He has been barking all afternoon, but that is not unusual. He's a large white dog in the bulldog family. He might even be a pit bull, and he is chained to a peg in the ground with a shiny dog dish nearby. Most folks are staying indoors today due 90 degree temps and high humidity. I look out the window and wonder if his dish has run dry. I want to go check, but it could be risky. I ask a couple of family members and I am told that it's not my problem. Preparing to deliver the water anyway, I look again and the dog is gone. I imagine the owner has returned.

I have discovered that an odd variety of issues are not my problem. I learn about kids who can't go to prom or on the class trip because they don't have the money. I don't have the money either, but I want to organize a prom dress project, or a special fund for trips. As the senior choir members paraded across the stage last year, all the young women were dressed in their prom formals, and the men in fine attire. When the name of the last young woman was called, she walked out wearing a tired shirt and brown pants and a face that matched. If that was her choice, then I celebrate it and celebrate her courage to dress the way that she wished. But I also know the pain of standing out in the crowd in high school. If it wasn't her choice to eschew the formal wear, then my heart breaks for her. I want to do something so that white shirts or formal dresses are available to anyone who can't buy their own. No, I don't want to enforce a dress code. I want to enable choice.

"That's not your problem."

I have an impulse to warn the kid who just left his bike unlocked. I also want to warn other young ones who are riding their bikes in the dark with no lights and dark clothing. I am told to mind my own business.

I learn that a family will soon lose their home. I want to make sure they know about programs that might help them. I am again told that it's not my problem, but family members do help me to get the information to them.

Perhaps these are just trivial things. I don't know. But I recall the case of a kidnapped young woman who lived for years in tents in a yard in a town, raising the children of the man who had kidnapped and raped her. The neighbors later reported that it had seemed odd, but they didn't do anything about this awareness of an "odd" situation.

Today I read that a 13 year old boy's body was discovered, "encased in cement and buried in a shallow grave in Lake County, Indiana" (CNN online). The allegations are that he had been kept in a cage, often beaten and deprived of food. When he became too ill to eat, his father allegedly punched him about the head and he eventually stopped breathing (according to police reports). The boy died two years before his body was found. In a July 3, 2011 article by CNN contributor Bob Greene, the journalist expresses shock that no one noticed he was missing in all that time. He wasn't in school. Child protective services had investigated previous complaints, even back before the boy was born, but information on that is cloudy. Apparently some folks had made it their business to report concerns about this child, but somehow no one noticed he was missing. I wonder if any folks decided it was not their problem.

As a graduate student, I read Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History and I remember his assertion that the frontier had helped to forge a distinctly American character that I can only recall as "rugged individualism." Perhaps that trait functioned well on the frontier. And alternately, perhaps concern for others can bleed over into interference and nosiness. Yet in this 21st century America, we do need each other. Reality television stresses competition, from the Survivor series to battles between chefs. On the other hand, the proliferation of social networking sites seems to suggest a need for connections, relationships, and for others to know our business. Yes, there is often "too much information" posted. But one can also share a need and others can respond to that need.

As I look at the overweening divisiveness in the political arena, I see that fierce competition is not an American quality that leads to progress in the 21st century. So, if not through competition and individualism (more today out of fear of socialism than a frontier mentality), then where lies the hope for the American future?
Awareness is essential. Progress begins with knowing what is happening around us and showing up. My neighbor has no job, or no health care, or no home. Is that my problem? Even in the most self-focused way, it is because it will ultimately affect me. But it is also my problem as a human being living in a free society. So if competition leads this society nowhere, and we become aware of the needs of each other, does not the logical path to progress and problem solving lie in collaboration? Look at the word and see within it "co-labor," or work together. Whether it's the neighbor's thirsty dog, the girl who needs a dress, the neglected, abused child, the neighbor lacking a home or health care, it is my problem and it is your problem.

I do concede, however, that like taking water to a large dog, when we chose a response to our awareness, the actions we take can be risky.