The Sacred Pulse by April Fiet

Author:April Fiet [Fiet, April]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012120 Religion / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth, REL012070 Religion / Christian Life / Personal Growth, SEL016000 Self-help / Personal Growth / Happiness
Publisher: Broadleaf Books

Part III

The Dance of Belonging

7

Movement of Community

The Holy Rhythm of Interdependence

In the beginning, there was connection. God created the world and entered into relationship with it. More deeply, when God created human beings, God did so personally, forming the dust of the ground into the first human being. After the creation of the first person, God saw that humanity was not intended for solitude. Rather, “it is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). God created woman to be man’s ezer kenegdo: a helper with a strength corresponding to man’s own. And Adam rejoiced because “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).

Later, these first human beings spent time with God. They heard God walking in the garden. They talked with God. They listened to God. They were in relationship with God. And even when these first humans transgressed the boundary set in place for them, God went in search of them. When their nakedness made them feel ashamed, God clothed them. From the very first breath breathed into the nostrils of the very first person created, human beings were made to be part of a community. We were made for belonging and for relationship. We were made to depend on God and on each other.

Kaitlin Curtice, in her book Native, wisely recognizes this truth: “When you are born, you come into the world connected to somebody.”1 Even though we cannot look back and remember that initial physical connection, I believe its memory is stamped on our hearts. “No matter who we are or where we come from, we are people who journey,” Curtice writes. “We long for community; we long for oneness with the sacred. We long to be seen and known and to see and know the world around us.”2 From the moment we each take our first breath, we are dependent upon someone else. We rely on someone to nurture us, to meet our needs, and to show us what it means to be human—what it means to be interdependent. Some of us may not have had positive experiences with our earliest relationships. Some of us still carry deep wounds and unmet needs. Others may have learned early what it looked like to love others and be loved in return. No matter our earliest experiences, each one of us was created with a need to belong to something bigger than ourselves.

Despite our need for community, many of us may struggle to find a place where we belong. We may find ourselves holding onto skewed ideas about what it means to give and receive. Or we might find it a struggle to remain connected to people who are profoundly different from ourselves. Circumstances might lead us to endure seasons of profound loneliness and isolation. Even when we experience moments of community, we might struggle against the current of Western society, which is largely individualistic. Wherever we might find ourselves—whether it is a time of deep connection and belonging

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