But our biggest Belonging is Belonging to God, and, in God, belonging to all of God's People.
Why, then, do we so often think of salvation as an individual affair? Worry about if "I am being saved"?
From the first chapters of Genesis, we belong to God and to the Human Race when God creates human beings, male and female, in God's Image, and God blesses them. In spite of humans' resultant sinfulness, God does not withdraw this original blessing.
While God speaks to individuals, God speaks to the Israelites as being His Chosen People, speaks of saving a whole people. St. Paul speaks of us belonging to the Body of Christ. The Book of Revelation gives us that stirring scene that overwhelms our imaginations:
"After this I saw before me a huge crowd which no one could count from every nation and race, people and tongue. They stood before the Throne and the Lamb, dressed in long white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, "Salvation is from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb!" (Revelation 7: 9 &10.)
God wants us to think in much greater categories than "Am I being saved?" God wants us to have tender care for all of God's people, to sense our belonging to all of God's people. To yearn for ALL to be saved.
Have you ever walked down a street and looked at the incredible variety of people going by, walking, or in wheel chairs, a rainbow of skin colors, ages, heights, weights, a multiplicity of eye colors and noses, dressed in jeans, suits, mini skirts, sweats, crosses dangling over their chests or black skull caps on the backs of their heads? The next time you observe this amazing parade, this astonishing multiplicity and variety of people, say to yourself "Every one of these people comes fresh from the hands of God." Murmur to them and to God "I pray that I may see every one of you in God's Kingdom."
The next time you see a photo of a member of ISIS, allow your heart to be pierced as the heart of Jesus is pierced by our sins and our alienation until the end of time, and pray "Jesus, I know you desire that all people be saved. I pray for this man to repent, to be healed, to enter your Kingdom."
When we pray, is it just about "Jesus and me" or "Jesus, me and my family and friends"? How far is the reach of our belonging? How far do our hearts stretch so that everyone belongs to us?
"St. Teresa of Avila identifies three things that will bring the peace that is indispensable for real prayer: 'The first of these is love for one another; the second is detachment from all created things; the third is true humility, which even though I speak of it last, is the main practice and embraces all the others.'" (from "Enduring Grace" by Carol Lee Flinders.)
Love for one another can be connected to detachment from all created "man-made" things. If we are too attached to what nation we live in, where our homes are located, how many zeroes are at the end of our pay check, what so-called "social class" we belong to, how "elevated" our job is, our hearts will never be able to stretch to perceive that someone different from us can be our friend.
If we are detached from the "things" that create our artificial identities, we see our only important identity is that of belonging to God, belonging to the human race, belonging to God's people, belonging to the earth God has given us. If our identity has been pared down to this simple identity, no one "stands" above us or beneath us: we all stand within God and within God's family. We belong to God and God's family; God and God's family - and indeed the whole universe - belong to us as all creation participates in the life of God.
Love for one another can be connected to humility. Humility is knowing that we are not God; instead, we belong to God. Our small selves, our egos, tell us that we are independent and self-sufficient. But the reality is that we come from God. God's life and love flow through us out to the world. We are going to God. This is the real trajectory of our lives, from birth to death to eternity. Remembering this is all that is important. Remembering this can give us peace because we belong to the same Larger Picture that everyone else belongs to. Our Big Self lies in belonging to God and all that God has created.
"Paul writes, "All belongs to you, you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God" (see 1 Corinthians 3:21-23). He's grasping at mystical language for describing how we participate in this reality that is larger than our individual lives. Being "in Christ" will eventually lead us to join in the universal pattern of death and resurrection that Christ went through. This is the universal initiation experience, the transformative experience that all human beings go through whereby we come to know what's real. We must go into the death of the small self in order to discover the Big Self, the True Self. At the mystical level, all the world religions say this." (Fr. Richard Rohr)
Is the waitress who serves our food our equal, capable of being our friend?
Is the aide of another color who cares for our relative in a nursing home our equal, capable of being our friend?
Is the aged woman speaking to her husband in Spanish at the Mall our equal, capable of being our friend?
Are the gay couple living down the street our equals, capable of being our friends?
Is the child with Down's Syndrome or the autistic child or the addicted teen our equal, capable of being our friend?
When Jesus speaks of the Last Judgement, his words are so simple. We will be judged by how lovingly we feed people, give them drinks, share our clothes and possessions with them. Jesus sees Heaven as the state of mind, heart, and soul in which people humbly realize that we belong to God, we belong to each other, we are friends, we are radically equal, and we all deserve to share in the simple things that give life. The ultimate Belonging is that the poor and neglected ARE Christ in distressing disguise. We won't belong to Christ unless and until we've made sure that these little ones belong to US.