"belonging, or just fitting in..."

"How can I be sure,
in a world
that's constantly changing,
how can I be sure
where I stand with you..."

The Young Rascal's  "How Can I Be Sure," at first blush sounds like the angst-filled insecurity of a teenager in love. But for me, it meant so much more. This song came out in 1967. I was 13 years old. I didn't have a boyfriend. I didn't want one. What I did want, was to belong. And this song spoke to the girl in me that never felt like she belonged anywhere -- to anyone.

A few weeks ago, a dear friend shared Brene Brown's new book, Braving the Wilderness, with me. I can only read a few pages at a time without needing to stop and process all the ways it is opening old wounds for a deeper cleansing. And I am letting the balm of understanding it leaves in its wake - penetrate deeply.

Today I was reading the transcript from Krista Tippett's February 8, 2018 interview with Brene' Brown. In it, Brene' shares this moment from her research on belonging with a group of middle school students:

"I was asking these middle schoolers what the difference was — what they thought the difference was between fitting in and belonging. And they just had these incredibly simple and profound answers: “Fitting in is when you want to be a part of something. Belonging is when others want you.”

It stopped me in my tracks. I was back there -- in middle school, and high school, at camp, in the faculty lounge, the staff dining room, the office, PTA meetings, neighborhood HOA meetings -- my family. Here is the thing:

"Fitting in is when you
want to be a part of something.

"Belonging is when others want you.”

It's not just about letting someone be among us. Its about letting them know that we want them with us. What an "aha" moment this has been for me. This is what I always longed to feel -- and always worked to hard to earn.  And you can never earn someone wanting you.  That's not about you, it's about them.  But I didn't understand that.

Later in the interview, Krista Tippets responds to Brene with this insight:

"This observation is so helpful. You said, “We are hardwired for belonging and connection. We’re hardwired to want it, and need it so much -- yet, the first thing we do is sacrifice ourselves and who we are to achieve it.”

Oh my goodness, that was me. I wanted so badly to belong. But because I had conflated belonging with fitting in, I thought belonging was something I could "achieve."

You see, I knew how to make myself indispensable. I could mold myself to accommodate any social need. Do you need a fan -- I will be your fan. Do you need someone to help you with your homework -- I will study that section so hard that even though I might have failed it earlier myself, because you need for me to know it, in order to help you -- I will become an expert on that subject. I was a social, professional, relationship chameleon.  Put me in a group of girls with green eyes, and I would try to make my eyes turn green.

But the problem was, I was what you needed, not who you wanted to be with -- and I knew it. At school, I was a scholar for the teachers, the over-eager-to-be-accepted chum - with other girls, and I was the all-too-willing cheerleader - for the boys. Whatever you needed, I was your girl.

In her interview with Krista, Brene' addresses the deep loneliness that comes from morphing into something inauthentic, in our efforts to just belong::

"What if loneliness is driven in part by our lack of authenticity — that I can go to a party, and I can be the belle of the ball and come home completely disconnected, lonely, anxious, because never once during that experience was I myself? I was who I thought they wanted me to be."

This is the kind of loneliness I felt for many years. In my striving to belong with others, I failed to belong to myself. My morphing into what I thought someone else wanted/needed me to be, wasn't leading to any real connection, It was really just about fitting in. And for most of my life I didn't understand why -- even though I could make myself fit in -- I had never felt a true sense of belonging.

That was, until the house of cards I'd been carefully building -- for many years -- fell apart. The particulars of that story are not important to this post. Going from being adored and admired to judged and rejected  - in the space of a moment - will humble all false confidence, and teach you a lot about where your true worth lies. It was a hard lesson, but one I needed and am now deeply grateful for.

I'd molded myself to fit what I thought were the expectations of the community I'd become a part of. When something needed to change -- there was no room for that adjustment. I hadn't been wanted for who I was -- I had just made myself fit a particular open space in the puzzle. As long as I stayed in that shape, everything was okay. But that was just me trying to fit in.  It was not that unconditional sense of belonging that we all hunger for.

And I didn't know the difference. I'd been doing it so long -- in my family, classrooms, work-places -- that fitting in had become my modus operandi.

After that difficult time of being "not wanted" -- when I no longer fit the shape "they" needed, I stepped back. It wasn't long before I realized that I needed a spiritual sense of what it means to really "belong."

Over the past forty years I have had a nagging suspicion that most of our societal ills come from an underlying sense of not belonging. As a teacher I could see it on the faces of students of every age. I have watched it at camp, in women's groups, at coffeehouses. And I've always thought that if we can just find the right "fit" for our gifts, idiosyncrasies and talents -- the right place to serve, the right school, the right family, the right relationship -- we would feel this belonging.

But it isn't enough to find the right space -- and then alter ourselves to fit that space.  Nor is it enought to simply let someone join our group, gathering, family. We have to help them feel wanted - for who they are, not for who they think we want them to be.

