Two striking images emerged from the United States this weekend, and they were very different.

There was Berkeley, Calif., where the pattern of recent weeks played out once again. “Free speech” protesters and left-wing radicals clashed in a scene that we’ve seen widely repeated.

And there was Houston, inundated and overwhelmed, but unbowed. All the pretense of politics was stripped away by a Category 4 blast of wind and rain, leaving only the needy and their neighbors desperately trying to help one another.  

Political causes are meaningful. Free speech and equality are at the core of the American ideal. Blood has been shed to protect them. Yet Houston offers an important reminder of what happens when everything else is stripped away. For that moment, you see people bound by something bigger: genuine compassion.

“You don't see videos of people squabbling. You see regular people becoming heroes and stranded people accepting help with tears and elation,” wrote Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke.

That compassion doesn’t make our differences go away. But Houston should exhort us to remember that neither should those differences make our compassion go away.