Living in Community

Authentic Belonging

“True community in any context requires a transcendent third thing that holds both me and thee accountable to something beyond ourselves...”
Parker Palmer (The Courage to Teach)

Research Professor, Brene Brown, in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, defines belonging this way: “Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I keep coming back to this issue because I think it underpins our current clashing oppositions. What we see when people are standing on either side of a street shouting at one another are attempts to bond based on ideology. We want to belong, and if that requires us to be hostile and angry, that's what we do. However, we see that subterfuge fall away when there is a real calamity. When we have a natural disaster, such as last year's hurricanes and fires, where there is massive flooding and loss of property and life, people bring their real selves to the situation. Nobody asks, “Who did you vote for?” or “Where do you stand on gun control?” before dragging a swamped human being into a boat, or before providing essentials for someone who's just lost everything in a fire. We just step up. We help whoever is in need.

Our desire, indeed, our very real need, for community is not based upon emotion. It is integral to the survival of our species. We need to belong, and we desire to belong, so much so that we are willing to go against our own moral code to have the feeling of being in community. We can do that only if we don't allow ourselves to think things through. If we take an internal, “heart and soul” reading to ask, “Why am I doing this?” we could better assess whether our priority is being honest with ourselves, or simply a misguided attempt to belong. Selling one's soul to fit in is not the same as belonging. We see a lot of soul-selling these days, when what we need is more soul-searching.

Belonging requires that we bring our true selves, with all our imperfections and perfections, to any given encounter. If we are not authentically and fully present, then there is no true belonging, there is only a shadow person trying to fit in. I believe in the essential goodness of humanity—in the true heart of the majority of human beings. It is when we live from our hearts that we are part of something greater than ourselves. We must risk being seen in spite of our fears and flaws. And, most of all, we must learn that having the courage to expose those flaws is where our real strength lies.

In the Spirit,
Jane