A Place to Belong

A Family to Call Home

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that

the only solution is love and the love comes with community.

Dorothy Day

The communities to which we belong give us an important sense of our identity and are essential to our health and well-being. In the month of October, I’ll be writing about Belonging and Community.

When we are children, we are born into communities not of our own choosing. As children, we come to live in homes and families and go to schools, houses of faith and activities that our family chooses. But when we become adults, belonging looks a bit different. John O’Donohue has written that “adult belonging has to be chosen, received and renewed, It is a lifetime ’s work.” (from Eternal Echoes) We all have times in our lives when we have either to choose, receive or renew ways and communities to which we belong. Transitions in our lives often give us the opportunity to enter new communities of belonging. Many of us felt the first transition of belonging when we went away to school or left home for a job or relationship. As we move through our lives, other transitions and communities await. For me, leaving the role of full-time Rector/Pastor in a parish church has been a deep time of transition. Last November, I did not just leave Emmanuel Parish in Cumberland but, in many ways, I have left the larger community of the Episcopal Church which I have been a part of my whole life (65 years!)

When we leave a community where we have had a sense of belonging for many years, there is a sense of loneliness which opens up and puts all our belongings into question. Some social thinkers believe that adults have several areas of belonging. In some of places of belonging, folks know only a small part of us. Think about how much you know about your doctor, a teacher in your life, the mail carrier or FedEx deliverer. While our more intimate belongings such as our spouses, partners, very close family and friends know the “whole” of us—warts and all—there are many more public and social areas of our lives where folks only see a small part of who we really are. But I wonder: Can some public and social places and spaces be where we really and truly belong and find ourselves once again? Do we have unrealistic expectations of what kind of belonging those places can provide? Is it possible to be our whole selves in those more social and public spaces? Aa I work on projects in the Cumberland community like The Community Cafe and the Wills Creek Museum, I wonder if these community initiatives can be places to recover one’s whole self and truly belong in a new way. Can these places bring a sense of family to those who enter the doors?

One of the deepest human fear is not having a place to belong. It is of primary importance to have a place we each call home that means family. I’ll call this Intimate and Primary Belonging. This sense of family does not mean that you have to be related to one another by blood or marriage. For those who have been in the foster care system or have been adopted, you know that this sense of primary belonging can be provided by folks who are at first strangers that welcome you into their homes. I have found this sense of family when we went to live in South Africa. I have also found it when we have adopted a rescue animal. Primary Belonging helps you to enter other communities of belonging in the world.

Our most recent rescue animal is our dog Kirby. Kirby is about two years old now and we adopted him from HART for Animals in Accident, Maryland in February. HART for Animals is a non-profit rescue organization that works with the Animal Shelter in Garrett County. On-SIte, HART has animals for adoption along with a Veterinary Clinic. Each animal that is ready for adoption has had a physical exam and has been checked for socialization with adults, children and other pets. Kirby is a Husky mix that was most likely a pandemic puppy that soon was over-crated. When Bryan and I went up to meet Kirby, we met a friendly, eager-to-please, and energetic dog. When Kirby came home, we also realized that he was very afraid of not having a place to belong. The good folks at HART said that it would take a while for Kirby to trust that he wouldn’t be left alone for hours again. That we would come back to be with him. Each day, I have tried to provide structure including regular meals, exercise and schedule for him. At first, when I left him for an hour, he would cry and whine as I left, chew something up while I was gone and be whining and barking when I returned. The anxiety of his long loneliness was overwhelming for him. But over time, he has gotten used to me leaving and returning. When I go out during the day for a few hours, he can just be. He knows he has his pack now….he belongs.

After I retired from full-time parish work last November, I think I felt a little bit like Kirby, I felt a good deal of anxiety during the days that were not as full and scheduled as before. I looked for things to fill the days. Like Kirby, I paced around the house a bit. It took me awhile to realize that I didn’t need to fill the days as I did before That I could just be. And as I let myself be, I began to see the many ways that I belonged and new ways that I was now being invited to belong more fully. Most of this year has been discerning my communities of belonging. It has been a year of choosing, renewing and receiving communities of love in which to belong. One of the very best choosings this year was to choose to be the parent of Kirby the Dog. Belonging to one another, we find a path to leaving the long loneliness behind.

Pondering for this week: What are your communities of belonging? What places and communities help you to move past the long loneliness? Is there a new community of belonging calling to you?