The Homeward Podcast

Episode 17: Good Neighbors with Carlos Whittaker

• Knox Area Rescue Ministries • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Sticky Notes:

  • Don't stand on issues, walk with people.

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Interested in learning more about us? Please visit karm.org or reach out to Celia at clively@karm.org today!

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Homeword Podcast, the show where we illuminate the human stories behind homelessness, redefine what home truly means through real voices, honest conversations, and education that fosters empathy, awareness, and action. CARM is highly rated by Charity Navigator, recognized as the best Christian workplace, and accredited by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. We are one of 30 rescue missions in the country rated as excellent and distinguished from City Gate. And most recently, we are an Emmy Award-winning organization with our documentary. You can click the link in the show notes to watch it today. I'm Celia Lively and I'm the host of the Homeward Podcast. And today I'm on the mic with Carlos Whitaker. Carlos is a best-selling author, expert storyteller, and impactful speaker to all kinds of audiences. So, Carlos, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Celia.

SPEAKER_00

How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02

I'm doing fantastic.

SPEAKER_00

Good. Yeah. And we're here in beautiful North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02

We are, which is one of the reasons why I'm doing fantastic. It's, I mean, the weather is like peak North Carolina mountain spring.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. You know, it is. I love it. It's sunny, but I'm not sweating. Yes, no.

SPEAKER_02

And there's no mosquitoes yet. Exactly. It's it's the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. Yeah. I love it. Well, so thrilled to have you here on the show today.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

We're gonna start with some fun, rapid fire kind of questions just to get us a little loose. You ready? Let's do it. I'm ready. Favorite book you've ever written. Are you legally allowed to read one?

SPEAKER_02

Wow. That's that's a good. You know what? I'm going to tell you it's my next book that's coming out.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

It's called Burn the Blueprint.

SPEAKER_01

Ooh.

SPEAKER_02

Uh Reject the Lies, Embrace the In-Between, and Begin Again. And it's written, it was written for people that are probably 35 to 60, maybe in the middle of life, going like, what's next? Yeah. That have followed the blueprint. Yeah. And now they're super successful, but they're like, well, what else is there in life? And so it helps them burn the blueprint and build a compass.

SPEAKER_00

Love that. Can't wait to read it. Okay. That's awesome. Boom.

SPEAKER_02

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00

Favorite thing about living in Nashville.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, wow. Honestly, probably is the fact that all my kids still live there.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I mean, I mean, they're they're all, you know, 19 to 23. Yeah. They've never left Nashville. They've always been there. They're married. They're still there. So I love that. And then secondly, is probably gonna be um the food.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I lived in Nashville for four and a half years. Oh, you did, oh, yeah. Miss it every day. I love being in Knoxville now. Yes. But I left Nashville kind of kicking and screaming because I loved the city so much. That's so good. Love it. Love it. What's your favorite song to dance to?

SPEAKER_02

Um, Rhythm of the Night by Eldebarge.

SPEAKER_00

All right, nice.

SPEAKER_02

To the beat in the rhythm of the night. I'm telling you. I'm there. I'm there. You put that thing on, and you know Carlos is cutting it on the side.

SPEAKER_00

Love that. Respect. Last one, one word that your friends would use to describe you.

SPEAKER_02

Ah. I would say it's probably changed over the years, but in the last two years, it would probably be present.

SPEAKER_00

Love that. Present. Present. I could see that. Yeah. I could see that about you. That's awesome. Thanks. We talked a little bit about Nashville. You live there now, but did you grow up there?

SPEAKER_02

I did not. I um I've we've been in Nashville since 2010. Okay. Uh, but I grew up kind of, was born in East LA and Pico Rivera, lived there. My dad was a uh pastor at a church there, and then probably when I was in kindergarten, first grade, moved to Atlanta. Uh lived in Atlanta and did elementary school and high school. Yeah. Kind of grew up, you know, formed my sports allegiances, unfortunately, all those things in Atlanta. Yeah. And um and ended up in Nashville after serving in a church for 10 years in Southern California.

