Belonging
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …”
In our Sanctuary service this Sunday, we will focus on the gift of being a part of something, of sharing in life together, and of celebrating the glad baptism of Virginia Hackney. Our scriptures for this service center upon the sheep and shepherd imagery so familiar in the Bible, but often an odd aside in our busy, mechanized and technological world.
Still, the image resonates with eternal connecting points. Along with other deep wisdom from the Psalms, this sense of being a part of God’s family, this feeling that we are not alone, this reassurance that regardless of our circumstance and in spite of the data, we are still surrounded, held, shepherded, cared for, and not forgotten:
“Where can I go from your Spirit; where can I flee from your presence ...”
As we plan for the future and consider the awakening of our surroundings to the beauty of spring, the Irish poet David Whyte has some additional words for us. When struggling to overcome a deep loneliness from his own long dark days, when searching for a sense of belonging, he awoke to a new sense of his surroundings:
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
May you have a profound sense of belonging today, no matter your mood or where you find yourself. As the psalmist discovered: God is there. All is well.
I hope to see you Sunday!
Love, David
David Jordan
Senior Pastor