It broadens your horizons, and suddenly you wake up, you know, 20 years later and you're like, oh, I guess I'm the queen of urban growing. And that's what life is like. With any commitment, you gotta just dive in, run across the street and say, yes, can I help? And who knows where that adventure will take you.

[Zachary Davis]

Article 13 is a faith Matters podcast. It is produced by Maria Devlin McNair, Gavin Feller and me, Zachary Davis. Sound design and music is by Steve LaRosa. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends and rate and review the show. We love receiving feedback and it really helps other people discover us. Thank you for listening. See you next time.