|
* * *
In high school, I often played basketball with a friend in physical education class. This day, two persons were assigned to pick four boys to be on respective teams. There were about fourteen of us. I waited anxiously, much wanting to be seen good enough for one of the boys to choose me. I, dispirited, was among the un-chosen. I felt bereft, and the cause was foremost not about being seen as not good enough, but that no one chose me. That I was good enough for someone to pick me was not of first importance, but that I was welcome to play was. I felt a familiar feeling, of being left out, not regarded as worthy of inclusion ~ a not-belonger wanting to belong with belongers.
* * *
A danger in this sense of not-belonging is our wish to belong can take us in false directions, into harmful attachments. We can come to have faith in these fallacious belongings, become vulnerable to those giving promises not in our best interest. If one inordinate attachment fails, we find another. We may engage several at a time. The sense of finally being very important does not last, not unless we surrender ourselves totally to the delusion.
A false belonging, however, leads us from the joy of belonging to ourselves. Rather, we lose ourselves in false belongings. True belonging is an expression of belonging with who I am here, now. Belonging already is, so not deriving from anyone else or joining anything.
* * *
A child or youth is often vulnerable to misreading, "I'm not included" to mean "I don't belong," so "I'm not worthy." This sense of unworthiness can remain an imbedded belief for a lifetime.
It is of utmost importance that we decide who we are and that we are, regardless of what others do or say, inherently worthy. When we do this, we are less exposed to becoming entangled in false ventures and dead-end loyalties. A sound spiritual path leads us home to ourselves.
* * *
Possibly, the episode in high school above and others like it in my early life, sensitized me to empathize for and act on behalf of other not-belongers, left-outers. When a Christian pastor, I got into trouble much for opening my arms too wide, inviting all to belong in the fellowship, including non-Christians. This inclusiveness was beyond the idea many had of Christians being the only ones chosen in God's eyes. These Christians regarded everyone else as the damned and the doomed. If you were not an "official" Christian, meaning you might not be Christian at all, only a church member, you were outside the saving Grace of God. These persons seemed to conclude any person confessing to be a Christian was somehow, regardless of character, a VIP.
I innately knew, not merely in the head but the heart, being Christian was more than being one of the so-called chosen ones. I knew Grace and Christ do not belong to the church. I knew Jesus was not a Christian and did not start the church or Christianity - and certainly not Christendom (i.e., the marriage of state and church). I knew baptism did not anymore make someone God-chosen than not being baptized would make one unchosen. I knew may Christlike beings would not set foot in a church. I knew persons of other faiths could be as Christian, even more so, than persons who claimed to be a Christian.
I do not know how I came to know these things, except to say the Truth within. The Inner Teacher taught me.
* * *
In one church I served as pastor, our director of music requested to meet with me in private. He sat before me, and he questioned me on whether I was a universalist. I spoke to him of the Grace transcending the church and its idea of a Christian Christ, while Christ was not Christian. He smugly told me I failed his test. It seemed as though to him, I was a carrier of some deadly infectious virus. He, stern-faced, got up and left the office.
Now, do not point the accusing finger at the church, as many enjoy doing in their own sense of self-righteousness. Christianity is part of larger societies wherein persons have been desensitized to see preferential treatment as preferential.
Continued... |
