"We belong to each other."
Five powerful words that recalibrate my life.
In case you missed it, this month I’m focusing on the topic of belonging: what does it mean to feel like you’re part of something bigger than you? To be a member of a community or group and to be celebrated for who you are without feeling the need to conform or fit in? Each essay in April will feature a story that ties in with this theme of belonging and inclusion.
“We belong to each other.”
This is the thesis of Gregory Boyle’s recent book, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times. And I can’t stop thinking about these five powerful words, especially now.
It’s impossible to exit my house without witnessing or overhearing some divisive comment, whether political or personal. Some might say, “Well, Jeannie, you don’t even need to leave the house in order for that to happen. Look at the news! Look at the headlines!”
That’s the thing: I don’t look at the news or headlines. I avoid these deliberately and diligently. Am I uninformed? Yes and no. I don’t know the particulars about who leads what country (except ours, in the US—how could anyone avoid knowing that?), which party favors which agenda, what sort of conflict is happening between which groups. No, I don’t know these things. That’s on purpose.
Maybe that makes me willfully ignorant. Some might say so. I considered that before I chose to stop scrolling Facebook five years ago, which then dominoed into deactivating Instagram and LinkedIn. (I was never active for long on Twitter/X.) Something shifted in me back then, a subtle but obvious reaction that happened every time I skimmed a clickbait-y headline meant to pass as “news.”
I felt a jolt of sadness, followed by confusion and disgust.
Why are we consumed with what divides us? What is the enticement of entering the chaos that destroys our common humanity? And why, when most people seem to be drawn to the discord, do I feel repelled by it, even disheartened?
I didn’t have the language for this back then, but I knew myself well enough to step away, so that I could reflect more on what my internal response was, and why it kept popping up whenever I’d hear someone bash a group of people using ad hominem attacks or character assassinations.
It’s not that I didn’t acknowledge evidence of racism or misogyny or homophobia. I did. Everywhere. I still do. Everywhere. It’s that I didn’t believe pointing fingers and blaming others would solve the problem—and, five years later, I still don’t.
Every human is inherently good.
“We belong to each other.”
While it might seem an oversimplified statement, I believe in it wholeheartedly. I believe that every human is inherently good and that it’s possible to heal our collective wounds by remembering that. Always. By treating every person with kindness, patience, and compassion. By remaining curious about their behavior, rather than pointing to abstract terms, like hate-crimes.
Where did the hate originate? What is the wound in this person’s life?
A while ago, Ben and I streamed series after series of true crime documentaries. One was called “I AM A KILLER” on Netflix. The very first episode left me weeping. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the death row inmate was deeply hurt, that his (heinous) crimes likely resulted from serious, unresolved trauma. When I mentioned this to Ben, he shrugged and said, “Well, he still needs to pay for what he did.”
Yes, but…no. I wrestled with why I saw this man’s humanity and how I was able to see myself in him, too. I am not a “killer,” but I have destroyed people when I spew unrestrained rage. I have ruined reputations through gossip. No one can say they have not killed another person’s spirit. It might not be the literal extinguishing of a human heartbeat, but it still decimates a person.
Not long ago, I made my biweekly grocery shopping trip to stock up on staples for my family of seven. This ordinary event seems to reveal something jarring or surprising and even touching about the people I meet. That particular day, a Friday morning, early, I waited in our van with the heat blasting, because the air was frosty as I idled in the Aldi parking lot shortly before they opened at 9 AM.
I do the bulk of our grocery shopping at Aldi, because it is affordable, and I can usually find items that accommodate the dietary restrictions in our family—dairy- and gluten-free, mostly—but shoppers at Aldi tend to be in a rush. I say this, because inevitably, week by week for the last several years, they zoom past me as soon as the employee unlocks the sliding doors.
Anyway, as I pushed my cart through the produce section, an older couple passed by, and I caught part of their conversation. The woman muttered to the man, “Those Serbian people are always so grumpy!”
Now, I have no clue about the context of this conversation, but it illustrates the point I’m trying to make: the danger of categorizing groups of people. This, to me, was a racist comment. A discriminatory one. I might not have used those terms five-plus years ago, but I do now. Because it’s true.
How can “those Serbian people” all—always—be grumpy? (And what an odd thing to say, anyway.) We don’t say “those people” when speaking about any cluster of humans who share similar traits or histories or backgrounds or ethnicities. Ever. That was my first clue that the comment was unwarranted.
And that’s the thing: people fling these sorts of comments around constantly. Right now I recall the cavalier use of the word retarded when I was a kid and well into high school. As in, “That’s so retarded” or “You’re being retarded right now.” As slang, it was meant to convey that something was dump or stupid, two equally useless words. What we really meant was that we didn’t like something, or we thought it was irritating or pointless—but we didn’t use those words, we used lazy words instead.
