Belonging

Welcome to Christ Church! Welcome to the beginning of another year! Welcome to the beauty that shapes our lives, our world, and the path that we walk. Welcome to the place where faith lives, hope lives, family lives, justice lives, and love lives. Welcome to the place of belonging - where we all belong, because we are all a part of a whole. And the whole doesn’t consign us to different, disparate parts of itself but holds us all together.

Belonging should never have been a fantasy. It should be real for everyone. There is no doubt that there are those who have been made to feel welcome but still battle with a lingering sense of feeling that they truly do not belong. Welcome isn’t the same as belonging. Belonging is that part that makes one an integral part of the team. Belonging is that step that makes you an essential part of a community - that you not only have a voice, but that voice is affirmed by every member of the community, despite our differences.

Belonging embraces this sense of community culture where there is not only unity in diversity, but we each strive to make each one of us a part of the whole. That is to say that the responsibility is not laid on one shoulder alone; we all carry that duty of making each other know that they belong. Hear what an author says about that:

We have our eyes, and they see. The heart can’t see. But the eyes need the heart, and the heart needs the eyes, and the kidneys need the knees. And the pancreas can’t do what the lungs do. They are different shapes. They each have a very, very specific function. But all these different parts of the body appreciate and recognize what every other part can do.

These thoughts are similar to what St. Paul talks about in his First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12. The verse that speaks to me in a special way is this: Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. If each of us is a part of the body of Christ, how then do we create a community culture where each one knows and believes that indeed, they are also a part of the whole?

To me, the benefit of appreciating each person is the first step towards creating a culture of belonging. This appreciation is unbounded, unlimited, not pre-determined nor determined by any factors other than the simple fact of presence; that you are, and I am. It isn’t even about the resources or gifts each brings to the table; it is about being, it is recognition, it is about presence at the table, and knowing full well that everyone appreciates the fact that you are at the table.

I believe that it is only when we learn to do that - recognize each person despite our differences - that it is possible to have a healthy mind, and with that can create a healthy society. So, instead of being arrogant or fearful of our differences, we learn to value and appreciate our differences, we learn to understand that diversity engenders creativity, which is, in fact, a higher level of consciousness. And this type of consciousness requires a state of mind that is free enough to dance like a nine-year-old.

Read the story of the dancing nine-year-old below:

There’s a story of a group of men who were on their way to see their Rabbi. While on their way, they saw a broken-down house with a broken-down porch. But on the porch was a frail and skinny-looking boy, about nine years old, who was dancing on the broken porch. He is very pale, looks like he hasn’t eaten for days.

The group of men came up to the boy and said to him, “Excuse me, who are you? What’s your name?”

“Mendel,” he responded.

“Well, Mendell, how old are you?”

“Nine years old,” He said.

And then they asked Mendel, “Mendel, what’s your glow? What is this all about? Who are you? You’re shining from one corner of the world to another.”

Mendel responded, “Well, I haven’t eaten in three days.”

“Well, if you haven’t eaten in three days, why are you shining? Why are you dancing?” the men asked.

“I didn’t eat for three days, but I started wondering and thinking about all the things that I never thanked God for. It is true I don’t have food here right now, but what do I have? I have a mother. I have a father. I have a house, even if it’s kind of broken down. I have two shirts. I have had food before. Have I ever given God the proper thanks for all the things that I already have, before God gives me more things?”

One of the men asked if he could speak to the father. "Where does your son learn? Who is his Rabbi?” asked the gentleman.

The father said, "We are too poor, so we can’t send him anywhere to learn.”

And there, with the father’s blessing, the two gentlemen took the boy to see the local Rabbi.

The beauty of this story is that the nine-year-old boy who had not eaten for three days should have been melancholic over the lack of food, but instead, he danced on his broken porch because he knew that he belonged in that home, even if it was broken, even if there was no food in that house. The little boy could dance because dancing expresses the joy of belonging.

Belonging had never been about a perfect house, a perfect porch, a perfect life, and a perfect you. Belonging is about whether the heart is full of gratitude, whether you feel limited by any lack, and whether you can notice the little blessings for which you haven’t thanked God. Belonging is about whether you are free and ready to dance.

Remember, the dance floor isn’t meant for one particular person. All who are willing and ready to dance belong on the dance floor.

In much the same way that we belong to each other and to this Christ Church community, we also belong to the dance floor that welcomes all who are ready to dance away.

Come, let’s dance away to the rhythm of God's beat. That's how we glow! That's how we shine!

Manny+