SPEAKER_00

Very cool. Who were your biggest influences growing up? Like who'd you look up to?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, um, my dad for sure was a giant one. Um, and then I'd say, besides my dad, I was, you know, I read um, and again, it's it's so it's so weird now to ask that question now, versus if you were to ask some uh someone that's 20 years old right now, their influences are online. Sure. Right? And so like I didn't have that. Like so my influences were like my pastor. Yeah, my dad.

SPEAKER_00

Like somebody you saw on real life.

SPEAKER_02

Somebody that I saw like in real life. And so probably like Pastor uh Don Bolden at Briar Lake Baptist Church. Uh he's from Charlotte, North Carolina, and uh he was one of the greatest influences in my life, too.

SPEAKER_00

I love that so much. So I saw on Instagram that your daughter recently got married.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, she did.

SPEAKER_00

What was it like to be the father of the bride?

SPEAKER_02

Well, um, to be fair, this is this was my second chance of being father of the bride. Yeah. So it was, but it's also my last daughter getting married. So I've got a sense, so there was like, I don't feel like I cried as much as I did when my first daughter got married. Like it just was like, that was my baby girl, the first kid born, you know, like the whole thing. This one, there was just this bit of like, oh my gosh, this is it. This is the last time I'm walking her down the aisle or walking a daughter down the aisle. And so um, I mean, it was it was beautiful, it was fun, it was completely different from the other wedding. They were they were 18 months apart when they were born. Their weddings were about 18 months apart as well. Wow. So it's like they just are on this path. And so I'm actually currently my wife and I, my wife's with me. Yeah. We're still coming off of the wedding brain fog.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

You know, where it was nothing but wedding for so long, and now it's like, well, now what do we do?

SPEAKER_00

What do we do? A wedding's like a full-time job. I know, no, completely. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, I'm really close with my dad. Oh, you are. And so he boohooed like a baby. Oh, yeah, walking me down the aisle. It was just so sweet.

SPEAKER_02

I I cried pretty hard before I walked her down the aisle, but then once I walked her down the aisle, I just couldn't look at her.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Just avoid.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So one of the things that I really respect about you is your emphasis on listening to people and also listening to people who might be different than you. So, and that can be kind of hard today. What do you think makes it so hard?

SPEAKER_02

I I think we are we are slowly finding ourselves in a culture, in a society where curiosity is no longer something that people uh desire because what happens is when you're curious about somebody that's not like you, yeah, it pushes on your um levels of comfort.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And we just want to be more and more comfortable these days. Um, you know, I think with just the political climate. And I mean, it doesn't have to be politics, it can be people are passionately um opinionated about anything. I mean, I literally could be like, you know what? I don't know if I'm gonna wear these glasses anymore because I don't like like the shape. There probably is a Facebook group of people that like love this shape. And if they read that post, they'd be like, well, how dare you? You're canceled, yeah. It's just um uh so we're I think people are scared of being curious. Yeah. Um, but if there's something I just recently turned 50 and if there's something that I want this next decade of my life to really be about, it's I want to say, I don't know, and I want to change my mind about things all the time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so the more curious I am, the more I'm able to see people that don't look like me, think like me, live like me, believe like me, all the things like me, yeah, and not only welcome relationship with them, uh, but quite possibly instead of me being the one trying to change them, it's me being the one that ends up being changed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. At work we do this de-escalation training by a guy named Ryan Dowd. I don't know if you're familiar with him at all, but he does a lot of shelter work and social work and different things like that, and he talks about that empathy is a superpower. Yes. And I love that so much. So, how does that, how does empathy, what does that look like beyond just listening to somebody?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, um again, empathy is um not feeling bad for someone, empathy is feeling with someone. So I I think it actually goes to my curiosity statement. I actually have a framework that I've kind of developed for maybe a future project that says curiosity leads to empathy, empathy leads to trust, trust leads to relationship, and relationship leads to change. What so many people want is change. Yeah, but they refuse to be curious, which is gonna lead them to be empathetic. Yeah, and so I just think I love the fact that he says empathy is a superpower, yeah, because without empathy, you can never get to change. Right, you know, and without empathy, you can never get to the relationship that's gonna lead to change. And so I just think that, you know, the the more empathetic we can become, the more empathetic we can teach our kids to be, um, the the stronger our culture is gonna end up being.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. It's not weakness, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_02