Once Sarah was born, I realized how offensive the “r” word is, and I never, ever use it for any reason. If I’m not careful with my language, how will I understand when words hurt people? As a writer, I want my words to soothe, to be a salve for hurting souls, not to contribute to their grief or loneliness.
After I paid for my groceries, a woman maybe fifteen years older than me nearly bumped into my cart. We were both exiting the store at the same time. I stopped and smiled at her. She nervously avoided eye contact with me, but I stayed in that place for a few seconds, and she looked into my eyes and returned the smile. “I’m sorry,” I said, “you go ahead.”
“No, you can,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked. We were at an impasse, and a few impatient customers waited for us to move through the sliding glass doors and be on our way.
She nodded. “Yes, yes, it’s no trouble.”
She had a thick Eastern European accent. Was it Serbian? I can’t be sure. As she and I left the building and entered the parking lot, I commented, “Well, it seems like we’re both trying to get through our morning, right?” She turned back and offered a half smile, then wheeled her cart briskly to…a vehicle parked directly behind my van.
I did as I always do: unlocked our van, placed my shopping list, pen, and cell inside, then opened the hatch and fished for all the reusable shopping bags buried in the back. As I began loading boxes of cereal, I turned around, and there’s the woman who almost bumped into my cart.
“Do you need help?” she asked. Stunned, I stood for a beat without answering. In all the eight years I’ve shopped at Aldi, no one has ever offered to help me load my groceries.
Scrunching my face, I faltered, “Are you sure? I mean, I think I’m okay—”
“No, no, honey, it’s so cold outside today. Here, let me help you,” she insisted, and before I could reply, she was grabbing grocery bags and stuffing them with canned tomatoes, packages of lunch meat, cheese, almond milk, and more.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I gushed, filling maybe one or two bags with cucumbers, apples, baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes. The woman worked like a machine. I was stupefied at how quickly she was able to cram everything in the back of my van.
“No problem,” she said. “I have grown children. My son eats like a horse.”
I asked her how old her son was, and she waved her hand and said, “Oh, he’s forty now. My children are grown, but they all eat.”
And with that, I thanked her again and she grinned, bid me a good day, and walked toward her SUV.
Maybe she was Serbian, I don’t know. But she was definitely Eastern European. Maybe the person that older couple was talking about was Serbian, maybe they were some other Eastern European nationality. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are all capable of goodness and no one person deserves to be classified negatively according to the behaviors of some.
There is inherent goodness, and therefore worth and value, in every human. Every. Single. One.
We are all wounded, and we all belong to the human family.
“We belong to each other.”
If we treated every person we encountered with dignity and respect and a hefty dose of kindness, reserving our rash judgments, I wonder what might happen in our nation? A gradual shift, to be sure, but I believe it would be a positive one. The reality is, we do not know what burdens people carry, but it would behoove us to keep in mind that everyone carries something heavy and invisible and unknown to us.
We are all wounded in some way. Doesn’t that make us brothers and sisters? Doesn’t that mean we truly do belong to each other?
Instead of focusing on the word "hate," I choose to look behind and beyond it: what is the wound that caused the hate? Asking myself this question helps me switch to a deeper compassion for all of humanity as the wounded walking. Because that's what we all are: wounded. And when I remember that, I am more liable to recognize the good in others and remember that we all belong to the human family.
That is what I am focusing on these days.
There is something holy about that, which, to me, exemplifies and defines the sacrosanct. Holiness as an everyday experience. Holiness, as in locking eyes with a stranger and smiling. Holiness, as in witnessing the changing seasons unfold and unfurl. As in listening to my kids encourage each other, say they're sorry, ask questions, wonder.
The sacred lives inside each of us. I believe, as Gregory Doyle does, that no human is inherently bad. Regardless of what atrocious things people do, there is always a wound behind it. And therefore the only response is the one of recognizing the sacredness in each person and in choosing to love.
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We're a family of musicians and there is a term used in music when the composer wants the performer to slow the tempo down, ritardando AKA rit., or ritard. This is pronounced the same as the "r" word that is verboten in my family and yours
Sheila most have been bullied by someone on this one particular day because she came home and said, "Retard doesn't mean stupid, mooommmm." I struggled not to laugh because, well, it struck my funny bone that she connected that the hurled insult really does mean slow, not stupid. Those hurling this particular word in such a derogatory manner missed their mark with her.
Using words as insults says way more about the individual using them than the person on the receiving end.
Your words in this essay are powerful and meaningful, thank you.
@Kelly Flanagan this is the post I mentioned to you that I wrote (probably a month ago) that was based on Gregory Boyle’s recent book that you recommended to me called Cherished Belonging.