A few months ago, I took my then-8-month-old to a big-deal (for our little market) Christian writing conference. Pretty near the last minute, I messaged
to ask if I could stay with her AirBnB crew, feeling sheepish about it for *reasons.* Her response? “We would love for you to join us.” Sarah made a literal space of belonging for me (and my baby!), and I knew then that her book was going to be the real deal.The Way of Belonging is not a three-step self-help manual; it’s an extended meditation on the true meaning of belonging to God, ourselves, and each other—a solid place to stand as we practice extending welcome.
I’m so grateful I got to keep asking Sarah questions, and excited to share her answers with you!
Sarah, thank you for this book. It's so, so kind and also useful without promising the community-building moon. Your words about belonging to God have really lingered with me.
One theme of the book is the relationship between longing and belonging. I'm always curious how authors are relating to the topics of their books by the time they come out - months or years after the book has been drafted and edited. Have you found new connections between longing and belonging since writing the manuscript, in your life, or while introducing the book to the world?
Well, I’m finding that releasing a book into the world hands us ample opportunities to live it out. These few months since releasing the book have been so challenging to my own sense of belonging for many reasons, but since I’m talking with a fellow writer and author, I don’t mind telling you that daily I’m tempted to allow how well the book is selling or what people are saying about it or who has shared it on Instagram to have a say in whether I belong here as an author.
It’s like a part of me wants to look at these things as indicators of whether I have entered some sort of inner circle. Have I finally made it? Do I belong? And that performative pursuit of belonging can derail me really fast, so I’ve had to be especially attentive to what is happening in my soul.
Another thing I am noticing in myself and in the wider culture since the book came out is how often this longing to belong can come out sideways or even be used against us when certain groups or organizations ask that we pick a side. We are offered tribalism in lieu of belonging, and it can be oh-so-tempting to say yes because we are communal creatures. We all want others to confirm our sense of identity, meaning, and worth. That compulsion is incredibly human.
But the challenge for me is discerning how to maintain an interior posture of welcome when so much of the world is at war. How can conviction and compassion hold hands for the common good? How do we become settled in our beliefs while remaining open to differences? How can we remain tender but also attentive to people and places that simply may not be safe?
I don’t have prescriptive answers to these questions, but they are questions I’m continuing to ask as I figure out how this “way of belonging” looks in real time. The opportunities just keep coming. :)
The beginning of your book is a beautiful extended meditation on the parable of the prodigal sons. I have a feeling if we asked ten people to name a Bible story about belonging, none of them might surface that one first. What was it like to immerse yourself in that parable through the lens of belonging?
Yes, this narrative is familiar, and like many of us, I never looked at that parable as a story of belonging either, until I read Henri Nouwen’s book The Return of the Prodigal Son. In the book, Nouwen writes about these transcendent experiences he has looking at Rembrandt’s depiction of the story and how that painting made Jesus’ story from Luke 15 come alive for him in a new way.
But toward the end of the book, after offering reflections about how he sees his own lostness in the two sons and the way the Father wants them both to come home, he comes to this moment of realization that Jesus’ story is not only about the invitation for lost people to come home, but also, to become like the Father and “be home” to one another.
Those ideas of “coming home” and “being home” that we see in this parable really aligned with my own experiences of belonging, because I had to come to a place where belonging was about more than what people offered me. I had zero control over whether I was wanted or accepted or welcomed, and always waiting around for my belonging made me feel so lost and out of place. But belonging is more than that. Belonging is also intimately connected to who we are (our identity) and how we relate (attachment). Now, I cannot read this parable without seeing what it looks like to come home to God and to myself and then to allow that sacred belonging to form me into a person who can extend that same welcome in the world. It’s been so freeing.
One point you make struck me, that becoming "people of welcome" does not mean having infinite capacity to meet everyone else's needs for belonging. That feels like a belief that still lingers for me from my more evangelistic evangelical days. Have you found a balance between stretching out of your comfort zone to embrace community but also being mindful of your limits (and the natural pacing of relationships)?
Phew. Depending on our personal histories, this concept of being a person of welcome without “being a welcome mat” can be a tough one. And it might look differently for each of us, depending on personality, season of life, or our relational capacity. But, for me, I think discernment comes when we allow time and space to explore and name our motivations. Our motivations reveal if we are extending a welcome that honors our humanity (both ours and the other person) or if we are pursuing people for a particular outcome.
More and more, I am learning that loving well often means embracing my limitations. I cannot be all things to all people, and when I am stretched thin across the masses, I have no capacity to go deep. I don’t have time or space for the relational sustenance our souls crave. And I find that when I do not honor my finitude, I’m usually stretching myself not for God but for my own gain or sense of security. The decision isn’t virtuous or Spirit-led, but rooted in a scarcity mentality that says “If not me, then who?” or a savior complex that says “I want to be the one” or an insecurity that says “Maybe this is where I’ll find my worth.” The stretching looks more like reaching, really.
But, in my experience, the divine stretching happens most often when I begin to pay attention to the people already in my midst, when connections begin to crop up in unexpected places or my perspective widens. Here, the stretching feels less like something forced and more like an invitation that whispers, “Let’s see how this grows…” There’s a gradualness to it, rather than grasping.
You write that "Belonging is not your work, but a way of being in the world." The idea of that feels to me like a deep, grounding breath. But it also seems hard to keep in mind from moment to moment. Do you have any mantras or simple practices that help you root into this way of being when you're tempted to hustle for belonging?
For several months now, the prayer that keeps rising up and returning as a way to ground myself in this posture of belonging is: God, keep me tender and attentive.
It’s a small, simple prayer that reorients me toward compassion for my own humanity and the humanity of others, while at the same time allows me to pay attention to those subtle nudges of discernment that help me navigate day by day interactions, motivations, and decisions.
The other phrase I hold close, especially when my own belonging seems up for grabs or I find myself in a place of being left out or misunderstood, is this: God goes with me.
No matter how I am perceived or received, I say the phrase and remember that God is not fickle but faithful. Rolling the words over and over in my mind, I almost picture Jesus cupping my face in his hands, tears of tenderness pooling in his eyes, as we breathe together in and out until a settledness washes over me. And that might seem a little woo-woo, but it helps. It helps me remember that divine with-ness is not just a good idea, but a way to live fully loved right here and now.
Thank you again for writing a book and sharing it with the world. Could you leave us with a benediction?
May you know with all your senses the abundance of divine love, woven into the fabric of your being. May your humanity not be a liability but the place where you are found and formed by the Father, where you discover that belonging was and is at your core.
Amen.
Lots of great thoughts prompting reflection for me, Sarah! Especially this part: "I find that when I do not honor my finitude, I’m usually stretching myself not for God but for my own gain or sense of security." I'll be chewing on that for a while... There's so much discernment that goes into naming our current limitations!
Thanks for inviting me into YOUR online space, Lyndsey! Very grateful for you.