Start with Hello: (And Other Simple Ways to Live as Neighbors)

Shannan Martin is a sidewalk poet and an everyday prophet. In Start with Hello she issues a stunning and accessible invitation for us to live as neighbors in the world, casting a hopeful vision of what it looks like to be human together. As it turns out, there is no them but only us, and this is the book we both want and need to help us find our way back to each other.

Emily P. Freeman, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Next Right Thing

"This book is so inspiring, but in a chill, regular sort of way. It doesn’t wreck you or kick you in the pants or make you rethink your entire existence. Instead, it will change you by helping you see the beauty of where you currently exist and the people who exist near you. It makes being a neighbor, not to mention a person, just so beautifully . . . doable. Y’all, this is the book we’ve been waiting for."

Kendra Adachi, New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way

"Fellow wallflowers, Shannan Martin has written our guide to come to the dance floor in a way that feels possible, alluring, and bursting with potential. In terms that are both poetic and practical, Shannan makes a compelling case that we all can find our people and our places in community. Start with Hello invites us to see the people around us as whole and generous and just waiting to be known and loved. You’ll want to mark up your copy and pass it to a neighbor."

Beth Silvers, cohost of the Pantsuit Politics podcast and coauthor of Now What?

"‘Jen, pick one of your favorite people on planet Earth.’ Fine, I pick Shannan. I pick her friendship. I pick her example. I pick Start with Hello. This book. It is lovely, warm, honest. It brims with possibility. It is—and Shannan would hate this word—inspiring. I want to run home and leave the mess where it is and send a text to my five closest neighbors to come over for chili and $10 wine. What a gift she is. What a gift this book is."

Jen Hatmaker, New York Times bestselling author, host of For the Love podcast, and founder of Legacy Collective

"In her wise, loving, practical, and timely book, Shannan Martin dispels all that is mystical about being a good neighbor. Start with Hello. It’s just that simple but we can overthink it, and this is where I’m so grateful we have Shannan to lead us. We do this, Shannan reminds us, by first being curious and aware of those around us. Filled with her disarming sense of humor, Start with Hello is a love letter to community and a call to action toward radical, realistic hospitality."

Osheta Moore, pastor, speaker, and author of Dear White Peacemakers

"Start with Hello is winsome, kind, and brave—exactly what we need in times like these. I’m grateful for the ways Shannan not only helps us lean into growth but also shows us how to compassionately embody it."

Aundi Kolber, therapist and author of Try Softer and The Try Softer Guided Journey

"Start with Hello is an impactful read. Shannan does not hold back in addressing anti-racism. She highlights the importance of loving your neighbor and treating people with dignity and respect, while also providing practical tools to help assist you in understanding those you perceive to be different from you."

Faitth Brooks, writer, speaker, and educator

I forever want Shannan Martin to boss me on the art of neighboring and the true purpose of home. One of the best books of the year.

Myquillyn Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Welcome Home

"See, this is why I love Shannan Martin! In Start with Hello, she gives the reader amazingly practical steps that help us move toward one another in an age where we seem to be moving further apart. She reminds us that although our daily activities may not change the whole world, if we are each intentional about these ten subtle shifts, we could most definitely change our individual worlds."

Jonathan Pastah J Brooks, author of Church Forsaken

This essential field guide to expanding your world (in spite of all that makes us human) is engaging, accessible, and beautifully layered with Shannan’s signature storytelling and unabashed honesty. You’ll be better for reading it, and so will the world around you.

Deidra Riggs, author of 30 Days to Being Actively Anti-Racist on Social Media

"Start with Hello has changed the way I see my neighborhood, challenged the way I define and live in community, and given me hope that we can actually build a better world for us to live in by taking small steps to connect with one another. Read it, practice the simple ways you can move toward each other, and begin to experience the richness of heaven here on earth."

Grace P. Cho, writer, poet, and editor

"Start with Hello is a required read for anyone who cares about community—a roadmap back into authentic communities. Martin delivers an easy read with delightful wit as she leans into uncomfortable truths about building connections. Her experiences are relatable and give us needed wisdom to develop meaningful relationships with estranged neighbors in today’s America."

José Chiquito Galván, writer and Shannan’s actual neighbor

"Shannan Martin takes us by the hand and leads us on a journey of true human connection in her new book, Start with Hello. This beautiful and practical reflection beckons us to come as we are so that we may experience the depths of our humanity. Borrowing Shannan’s own words, it is ‘an invitation to belong more fully and engage more deeply with this life we’ve been given.’ With thoughtfulness and vulnerability, this book shows us what it really means to be a neighbor and a friend."

Kat Armas, author of Abuelita Faith and host of The Protagonistas podcast

Books by Shannan Martin

Falling Free

The Ministry of Ordinary Places

Start with Hello

© 2022 by Shannan Martin, LLC

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3894-5

Some names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, www.yates2.com

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

For Cal, Ruby, Silas, and Robert.

My favorite first hellos.

When it is all too much . . . and a single life feels too small a stone to offer on the altar of Peace, find a Human Sunrise. Find those people who are committed to changing our scary reality. Human sunrises are happening all over the earth, at every moment.

Alice Walker

Contents

Cover

Endorsements    1

Books by Shannan Martin    4

Title Page    5

Copyright Page    6

Dedication    7

Epigraph    8

1. Awake > Asleep    11

2. Windows > Mirrors    32

3. Listening > Talking    54

4. Open Door > Perfect Décor    80

5. Familiar > Fussy    97

6. Complexity > Comfort    119

7. Tender > Tough    133

8. Practice > Preach    153

9. Roots > Wheels    175

10. Empathy > Everything    197

A Neighbor’s Blessing    211

Acknowledgments    213

Notes    217

About the Author    222

Back Ads    224

Back Cover    226

CHAPTER 1

Awake > Asleep

We stay awake, believing attentiveness is our road map to meaningful community.

