The Cost of Loving Thy Neighbor

A Live Conversation with Brian McLaren and I

Dear Community Table,

I only have inadequate words and an enraged, broken heart to offer today. Looking for connection and wisdom, I reached out to my friend, Brian McLaren, and our discussion turned toward the awareness that our black, brown, and indigenous neighbors have had for some time, and that the brutal murder of Renee Nicole Good demonstrates, which is that even in white bodies, we are not safe from murderous, patriarchal, white supremacist authoritarianism.

Both Brian and I have used our privileged white bodies and narratives to confront this evil, but what does it mean that our proximity to the center of power is no longer a perceived shield for others, and how do we proceed with this awareness? Because we do proceed, and we continue to resist, and we do so by leaning on the wisdom of those who’ve been doing so much longer than we have (those in black, brown, and indigenous bodies).

Please join Brian and I next Wednesday, Jan. 14, for a Community Table family meeting. We will gather live at 1pm PT / 4pm ET via this link, and we’ll share the recording once we are able. If you have any questions for us, please comment on this note and we will try to get to them while in discussion. We will reflect on the interview I conducted with Brian eight years ago which forecasted this dark reality, and expand on the ideas I posed in a previous post:

“The reality is that the United States is (and has long been) under patriarchal white supremacist, oligarchical, authoritarian rule, and no person or political party is coming to save us (not now and not in 2026 or in 2028). Our new shared reality will require some of us to finally lay down the perceived shield of partisan politics and reimagine being. This current paradigm will require strategies and tools that will be new to many of us (myself included!): mutual aid, community care, interdependence, and decolonization. In the coming days, weeks, and months, we (the whites) will be confronted with our proximity to power and we will get to choose if and how we defend and protect those farthest from its center.”

I hope you’ll join us.

Kristen

If you’d like to learn more about my work, please follow my documentary, True Believer, on Instagram and Facebook, and watch it now!