Reflections on the priority of belonging

Currents in Theology and Mission, August, 2004 by Mark Thomsen

There is an African proverb, "To be is to belong" or "To be human is to be in family." (1) This perspective contrasts to a world in which the focus is on thinking or doing rather than belonging: "I think, therefore I am" or "to be human is to be a co-creator with God." A yellow sign board on Interstate 90 coming into Chicago shouts out in large letters: "I do therefore I am." In North America, to be is to think and do. Western theology sometimes reflects these two perspectives by distinguishing between the search for truth (faith as doctrinal truth) and the search for love and speaks of the tension between the two. (2)

It seems self-evident that being human necessarily includes belonging and also includes thinking and doing. In this essay I reflect on the priority of belonging. This reflection began for me when I was teaching in Nigeria from 1957 to 1966. It was immediately apparent that within African culture belonging and family had a priority I had not encountered before. Individual interests were again and again subordinated to the well-being of the family and the community. Families made decisions about who should receive an education and for what vocation people should prepare in order to benefit the whole community. Students often came to seminary because their church and community had decided that was to be their vocation. Within the tribe, clan, or family, persons had corporate responsibilities that took priority over personal desires.

There were times when it appeared to me as an outsider that individual gifts and dreams were needlessly sacrificed. Nevertheless, I was always deeply impressed by the solidarity within communities and by the reality that echoed the early church, in which the early Christians had all things in common (Acts 4:32-35).

A recent personal family experience made belonging even more real to me. In 1998 our daughter Sheree gave birth to a beautiful little girl, Mary Rose. Shortly after her birth it became evident that she had been born, in one doctor's words, "with a horrible disease." Tests indicated that she had some form of mitochondrial malfunction. Her beautiful body's cells were not able to adequately process nutrients into energy to enable her mind and body to develop. In order to be near a facility with qualified medical staff, we purchased a duplex in Milwaukee, and our daughter and family lived on the first floor while my wife Mary Lou and I lived upstairs. Government grants made it possible for nurses to be with Mary Rose for portions of the day. Sheree, who worked as a nurse, slept with Mary Rose by her side nightly for three years. Mary Lou and sometimes I cared for her during the day and night. Mary Rose never developed beyond a baby and at times was tormented by seizures. However, in our caring for Rosie it became amazingly clear that she belonged. She was held, loved, bathed, suckled, talked and sung to, laughed and wept with. She was born into and died in her mother's embrace. Mary Rose was valued, loved, and affirmed as she was.

Her baptism signified that not only did she have a human family where she belonged, she also belonged to God. As a child of God she belonged to the human family that through her genetic structure reached back into antiquity and also belonged to God's future, where all tears will be wiped away in a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21-22).

It became evident in loving and holding Mary Rose that belonging preceded thinking and doing; love and care affirmed that belonging preceded her awakening individuality and her capacity to think creatively. Rosie appeared never to have thought rationally, although she knew how to nestle down on my shoulder and go to sleep. Without thought and creativity she transformed our lives. She brought family together; she raised within our lives a sense of belonging; she enabled us to love more deeply, and the holes in our lives after two years of her absence testify to her continuing presence in us. Mary Rose helped me to capture a deeper sense of belonging. "To be or to be human is first to belong."

It is possible to account for belonging on the basis that we all participate in an intricate web of creation. One of the insightful and profound facets of Buddhism is that reality is dynamic--a dynamic totality of experiences and events that are in constant flux and flow. Within that cosmic pulsing reality, configurations of events and experiences emerge into an experience of self in the midst of other selves. Truth is the awakening to the fleeting temporality of the self and insights into the mystery that "I" am simply an aspect of the cosmic dance. (3)

Belonging is fundamentally a cosmic fact. Mary Rose belonged to a dancing cosmic flow that emerged in a genetic code for the human family. She was born into that reality. Because of some unknown quirk or mutation in the cosmic dance her genetic code did not enable her cells to make a full life possible.

A variety of philosophical, theological, and religious expressions focus on the fundamental cosmic unity of reality, affirming belongingness within the web of life. Hinduism, Sufism within Islam, forms of mysticism, and theological formulations related to idealism or process thought articulate that reality. Transcending the subject/object dichotomy places all selves including Mary Rose in Paul Tillich's ocean of "the Ground of Being."