The disruptions bring pain and annoyance, but they can also create opportunities for growth. I welcome these strictures as an invitation to expand my community and capacity for generosity. This might sound like a Deepak Chopra Hallmark card, but I really do try to practice what I preach.

Try is the key word here. The hassles of everyday life don’t stop during Ramadan.

A few weeks ago, I was driving to the University of William & Mary to give a speech about Ramadan for a Muslim student group and their non-Muslim friends who were fasting in solidarity to raise funds for Rohingya refugees. My right tire blew out on the highway right before the exit. I pulled over to change it, but my suburban dad skills failed and my car jack broke, leaving me upset with myself and stranded on the side of the road.

I tried to flag down a friendly car. For 35 minutes, nobody stopped. With my dead cellphone in hand, I just stood there, freezing, praying that someone would help me. Finally, a young black driver, who turned out to be a transgender student working on a doctorate, pulled over. The student waved off my profuse thanks by saying, “If it happened to me I hope someone would do the same.”

“Well, no one did except you,” I said, wiping off my numb, dirty face.

There was another reason for stopping, my savior told me: “I saw a fellow person of color and around here, well, we all got to help each other.”

I used the student’s phone to call a tow truck, and then we started chatting about life as a transgender person on campus — with me confessing my nervousness about using the correct pronouns and receiving much more credit than I deserved for my efforts.

We were interrupted when a tough-looking white dude with an earring arrived, smiling broadly, to change my tire and jump-start my car. He went above and beyond the call of duty, assuring me that I’d make it to my speaking engagement and taking the time to make sure I knew the best places in town to have dinner afterward.

My small crisis had just created an opportunity to form a tiny, temporary multicultural community. I can find the Ramadan spirit not only in fasts or prayers, but in places like this: on the side of the road in Williamsburg, Va., where a black trans student and a white man from the South reached out to help a brown Muslim stranger, a fellow American, get his car running.

I’d been so stressed out about my travel woes and my professional obligations that I’d temporarily forgotten the real spirit of Ramadan. But the moment on the side of the road reminded me what this month was about. I don’t need quotes from prophets or Quran verses to explain it. I’ll simply repeat what that kindhearted student told me: “We all got to help each other.” And maybe that’s how we make America great.