No, not at all. It's a strength.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. What does it mean to be human first? I know you've talked about that before.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I'll actually talk about that tonight. Oh, good. Um, you know, like I I've got a book called How to Human. Yeah. Um, and I talk about being human and then seeing humans and then freeing humans. And and the whole being human piece, I think I, you know, I end up spending the most time talking about that when I'm in front of a group because people want to do things. People want to go free somebody, they want to see somebody, they want to go, go, go, especially in the work that you do, right? Like it's it's all about seeing people and freeing people.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But the problem lies in people end up getting burned out on doing any sort of good work because they're not being.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

They don't know how to actually be still. They don't know how to actually be who they were created to be because they're so busy focusing on other people. Yeah. So um, that being human piece is, you know, I did this radical experiment where I didn't look at a phone screen for two months.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I saw that.

SPEAKER_02

And, you know, I got my brain scanned, and I found that being was so difficult without this thing.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Because suddenly, like, nobody that I was talking to knew anything about who I was on Instagram. Yeah. Nobody knew that I was an author. No, the only thing they cared about was who I who was standing in front of them. Right. And I had to learn to be me away from all the things that make me me on this thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so, um, yeah, I just think it it takes practice, it takes, you know, uh presence is something that we have to practice. Um I think that um wondering is something that that that is part of being that we no longer do. Like we just look up the answers all the time. And so we we are so uncomfortable just being and sitting still with questions that um that's why I sit most of my time in my talk on that being human piece. Because I think it is massively important to figure that part out before you can go and serve anybody.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, absolutely. You saying about not being able to hide behind, you know, who are an Instagram or that you've written a book. I had a mentor say to me one time, you know, who would you be if you couldn't hide behind all your achievements?

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And I was like, well, Becca, I don't know. That's rude of you to ask me. But it really reframed that of just like, I have to be in the moment. It's not this facade I put on stage or on the podcast or wherever, but it's like, who are you in real life when you're not hiding? Yes. You know?

SPEAKER_02

No, that's good. Yeah, it's good stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Good stuff. One of your mottos, and this might be your only motto, I don't know. Sure, put on your website, it says, Don't stand on issues, walk with people. Yes. Walk me through that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, I think being somebody that does what I do for a living, uh, people are constantly asking me, Well, Carlos, where do you stand on this issue?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And I think initially, you know, maybe seven years ago, I just had a hard time answering that. Yeah. Um, and I had a friend of mine, a pastor friend, um named Mike. And one day I was telling him, Mike, I don't know how to explain how where I stand on this issue. And he goes, Well, maybe you don't. I was like, What do you mean? He goes, Well, from what I know of you, you've always walked alongside people on both sides of whatever issue it is you're talking about. So maybe you don't stand on issues, maybe you walk with people. And when he said that, I was like, that's not only I think what I do and didn't know how to explain it, but it's what I want to teach everybody to do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Because that doesn't mean that we don't um hold opinions on issue that on issues. That doesn't mean that we don't value um certain sides of an issue. It just means that instead of standing still, pointing the finger and saying, I'm not gonna listen to you because you're on another side of an issue, whatever issue that is, yeah, it means that you're going to move your feet and go walk to the person and then start walking with them. Because every issue is a person, right? Like every issue is a person. So when you say where do you stand on this issue, it's like where do you stand on this person? And it's like, no, I don't want to stand on a person, I want to walk with a person.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_02

So uh that's really where that comes from. Don't stand on issues, walk with people.

SPEAKER_00

I think it was 2019. Do you know Pantsuate Politics? Are you familiar with that podcast? Love that podcast. Absolutely. Their their first book that they wrote, I think you're wrong, but I'm listening. Uh huh. Read that in 2019. Boom. Mind blown. It was like, oh, and just like you're saying, they're a person, every person is created in the image of God. Yes. Am I tarnishing the image of God if I say awful things about them? You know? And it's just, I so I love that. I'm just like, well, let's let's walk through this. Yeah, yeah. But I bet we have more in common than we think.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's true. And you know, and it's funny because that phrase, it it really does feel good to say. It feels good to wear on a t-shirt. It's like, odd, but when it's when push comes to shove and you have to do it, right? Yeah. It's hard.

