Have you ever looked around a holiday table at your crazy family — all of them — and had that profound sense of belonging? Shared history, shared squabbles, shared DNA: you know that for better or worse you are a part of each other. You belong. You might wish you didn’t, but you do.
I experienced that feeling flying in last night from our trip to Boston. I watched Jupiter, Royal Palm and West Palm slide under our wings, and I felt that for better or worse, I belong. This is home. This is community.
I’ve been reading a new book called “Community: The Structure of Belonging” by Peter Block. It is a business-oriented book that studies the various ways people assemble themselves into community, and what it is about community that makes life so much richer.
Community as used here is about the experience of belonging. We are in community each time we find a place where we belong. The word belong has two meanings. First and foremost, to belong is to be related to and part of something. It is membership, the experience of being at home in the broadest sense of the phrase. It is the opposite of thinking that wherever I am, I’d be better off somewhere else. Or that I am still forever wandering, looking for that place where I belong. The opposite of belonging is to feel isolated and always (all ways) on the margin, an outsider. To belong is to know, even in the middle of the night, that I am among friends.
I love that last phrase: To belong is to know, even in the middle of the night, that I am among friends.
I am deeply committed to the idea of creating community around us. So many people live in isolation, not stopping in their path long enough to notice or participate in the community around them. I’ve always wondered why. Maybe the people in the community don’t look like the people we think it would be “hip” to do life with? “She’s old, he’s poor, they’re rich…” Maybe we’re just all too busy to stop at all, whether for friend, neighbor or actual family. Maybe we are waiting for someone else to stop for us.
Whatever our reasoning, these are trying days in our country. We need each other. We need the physical, spiritual and moral support that we can give to each other. And I’m not just talking about our church members. Take five minutes and walk to your property line. Meet your neighbors. After all, there’s not much sense in asking who our neighbor is in the broadest sense if we can’t answer the question in the literal sense. Take a half a day to sit in Starbucks and become a part of your community.
We have the ability, each of us, to extend an invitation and make someone else feel like they truly belong. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
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I needed to hear this. Thank you.
Great post (as usual). Love the emphasis and perspective on community you share here. (I’ve been trying to figure out how I came upon your site. I think I remember now!)
It took me a few minutes to work out what the toy story picture was all about… now I have ‘You’ve Got A Friend In Me’ stuck in my head like a broken record…lol
This is a great post Marla. It’s a challenge I think we all know, but still struggle to do.
Wow, you three…thank you. I wrote this post this afternoon in a moment when I wondered if it mattered that I write anymore. It’s been a long few days. Thank you for encouraging me, for reminding me.
BK…I wondered if anyone would draw the right connection!!! If I only had a giveaway…I’d send it to you!
“To belong is to know, even in the middle of the night, that I am among friends.”
Wow. Beautiful.