Neighboring Collective

Reader, Sometimes the greatest risk isn’t necessarily moving towards someone across a divide. It’s standing steady and speaking up in the middle of one––to people on your side of it–– when every pressure inside and around you says, "Just shut your mouth and let it go." During the civil rights movement in the U.S., many white Southerners who personally opposed segregation kept it to themselves—choosing silent survival over public witness But some didn’t. Some spoke out––risking their jobs,...

Reader, Nervy neighboring doesn't just mean reaching toward others.It also means risking being known yourself. Not the polished or curated persona. Not the safe, likable representative of you. Not the version of you who has everything together. But the whole you—messy, imperfect, hurting, disoriented, and in-progress. Viktor Frankl, in surviving the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz, made a very deliberate choice: To feel. To notice beauty. To grieve. To choose an attitude. To hope. To be...

Reader, On Saturday, I shared how Neighboring Intelligence helps us engage the world with mercy, discernment, and a commitment to human dignity. When things feel off inside our own story, it takes intentionality and wisdom to stay grounded.But what about when the divide stretches between us and someone else? Neighboring doesn't often start with certainty.Mostly, it begins with risk—the risk of reaching across a divide, of some size or another, that you have no guarantee will be bridged....

So, Reader, Yesterday, I told you about an interaction that felt off— Not dramatic. Not overtly dangerous. Just … wrong in a way and to a degree that it left my nervous system buzzing. And I told you how, instead of brushing it off or placating or dehumanizing anyone, I chose to trust myself. That choice didn’t come from instinct alone. It came from something I’ve spent years learning to practice––and now, finally have language for: 🧠 💞 Neighboring Intelligence Neighboring Intelligence is...

HeyReader, Have you ever walked away from an interaction that seemed normal on the outside... but left your body buzzing with discomfort? Maybe nothing was overtly “wrong”.Maybe they were polite—maybe you were.But still, something felt off? I was only a few hours into a five-day house and pet sit when a man—who turned out to be a neighbor—knocked on the front door and asked me to pass a tool along to the tenant living in the side unit. I stepped through the shared laundry room, knocked on the...

Reader, When someone neighbors you with mercy that defies logic—without demand, without fanfare, without control—and then sticks with you for a leg of your journey even while you struggle to receive it, it changes you. It rewrites your instincts.It reawakens your desire to be a person who offers that same mercy to others. And it does something else, too. The opportunity to face our need—and learn how to receive mercy—matters more than we think. Because if we can’t see our own need, we won’t...

So, yay for mercy, right, Reader? Well, I wish I could say I received that mercy with open, unassuming hands and let it wash over me with abandon. That I was immediately revived as my aching soul rushed in to be held, welcoming their care and attention with grace and dignity. But the truth is that it set me to wrestle myself as my system rushed to titrate it. At times I clammed up and closed off from what was offered. Not because it wasn’t good or kind or real—but because I didn’t have a...