SPEAKER_00

It's hard work.

SPEAKER_02

It's hard work, you know, but it's it's work. Right. Um, but it's so necessary.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that is core to being a person of faith, of walking with somebody through that and being somebody's neighbor through that. I've really been focusing on the word neighbor the last couple of years. So I've been at CARM for about three and a half years, and we call the people who come to us for services, we call them our guests. We don't call them clients. It's a it's a name change. Right. And so I have a note here in front of you. So I speak to schools a lot.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and so this was from a um first grade class that I wrote or that I spoke to, and they wrote notes to all of our staff.

SPEAKER_02

I love it.

SPEAKER_00

And so, can you read that note for us?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it says, Dear Carm, and they all caps on the CARM, like they should be. They did, right? Well done. Uh, thank you for taking care of our neighbors.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm glad they get to have great food, big smiley face. I'm six, love, fifi, joy.

SPEAKER_00

Isn't that just the most precious thing?

SPEAKER_02

So precious.

SPEAKER_00

And you know, feeding somebody is just a very, very tiny part of what we do. But what I want to focus on is thank you for taking care of our neighbors.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

This child, she was in first grade.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

These people that we serve are not her literal next door neighbors. It's a it's a bigger thing than that. You know, she that school is out in West Knoxville in a more affluent area, so different than downtown. But what does it mean to you to be a good neighbor? And what do you think it means for Fifi Joy?

SPEAKER_02

Gosh, you know, I so I'll start with Fifi Joy. Um, I mean, I don't know if somebody told her to use that word or if she just used that on her own. Um, but I think that she now understands at six years old that her neighbors are the people, are the guests that you serve.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So now when Fifi Joy is exiting an exit ramp somewhere, um, and she sees somebody standing there, she's gonna think, oh, that's my neighbor. Yeah. That that that's my neighbor. Like, like so, and she's gonna feel more comfortable. Yep. It it just that that word just I I think releases fear, yeah, stigmatism, all sorts of things that Fifi Joy doesn't even know is happening when she says that, but it's true, right? Yeah, um, and and I think of my, you know, um my neighbors. And yeah, I actually like I'm thinking about this a lot right now because I have a next door neighbor, um, Gray, who's who's 98 years old. And we talk every single day.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And he lives alone. Um, not because his family doesn't want them or him to live with them. He's just like, nope, this is my house. I've lived here for 40 years, I'm not sure. Uh, and he just passed away like four days ago.

unknown

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02

And well, th thank you, but but this is what I this is what I think. Gray, as a neighbor, he he would walk out every single day. So I'm actually gonna answer this from his perspective. Gray, if he ever saw me in my yard, Carlos! He'd raise his hand, I'd go down there and he'd he'd chat with me and ask me how my life is. My dogs every single day, they uh, if they ever saw his car pull up, they'd sprint to the fence, start going crazy because he would go in his garage and he had a box of beef sticks for them. And he'd go and he'd just feed them beef sticks. And even my dogs, right now, you know, I don't hate to make anybody cry, but his daughter, the day after he died, pulled his car into the driveway, and my dogs went sprinting out because they saw it. And she saw that when she got out of the car, and she went into the garage and she fed him them the beef sticks, and they were so happy. And I just think like, what a beautiful picture of what a neighbor is. A neighbor's consistent. Yes, a neighbor is um takes care of the other people in their neighborhood. Uh, and in order to be a good neighbor, I think you just you have to do what Gray did for me. Yeah, you know, and and and what we did for Gray. You know, we we were checking on him every day. That's kind of how we found out what happened is like what his trash can wasn't taken in for a day, and we're like, something's going on, and and to go and check. And so, you know, I just think that taking care of our neighbors uh is such a big part of being actually a neighbor. And if you don't know your neighbors, what a great opportunity listening to this podcast to be like, okay, talent set. I need to go meet another.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, go say hi. Yeah. When you're out working in the yard, yes, your apartment complex, wherever, go say hi. My neighbor, right next door to us, his name is Mr. Tony.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I love Mr. Tony. Oh, that's all. He's a man of few words. Yep. But he takes care of us. You know, he one day there was tire tracks in our yard. My husband and I are both at work, and we come home and there's tire tracks. And Mr. Tony said, I was watching your yard all day. I think somebody just pulled in, nothing happened. It's okay. But it's like, yeah, he doesn't know us. Right. At that point, we had lived there maybe six months, and it's like, you know, he's probably my dad's age, and so he sees us and he's taking care of us. But it's like in a culture where it's like, I take care of me and mine, right? How opposite that is to say, I'm gonna take care of these strangers who happen to live next to me.

