For the last two days, the weather has been as soft as you would hope for the last few days before the start of spring. There’s been a flowing feeling in the air, as if the breezes of springtime are starting to move around us. Everything outside seems delicate and gentle, the way things should be at the start of a tender season like spring.

Yesterday, as I was walking across a store parking lot with several bags of food in my arms, a car stopped for me and the driver smiled and waved for me to proceed. As I drove away in my car, the man’s considerate gesture led me to think about how many similar gestures were being performed at that very moment ­all across the town, across the state, across the country, and around the world. I realized that on every street on earth, at that moment some people were treating each other with respect. In each of the millions of buildings, someone was doing a kind deed for someone else. In meadows, pastures, barns, and valleys, small gestures of human kindness were happening, right at that moment.

Then I asked myself a question: Why does this amazing phenomenon never make the headlines?