I AM SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD IN A TINY, working-class town in Ohio. It’s a school night, but my friends and I can drive so we do, tracing back roads like our five-year-old hands on construction paper in Miss Beam’s kindergarten class. We’ve been together for thirteen years, fated by birth dates and a zip code, connected by shared experiences and the place we call home. Parents split, innumerable basketball games won and lost, physics tests crammed for and (mostly) passed, snow days and trampolines and square pizza in the same cramped cafeteria. One more month and we’ll disperse. One of my friends turns up the radio as Tim McGraw croons and I say, again, that I have no respect for country music. But this time loss sinks in my chest like a rock tossed into a river. My body knows what my heart can’t comprehend. This sort of easy, uncomplicated belonging is a memory I’ll spend decades chasing. My eyes well up in the dark as I sit squeezed in the back seat of someone’s dad’s Dodge. Everything is about to change. (This is the night I secretly start to like country music.)

I AM TWENTY-THREE, living in a basement apartment in a complex nicknamed Stabbin’ Cabins because of the disproportionate incidence of, well, homicide. I’m barely married. My husband, Cory, spends his weekdays living out of town, finishing a college internship. I work sixty hours a week at a car rental company, washing SUVs while wearing a business suit, and spend my free time wondering how I let it happen. My parents are three hours away but it might as well be thirty. I’m adrift, a misfit. It turns out marriage, even on its best days, can’t erase my longing for a wider web of attachment. I’m an adult but also a child. I still like country music because I’m still sort of sad.

I AM TWENTY-FIVE in Washington, DC, taking the Red Line home from work and picking up the pieces of a marriage spun sideways. We live near the sort of wealth and power that smell like Italian shoe leather and the butane flame of catered lunches. Here, adults seem somehow more adult, happy and at ease, as if they really do hold the keys to their futures. I feel glaringly out of place. Shockingly Midwestern. There’s a Pottery Barn (the height of sophistication) and a Chipotle (I mispronounce it for the duration) across the street, but my shoes are from TJ Maxx, and Cory and I have just one friend between us.

I AM THIRTY, the mom of two babies born in one year, in love with my unexpected family. I try wrangling purpose from our broken-record days by way of sleep schedules and library books. I’m grounded and unmoored, never alone and always lonely. I start a blog one night and find solidarity on the internet. My world cracks open like a geode, new friendships across time zones shimmering in my hands. Who knew my laptop screen could be a portal to belonging? Real-life connection remains mostly out of reach. My closest neighbors are soybeans and corn. Life on a farm is what I thought I wanted, but long lanes don’t lend themselves easily to the clash with ordinary people I crave.

I AM THIRTY-FIVE, brand-new to the neighborhood, a shy introvert yet desperate to be known. I catch a glimpse of what life could look like if we all took one step closer to each other, unbothered by our differences. Slowly, I stop wishing to receive an invitation to belong and start writing my own. Unsure of where to begin, I set out to be the neighbor I long for.i This begins a decade of catch and release, where I take turns reaching out to the people close to me and they do the same. On paper most of us have little in common. But on sidewalks and along alleys we discover we want the same things: to trust and be trusted, to be seen and believed, to be generous. We want the security that comes with knowing we aren’t alone in this disorienting world.

I AM FORTY-FIVE with miles to go, but I have learned some things along the way. I’ve learned to depend on a hot cup of black tea every single morning. I’ve learned there’s more than one way to build a family. I’ve learned to heed my tears and take advice from peonies. I’ve learned to value listening and learning and to allow space for growth in the hearts of everyone, myself included. I’ve learned almost everything is some shade of beautiful if viewed from the right angle.

I have learned we’re all aching for connection.

To be connected.

It’s not just us. It’s not just here. There is no zip code, no cul-de-sac, no apartment complex, subdivision, or stretch of dirt road that isn’t pulsing with possibility. The question is, How do we do it? Where do we start?

How, Indeed?

It’s not unrealistic to want the easier connection of childhood in the thick of adulthood. It’s not asking too much. It’s remembering what we’ve forgotten. It’s recognizing, again, how we were built and what we were made for. It’s waking up to a dauntless, kid-size vision for friendship and holding hope that it’s out here, waiting for us.

It’s attainable. And worth fighting for.

We have pastors and priests and spiritual advisors to guide our faith. We have doctors and therapists to care for our bodies and minds. We have teachers to show us how to write sonnets, form hypotheses, and drive a car.

But no one teaches us that community has to be built with our hands and our tender hearts and our precious time. No one breaks it all the way down. No one gives us the tools. From the outside looking in, it can seem like community just happens for the lucky few. It’s easy to assume we’re the ones getting it wrong.

I’m not here to tell anyone how to fix their life. That’s not what this book is about. I never get enough sleep or exercise. I haven’t figured out how to inspire my kids to do their chores without reminders or brush their teeth without being told. My husband and I still argue about who should be scrubbing the bathroom. And we recently took out a loan to buy a used minivan, even though we were taught to pay cash.

What I can tell you, with confidence, is that living in close connection with other humans has made my life brighter, weirder, and better. This is among the truest truths of my life. Learning to live with neighbor as part of my DNA has changed the way I see the world and myself. It has changed who I am and what I believe in.

In some ways this learning process has taken me back to my childhood roots, where I fully expected the quirks and disappointments of myself and the people around me.

In other ways it burned the book of loneliness, that age-old tale, and opened for me a basic spiral notebook—the freshest of fresh starts (just-sharpened pencil smells, free of charge).

I’ve also collected my fair share of mistakes. In hindsight, most were made when I retreated too far inward, overthinking things and trying too hard. I’ve lost my way when I forced