SPEAKER_02

Totally.

SPEAKER_00

And that becomes a neighbor.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00

And I mean, it's the Mr. Rogers kind of faith of won't you be my neighbor? And we're in this together. Mr. Tony and I, we share a yard.

SPEAKER_02

I love it.

SPEAKER_00

And it's just it's very practical to care for your neighbors that way. So, do you think fear or busyness could impact our willingness?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, completely. I think that uh probably more than anything in this current cultural climate, it's busyness. I I think that that we that goes back to the being human piece. Um I think that we're, you know, we're looking down at our screen so much that we don't not only do we not have time for our neighbors, we don't have time for our families. And so, you know, it's like um we we've got to slow down.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We've got to find things that maybe we can do in our neighborhood that take both of our hands so that both of our hands are being used and we don't have time to hold this thing because it's seven inches of glass. Right. Um and so, you know, like I I think that busyness is, and I think there is some fear. I think we we have maybe um in our culture um busied out the uh skill set required to start a conversation with somebody you've never had a conversation with. Yeah. And I think people are scared of that. I think people are like, well, I mean, I haven't talked to my um we moved in four years ago, we've never talked to our next door neighbor. I'm scared to even do it. And you know, because I'm gonna be embarrassed. I'm gonna it's gonna be like Oh my gosh, it's been too long. Like, I can't believe I've not like no, like that's the fear piece you're talking about that maybe we can get over in order to start having some of these better conversations.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, start today. Yeah, yeah. Love that. Love that. So on the podcast, one thing that I do is every episode I ask my guest, yeah, if people walk away today and they don't remember all this good stuff that we talked about.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00

What is one thing you want them to walk away with on a sticky note?

SPEAKER_02

On the sticky note, I think I would say um it probably it's probably gonna be the the phrase that we talked about. Don't stand on issues, walk with people. Yeah. Like what does that look like for you? That's gonna look like something different for everybody.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Uh, and that there's a story in the Bible in Acts chapter eight that I think is a great example of this. If you want to go read it, it's Philip, and he walks down the road and he sees an Ethiopian eunuch, and he probably, when he saw him, was a little bit nervous because he felt like the spirit was telling him to go up to the chariot, but he's like, Well, I'm not Ethiopian. I I'm I don't own a chariot. This guy's on a different tax bracket than me. All these things are different, you know. But he overcame and he decided to not stand there, but he walked. Yeah. And so, what does it mean for you listening to don't stand on issues, walk with people? Um, I promise that if you put that into practice, you're gonna start seeing some cool things happen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Love it. My last question for you. Yeah, this is called the Homeword Podcast.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So, what does home mean for you?

SPEAKER_02

Uh home is a place where I'm fully known. Fully known. So um, my wife is she fully knows me. My kids, they fully know me. And so that's what home is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Anywhere else, I'm maybe I'm half known or a quarter known.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But I'm not fully known.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and at home you are.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's good. Yeah. That's good stuff. Thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for having me on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's such a fun conversation. I love it. I feel challenged. I'm ready to talk to Mr. Tony when I get home. Tell about my weeds. Go do it. It's gonna be great. So, for the listeners, remember to check the show notes for any relevant links. You can find us on socials at Knox Area Rescue Ministries, and be sure to follow along so you never miss an episode. I'll see y'all at home.

Head Shot

Celia Lively

Host
Head Shot

Charles Shyblosky

Producer