Power of Belonging

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking to my former Quaker congregation on their homecoming occasion.  I am only one of a few leaders they have had over the years, so the fact that I was able to share my thoughts was special.  I take it seriously, because I know whoever speaks is able to set the agenda for the occasion.  It is as if the speaker says, “Look here” rather than somewhere else.  And if memories are going to be shared---as they inevitably will be at a homecoming---then I get to start the sharing with my own.  

As I mulled over exactly what I could say to a group that once upon a time I knew so well and now after some absence, don’t know nearly as well.  That point itself was an interesting beginning.  I realized no group is static.  Time changes all things, including congregations and every other group.  Therefore, I needed to factor in the process of change.  Even though this group has had a sense of itself as a group for over two hundred years, there also is a continuity of identity that characterizes it.  

Clearly, when the congregation initially formed in the early nineteenth century, it had no idea it was beginning something that would last into the twenty-first century and still keep going.  And no one currently would have been alive and part of the beginning formation.  I wondered when did that original group begin to feel like they were one?  How did the group memory begin to form and how did that early group memory, then, become part of what we now call tradition?  It surely is true that those of us presently living can tell stories about those early members---even though they were dead before we were born!

I realized this last point contained a secret.  Stories are the secret.  Individuals can have our own personal stories, but at some point, a group---a congregation, a team, etc.---begins to share meaningful events that become the group’s story.  It is a group story when anyone in the group can tell the story and everyone recognizes the story and nods that it is “their” story, too.  Furthermore, people who come to a group later---maybe even in the last year or two---become part of the group when they begin to hear and adopt the group story as “their” own story.  In congregational terms, this often happens when they become members.

As I thought more about it, however, I realized there is typically an important step each of us takes before becoming a member.  Normally, we have to be with a group long enough to experience a sense of belonging.  Belonging is a powerful experience.  To put it to the contrary, if I don’t belong, then I feel like an outsider or, even, a stranger.  It is appropriate to use the language of inclusion and exclusion.  If I belong, I feel included.  If I don’t belong, it is natural to feel excluded.

Thinking further into the matter of belonging, I posit that it is both a thought and a feeling.  It is normal to talk about feeling like we belong.  In fact, I am tempted to say, if we don’t feel like we belong, thinking that we belong does not seem fully convincing.  If I feel like I belong, then it becomes a thought that I belong---almost like a conviction that, “yes, I belong to this group.”  

I know research shows that a sense of belonging---being in relationships that matter---add to our health and well-being.  I am sure this is why the idea of community has been so important to me over the years.  I really don’t want to go it alone in this world.  I want a group where I care and share.  And I want to be part of a group that does that with me, too.  It’s a give and take---and that’s the beauty of it.

Maybe everything I have said is true for clubs, sororities and all the rest.  Certainly much of it is.  But a spiritual community adds something more to all I have said.  For a spiritual community, like the one I am describing, I think the “roots” of belonging are vertical, as well as horizontal.  The horizontal roots are the relationships between all the participants.  But the vertical is the grounding of these horizontal relationships in our individual relationships with God or the Spirit.  I like to imagine that the Spirit is enmeshed in the root system of the community.

The Spirit nourishes and nurtures the life and well-being of the community.  Each of us individually is tapped into this root system.  The root system provides the language and images of the community.  In my Quaker community you hear a phrase like, “there is that of God in every person.”  A phrase like this points to our root system and informs the way all of us individually see and value the horizontal relationships among each other.

The belonging that comes from this image is a sense of belonging that affirms our oneness---our identity---as we share a common root system.  Visibly we are a bunch of individuals, but we are rooted together.  We feel it and we know it.  From this comes that awareness of the power of belonging.  

It is a gift and I am grateful.