What is your earliest memory of belonging?
Some of my earliest memories of belonging were made at church.
I loved attending our congregation because I got to play with my friend Karen after Sunday School. We would run around the fellowship hall, giggle, drink red Kool-Aid, play on the stairs with the slippery railing, and do tricks (which likely would’ve made the adults cringe if they’d been watching). I’m sure we were loud, too; we were kids after all. No doubt about it though: Karen and I both belonged in that space at that time. We belonged to each other and to the congregation at large.
Belonging is a big reason why people choose Peoples Church. Sometimes, though, that feeling of belonging can be fleeting, especially if feelings get hurt or decisions don’t go our way. It takes work to build a sense of belonging – it requires effort to keep showing up with our tender hearts and weary spirits. It takes vulnerability, persistence, and a real investment of our precious time. It requires us to center Love again and again, remembering that there is Something Greater than our individual selves.
Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed has written: “The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others.”
Morrison-Reed is talking about “building belonging” and is inviting us to consider:
How are we connected to each other?
How might you build belonging for yourself here at Peoples Church? Is there a new way you want to engage – and just maybe be transformed in the process?
How might you help build belonging for others, be they newcomers or older timers?
In the process, what relationships might you discover among the particulars of your own life?
This month, may you know the deep joy of building belonging for yourself and those around you. And if you can’t quite grasp how to best “unveil the bonds that bind each to all,” come again next Sunday. We’ll figure it out together – or maybe we’ll just run around the fellowship hall together, giggling.
Growing in Faith,
