Belonging: Get Connected! 

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. — Mother Teresa.

High or low, black or white, gay or straight, we are all creations of God and thus connected. I don’t mean just with our besties, or nearest and dearest. The interconnection runs much deeper to include everyone and everything. We really do belong to each other!

Kalle Lasn says: 

The most powerful narcotic in the world is the promise of belonging.

In my experience, the only real block to the reality of this connectedness is the pervasiveness of the broken ego, what some folks call spiritual disease. No one gets through this life unaffected by the ravages of the self-centered ego. And make no mistake, it is the great divider. Separation is its main game, and people of my ilk have plenty of shattered relationships to prove it.  

Individualism, without doubt, has its merits. We are all creatively fashioned to be unique and free. But it’s a broken recipe for life when it leads to separation from the living Spirit and all that She creates and sustains. There is nothing in this beautiful but broken world that does not have the breath of God in it, absolutely nothing! God is without and within and gives love and life to everything. If I’m separated from my sisters and brothers or indeed the birds and the bees, I’m separated from God. If I want to get fully connected to God, I must seek that connection through the other, every other.     

When I arrived at a point in life, when separation, depression, and isolation were all-encompassing—there was only one cure on offer. I simply had to get back into the belonging to each other game or exit the game entirely. I say get back into because we are born with this inherent urge for belonging. Many moons ago, a fella called St. Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless till they find rest in thee.” A thousand years later, a wacky mystic called Ignatius of Loyola spoke about finding God in all things. 

There is no finding God without belonging to each other, every other. And when we belong to each other, we can do no other than get fully connected with the living God. It’s all about interconnection comrades. We belong to each other. That’s just how it works. Interconnection is life! Without it, life is a raggedy old plight, a long dark night, with very little light. We belong to each other and the living God. Get connected and stay connected. It’s where all the game-changing, life-giving light is.  

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. —Maya Angelou