“Building Belonging” — From Soul Matters

One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone. —Shannon L. Alder

We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick. —Brené Brown

Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. —Audre Lorde

Where you belong is where you choose to constantly choose to show up. —Karina Antonopoulos

I was so shocked to learn that the opposite of belonging is fitting in. Because fitting in is assessing a group of people and changing who you are. But true belonging never asks us to change who we are. It demands we be who we are. —Brené Brown

Locate the kind of belonging that doesn’t demand your erasure. —Cole Authur Riley

Our longing for community is so powerful that it can drive us to join groups, relationships, or systems of belief that give the false impression of belonging. These places of false belonging grant us conditional membership, requiring us to cut parts of ourselves off in order to fit in. —Toko-Pa Turner

I do feel life would be easy if I was like everyone else. If I conformed to everything society wanted me to be. Yes, life would be easy. But I don’t think life would be colorful. —Kathleen Yap

We belong to every part of our lives and every part of our lives belongs to us. Even the failures. The cruelty. The betrayals. The addictions. The cowardice. Until we embrace those scared and tender parts with the kindness and forgiveness we so generously give to others, we will never be whole. We will never be home. —Rev. Scott Tayler

We get to choose who belongs in our story. Blood makes you related. Love makes you family. —Jennifer Lopez

In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world. They follow us, like shadows, until we come upon them again, waiting for us in the mist. —Ari Berk

I believe every inch of America is sacred, from sea to shining sea. I believe we make it holy by who we welcome and by how we relate to each other. —Eboo Patel

It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here. —James Baldwin
Here is the question we must at last confront: Is land merely a source of belongings, or is it the source of our most profound sense of belonging? We can choose. —Robin Wall Kimmerer

Belong to your place by the knowledge of the others who are your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor, who comes like a heron to fish in the creek. —Wendell Berry

Many of us don’t have friends anymore; we have followers. We don’t deeply care about each other’s lives; we consume them as content. We don’t have people we can be vulnerable with; we have people who view our Stories. —Freya India

Membership is down across unions, congregations, and voluntary organizations. It seems we’re increasingly looking for belonging without membership… In a culture where authenticity is king, melting into membership feels like an attack on individual personhood… And mutuality isn’t seen as a safety net, but a stone that might sink us both… I’d wager that this is why ephemeral connective experiences are so popular: think retreats, festivals, and conventions. We look for meaningful connections amidst the safety of temporality. —Casper ter Kuile