Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
When my family and I moved to Canada last July, we left behind everything and everyone we knew, in the name of following God’s call. We invited the children into the decision-making process, but because they are not yet the age of majority, Anne and I ultimately had to make the choice together for all of us. We cast it as an adventure, and talked about the opportunity to meet new people and experience new things.
Anne and I anticipated that of our two children, Andrew, who is gregarious, fun-loving, and extroverted, would have no trouble making friends. But it was Margaret, the one content to keep her own company and be alone with her art and her animals, our typically atypical child, who made a best friend on her first day of high school. And then she made another friend. And another. While, at the same time, managing to keep friendships alive at a distance. As I write this, she is upstairs on a four-way FaceTime call with three of her friends from Rhode Island.
Andrew, too, has kept in touch with friends from the States, especially his best friend, Abbott, but he has struggled to find footing with his local agemates. Just this week, for the first time since moving, he invited a friend home. The boys have started walking to and from school together, and they have set a schedule for when and at whose place they will spend time together. As heartbreaking as it was to see Andrew lonely, it is correspondingly joyous to see his personality come alive again thanks to one local friend. We trust there will be more, but one makes all the difference in the world. Research suggests that this is true for us all: We crave connection, we crave belonging, even as we don’t always know where to find it.
Charlotte Donlon, writing in The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, posits that the opposite of loneliness is belonging. That resonates with me, because I’m in the business of encouraging belonging: to St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, in particular, but on a deeper level, I want to foster belonging to this church because I hope it will lead to what Donlon calls the Great Belonging—that is, the belonging that comes from God alone.
How intentional are we, though, about seeking out connection with each other, inviting others into the Great Belonging in which we ourselves long to be? How willing are we to be known for who we are? How much vulnerability are we willing to risk to show God’s love to each other and to those who do not yet belong to this community?
Whether the Great Belonging begins with belief in God or arises out of a desire to connect with other people, we all do crave connection. When we focus on what it means to belong, to be known, to befriend others, we are on the right track. A central part of our mission as a community of faith is to throw ourselves into belonging, and to invite others into belonging, that we may here, with God’s help, make a community that fosters that greater belonging by which we know that we are beloved of God, and which gives us the power to love others—all others—as God loves us.
Yours in Christ’s service,
N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector