The Kindness of Strangers

In the January 2025 issue of The Christian Century, I found a brief article by Samuel Wells (an Anglican priest who serves as head pastor of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London) with the interesting title, “Microdrama in Trafalgar Square.” (See lead photo.) Apparently Wells is just getting ready to walk across the square, cell phone in hand, to call a friend who has treated him to a day out at a local cricket match, when he describes the following incident:

Suddenly from behind me a hand appeared and swooped my phone out of my grasp. The hand belonged to a teenager on an electric bike. In seconds, as I began to perceive what had happened, my assailant sped far away from me. I soon saw my predicament: the thief had my whole digital identity, plus my credit cards and driver’s license. I pathetically roared my horror and outrage.

But then, he writes, two extraordinary things happen: As Wells gives chase with his middle-aged body, a woman who apparently has seen the whole episode take place and is facing the thief’s bike, stands in his way and shouts, “Stop it and drop it!” In Well’s panicky and dazed state, he then sees a small boy — maybe around 8 years old — running toward him holding out his phone for Wells to grab. Apparently the child has also witnessed the scuffle and rescues Wells' phone from the street traffic where the thief has dropped it. The little boy has reflexively run out into the street to keep the phone from being destroyed by an oncoming car or truck. Realizing all that has just happened and thanking the little boy for his phone, Wells then looks around to thank the woman who has intervened at some peril to her own safety. But she’s gone, even though the whole drama has lasted maybe 20 seconds. (See second photo below.)

Wells writes that ever since that street drama, he has pondered all four characters who played their parts in it. The teenage thief, riding an expensive bike (which he also may have stolen) — why did he not put his talents to better use without making others miserable and putting his own liberty at risk? What kind of life experience shaped him into the thief he apparently had become? And of course the woman who stopped the boy — as a bystander, she could have just walked away and said it wasn’t any of her business. Instead she inserted herself into the lives of Wells and the thief while, by her words and actions, “acting on selfless reflex, affecting both of our lives for the better.”

In a similar way, David and I have experienced the kindness of a stranger in the past. Nothing nearly so dramatic, but nevertheless, an experience that has left a lasting impression on us over the years.

A few years ago we were traveling through Pennsylvania on our way to visit an old friend near Scranton. We had just finished dinner in a LongHorn Steakhouse in Chambersburg when a fellow who had been sitting at a table across from ours with his family stopped at our booth to offer some pleasantries about having been watching us and how it appeared that we were enjoying our meal and each other’s company. Then he left. When our bill arrived a short time later, our waiter told us that same family — apparently regulars there — had paid our bill in full when they left the restaurant. We were astounded and wrote a thank-you note on a napkin for them to read the next time they came in.

Someone once said that “kindness is contagious,” and after that we “paid forward” that kindness to others when we had the opportunity to do so. In fact, a research program by a fellow psychologist has demonstrated that people are more likely to act generously after witnessing kindness and generosity on the part of others (Jonathan Haidt: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth In Ancient Wisdom, 2006).

Wells ends his piece with the following words: “My 20-second microdrama showed me life’s fragility and apparent randomness, but also life’s choice: choice to despoil and destroy or to restore and repair. At such moments we stand before the gracious mercy of God and ponder the many ways we can respond” for the good of others.

We are all interconnected. So my point? Make that choice to give others what they need, building up our neighbors in the process.

Go and do likewise, yes?