Putting the Neighbor Back in NeighborFood

Not a rebrand, just a return to form.

When I started NeighborFood in 2011, it was a little hobby blog meant to house a budding interest in food and a deep care for justice. In those days, I wrote a lot about faith and community. I wrote about the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the protests in Charlottesville right alongside recipes for shrimp tacos. I was a community organizer with a Mennonite family background. Food and faith and community were the scaffolding of my life, the table a way I could make sense of the world.

The first ever logo. I still love her.

But slowly this hobby food blog turned into a full time job, then more quickly became my family’s sole source of income. I had to change the way I wrote to be seen in search engines. I became conscious of how the things I shared could impact my audience negatively. Suddenly I was a brand and not just a person. The goal became growing the business, which meant focusing on the recipes and the photography, not on any meaningful kind of storytelling.

The last ten years, NeighborFood has mostly been about food, but it feels past time to revive the neighbor part of this work. So whether you’ve been with me for 15 years or you’re just now joining this community, I wanted to take some time to share what NeighborFood means to me and how I hope this space will better reflect its name in the future.

My definition of neighbor is formed by the story of the Good Samaritan, a passage found in Luke 10:25-35. A religious lawyer has come to Jesus, wondering how to get eternal life. He’s already confirmed what he must’ve been taught his whole life: that you must love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.

But the religious man is interested in a loophole, so he asks Jesus, “Who exactly is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with a story about a man who is beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the road. Two different men, both part of the religious elite, pass him by. But a third, a Samaritan man who, notably, would’ve been despised by the wounded man’s community, stops and cares for him, spending both time and money to make sure he is well.

At the end, Jesus doesn’t give the lawyer a formula to determine who his neighbor is. I don’t think he wants him going around trying to decide who’s in and who’s out, who counts and who doesn’t. Instead, Jesus reframes the lawyer’s question. Rather than asking, “Who is your neighbor?” Jesus asks, “How can you be a good neighbor?”

The answer is simple. The one who acts like a neighbor is “the one who showed him mercy.” Or, worded in another way, the one who cared for him. The command is to care, regardless of religious affiliation, tribe, affection, or personal relationship. It is to be alert to and moved by the suffering of others, even if they don’t look like you, act like you, or believe like you.

Being a good neighbor is simply caring about and for our fellow human beings. I say simply because it is a simple concept, not because it is simple in practice. We would be remiss to gloss over the gravity of Jesus’ words. Being a good neighbor means upholding the dignity of every human. Not just the ones who are our favorites. Not just the ones in our family or our country or our church building. Not just the “good ones” or the “deserving ones.” Neighborliness is treating every human being as a person worthy of care.

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I won’t pretend that my desire to write more about neighbor-care isn’t directly tied to the specific time we are living in. It is clear to me that our current administration lacks the most basic level of care and concern for people’s lives. It is also clear to me that American Christianity is in crisis, unable to hold its leaders accountable, offer justice to victims of sexual assault, or unknot itself from its ugly, co-dependent relationship with nationalism.

We live in a time when empathy, which is literally caring about the well-being of other people, is called toxic. And I am furious and heartbroken over all of it.

Two weeks ago, an ICE agent in Minnesota shot and killed Renee Good, who was trying to drive away in her car. Immediately after the shooting, video captures one of the agents yelling “F***ing bitch!” at her. It is these words, hurled at a dying woman, that rattle around my chest, unraveling me.

The agent could’ve yelled so many things in that moment–“oh God” or “Oh, shit!” or even just “F***!”, but this response is something different. It speaks of a soul in chaos, separated from its own humanity, unable to see the dignity of another human, even as she is dying in front of him.

When a system or government or church dehumanizes and desensitizes us to violence, when we’re asked to turn a blind eye to genocide or famine, or told not to believe what we can see with our own eyes, our souls pay the price. Lack of care for each other is a cancer, and it is rotting this country from the inside out.

The kind of violent, hateful rhetoric and legislation this administration seems intent on furthering wreaks havoc on both the oppressed and the oppressor. It isn’t good for any of us to live like we don’t owe each other anything.

When ICE agents are armed and sent into communities with angry mandates to “take back our country,” we are playing out old stories of violence, not just on the bodies of refugees and immigrants and the neighbors bearing witness, but on the humanity of the agents as well.

A system that doesn’t care about people wears on the souls of all of us, and while it disproportionately impacts the vulnerable, none of us should assume we’re immune to its corrosive effects.

We can try to isolate ourselves from the suffering, build taller walls and bigger bank accounts to keep us safe. We can move to affluent neighborhoods, send our kids to private schools, attend churches only with folks who look like us. We can attempt to make so much money that we don’t have to worry about buying groceries or paying too much for health care or purchasing new cars when ours wears out.

But vulnerability eventually comes for us all. An unexpected diagnosis, a baby born with a disability, aging parents, chronic illness, a lost job. Unless you have Jeff Bezos level wealth (which, ew), you will most likely butt up against the edges of a system built only to provide for itself–more profit, more power–not to provide for people.

I write NeighborFood because I believe my flourishing depends on the flourishing of my neighbors, the ones right next door and the ones across the world. I believe our hearts are made for community and for mutual care that isn’t dependent on wealth or status or physical abilities.

NeighborFood is about food, yes, but only in so much as food connects us, binds us, nourishes us, sustains us. It is about the ways food reminds us of our common humanity, levels the playing field, and opens the tiniest pathways for connection across our differences.

Food is a medium to explore justice, community, faith, motherhood, our relationship with our bodies, and a dozen other things that matter more than the food itself. Sharing recipes with this community brings me a lot of joy, (and I hope it brings joy to you, too!), but NeighborFood is about far more than the food.

So, what does it mean to put the neighbor back in NeighborFood? Well, you’ll continue to receive plenty of food related content here on Substack. The thing about the revolution is that we all still have to eat. Sometimes that feels absurd. How are we supposed to do dishes and go to soccer games when there’s so much suffering all around us?

But the metaphors Jesus’ uses for His kingdom of care and abundance were always small, every day things. He talks of mustard seeds and yeast, little acts that draw us closer to our neighbors, tiny slivers we carve out of the walls that divide us. It’s taking the kids to the library, striking up a conversation with the barista, dropping off cookies at a friend’s house, or carpooling to school. It’s spontaneous dinner parties and meal trains for the grieving and celebrating your friend’s kid’s birthdays. It’s these small acts of care I want to celebrate and encourage in this space.

And while I hope my emails can inspire you to connect to your in-real-life neighbors, I also want this little Substack to be its own kind of gathering space. I want you to feel welcome and beloved when you visit this space. I want it to be a place where you’re nourished by good food, yes, but also by the care and wisdom and support of other people.

So, I’ll be doing my best to foster more good conversations here, including sharing the work of other writers who embody the spirit of NeighborFood. I want to give you practical ideas for loving your neighbors and hope that your tiny acts of kindness can actually make a difference. And yes, I also want to call out injustice when I see it, because sometimes we need the jet fuel of anger to get us moving on the path toward something better.

If this isn’t for you, that’s ok. Shifts are hard, and I understand that this one might not be for everyone. If it is for you, would you do me a favor and let me know that this resonated? You can respond to this email or drop a comment. I would absolutely love to hear from you. No, seriously, please help me feel like I’m not just talking at the sky.

And if you’re excited to see more content like this, please like and share this post. Your support and your presence here means the world to me.

In solidarity with you, my neighbors,

Courtney