I was once in a relationship I'd worked very hard to make work. And it wasn't.  It just wasn't working.  At one point the other person said to me, "I don't know that this can be healed, but I can tolerate you." No joke. I felt more defeated and alone by being told I could be tolerated, than if the person would have said that they just couldn't love me anymore.  

There is no real love -- or belonging -- in tolerance. Tolerance is not spiritual. Its starting point is not God. It starts from the premise that there is something lacking in another that we --in all our generous human nobility -- can tolerate.

But this is not how God loves. And it certainly wasn't how Jesus modeled his Father's love. Mary Baker Eddy reminds us that:

"Jesus beheld in Science
the perfect man who appeared
to him, where sinning mortal man
appears to mortals.

"In this perfect man,
the savior saw
God's own likeness..."

Jesus wasn't just nobly tolerating a somewhat flawed mortal -- he was loving the man he knew to be the only possible version of God's child. And who wouldn't want to be with that man -- or woman.

This post is not about whether we fit-in with the group we have chosen, or a family we have been born (or borne) into. It is about belonging. It is about wanting each other. It is about leaving each encounter with a feeling of having been with someone we want to know and knowing we were wanted -- for ourselves, not the fitting-in version of that is inauthentic at best, and leaves us feeling even more alone when "it" is loved and accepted into the circle.

I truly believe that when we understand the universal desire to belong, our privilege of making others feel wanted, and the countless opportunities we have each day to really be with someone -- for a moment or a lifetime -- we will know how to:

"transform our earth,
to heaven..."

We are not just flotsam and jetsam being randomly blown into the immensity of human drama -- we belong in every moment. God wants us there. We have been sent there for a holy purpose. It is our privilege to open the eyes of our hearts and see who is in front of us -- and want to be there, to help them feel wanted. This is our security.  To know that wherever we are, whoever we are with -- we are wanted there by the One who holds the wind in his grasp and orders the stars in the courses.

What a difference it would make in the lives of our children, our elders, our seemingly used-up and discarded soldiers and servant-leaders, our tolerated -- to know they are wanted - truly wanted. There is no love in tolerance.  There is no real love in just letting someone join our group, enter our space, or be a part of our family. Being tolerated -- or even appreciated for finding a way to fit in -- is not the same as belonging. When we know the difference, we can make a difference.


offered with Love,

Kate

"a child, a snake, and a spoonful of milk...."

"Were you a blazing ball of fire
before you were ever born?
Did you find the cure for polio?
Invent the telephone?

Or were you disobedient at
the age of thirty-three
When some old Roman soldier
had you nailed up to a tree?

Maybe you were black and tired,
on the front seat of a bus,
Or on a protest march in Bombay
lying face down in the dust.

Maybe you were all of this and more,
Borrowed light from those who came before.

And the children who haven't yet been named
are stronger for your spark,
Stronger for your flame…"

- Randall Williams
from "Praying for Land"

This week's Bible study begs a reposting of this snake story:

"Nice snake..."

I absolutely love Randall William's, "Stronger for Your Flame," [the song starts at 1:40.] When I hear it I am reminded of a poem that has been a longtime - but missing-in-action - companion. Until yesterday, that is.  My copy of this 1990 Godfrey John poem serendipitously found its way back into my hands.  I originally discovered it in the Christian Science Monitor one morning almost thirty years ago, and tucked lovingly into my wallet.  It became my touchstone through a very difficult period.

Someone I loved and respected for his devotion to public service was being maligned, vilified, and treated with disdain -- after decades of admiration and trust.  I was heartbroken, but he wasn't.  His spiritual poise seemed untouched - unshakable.  When we spoke on the phone, or met in person I was always stunned by his grace -- his pure, unflappable grace.

Because we were friends and colleagues, the integrity of those who were close to him had also been called into question. It felt awful.   That is, until finally found the courage to phone him.  I was hungry for some direction about how I should proceed in correcting the misunderstandings and impositions on us all.  

He calmly asked me if I knew my own truth.  I responded that yes, I did. I was certain that I had done nothing wrong.  I knew that my motives, at every juncture, had been pure. And that even though - in hindsight - I might have taken different steps today, I was confident that I had been honest, prayerful, and humble in asking for divine guidance at the time.

He then turned me to a story that Mary Baker Eddy relates in the article "Taking Offense" from her book, Miscellaneous Writings 1883 – 1896:

"A courtier told Constantine that a mob had broken the head of
his statue with stones.  The emperor lifted his hands to his head,
saying: "It is very surprising, but I don't feel hurt in the least."

He then said to me, "you are not there."  You are not the "who," that they are throwing stones at.  They are attacking their own concept of the office that you represent to them, and seem to occupy -- healer, director, mother, father, wife, neighbor, church member.  They are throwing stones at the version of that office that they are holding in consciousness.  But only you know if that is you.  If it is, then it is your opportunity to correct it - with and for God. If it is not you, then you can't feel hurt in the least.  You do not live in their consciousness of you. You live in your consciousness of you.  You must ask yourself, "who is the source of my consciousness of myself - and of them?"

"So," I asked him,  "what should I do when I see them, think of them, or are told stories about what they are saying?"  I swear I could hear his silent smile through the phone as he sighed,  "Why, what else is there to do? You just love them. You truly love them."

This set me back on my heels.  Wasn't I supposed to defend him, me - all of us?

Then he reminded me of how Mary Baker Eddy follows up her story about about Constantine and the mob -- she writes:

"We should remember that the world is wide;
that there are a thousand million different human wills,
opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person
has a different history, constitution, culture, character,
from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play,
the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of
these different atoms.

Then, we should go forth into lifewith the smallest
expectations, but with the largest patience; with a
keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful,
great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the
friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities;
with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath
nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it;
with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil,
and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it,
--determined not to be offended when no wrong is meant,
nor even when it is, unless the offense be against God.

Nothing short of our own errors should offend us."

This story became a staff - and a rod - for me over the ensuing months.  A staff to lean on, and a rod to prod me forward towards a greater understanding, humility, grace.  It was such a help.

However, I am a visual person.  I love having mental pictures that I can connect with as I exercise new spiritual muscles.  The Constantine story was wearing thin, and I needed something fresh, something I could identify with.  I just didn't feel like an emperor ,and the image of a mob scared me.

That was when Godfrey John's poem appeared on my doorstep wrapped in newsprint.

Here it is:

"Nice Snake"

[Note from poet:  This poem is spun from a story
I was told of an actual little girl in South Africa]

Slowly and with no mistake
the giant snake is inching up
the veranda where the five year old
sits, joyfully sloshing her cereal

As if planned and without noise,
the boa constrictor guiltlessly
encircles the chair and the child in his coils.

He lets his eyes come close to hers.
"Nice snake!" she says, lifting
a spoonful of milk up to his mouth.

He feels excused.  He sips the milk.
She lifts the spoon to her own lips.
His innocence coincides
with hers.  Valued now, he waits.

She feeds him again with special care
"One for you and one for me."
Suddenly he dips his mouth
deep into the bowl.  The child
taps his head with her spoon and laughs:
"Naughty, naughty!  Wait your turn!"

The boa constrictor meekly places
his scaled face against her cheek.
Repentance is responsive to love.

Once again she lifts her spoon
full of light.  His lips sip.
They take turns till the bowl is empty.

Unhurriedly, then, he uncoils
and slides beneath the veranda steps.

We must de-mythologize.

Innocence can not be earned:
innocence is immanent;
innocence is untouched
by guilt or hurt or old age.

Innocence
is a child with a snake and a bowl of cereal –
astonishing the day,
celebrating art.

- Godfrey John

I connected with this poem on such a deep, visceral level. I had just been to Africa, I had seen snakes, I knew the way they were feared.  And I had a little girl who was fearless when it came to snakes, and bugs, and growling dogs -- I wanted to be like her.

This poem became the space I lived in.  It became my posture in loving.  I was willing to share my cereal, but I was also clear about identifying my tablemate. But more importantly, it helped me understand my friend's spiritual poise -- his unshakable dignity, grace and compassion.

This poem became my companion.  In fact, it was such a priceless treasure that we gave it as a gift to our friends in our Christmas cards that year.  More than one asked if the little girl in the poem was our South African daughter -- it was not.

Through my many moves since then, I had misplaced my original copy of the poem and would often try to recall the words I had memorized over twenty years earlier.  I would have a strong grip on ten or twelve lines and then miss a word and not be able to find the rhythm again.  I had been thinking about it a lot over the last year or so, and had on a number of occasions searched folders full of scrips and scraps of quotes, the insides of books (a favorite home for poems and quotes in my library) and old journals - but to no avail.

Then, out of the blue a letter arrived from my mom.  She was harvesting some of her old files and came upon some Christmas cards, photos, and clippings from "once upon a time" and decided to send them to me -- and in that packet was a copy of the Christmas card with our gift of the "Nice Snake" poem.

So,  today I am sending out this post-Christmas card - again. Some of you received it over 20 years ago  Others might be reading it for the first time today. Its message, for me, is still a precious gift.

There are times when we all face misunderstanding, criticism, persecution.  Knowing where our innocence lies and Who defines us -- to ourselves -- is critical in finding peace of mind, and growth in grace.  Jesus, Gandhi, Mandela, Eddy are our mentors in this classroom.

My utmost thanks to Godfrey John for writing it.  To my dear friend who taught me to live with dignity while under fire, as a "whole-souled woman." To Randall Williams for reminding me that we are all sparks to one another's flame.  And to each of you,  for your ongoing example of humility, courage, affection, and trust. I feel so blessed. 

offered with Love, 

Kate