The first rule for our life together is: Everything. Belongs.
Say it. Out loud, I mean. Now say it to another human being. Even one that you’ve just exchanged harsh words with, or you don’t like very much right now. Tell them, “Everything belongs.”
Why? Because even that person does. Belong. Even their opinion that you disagree with. Even the emotion that arises in you and in them as you think about what just happened between you. There’s a place for all of it. It belongs, in a very deep and true way.
This doesn’t mean that it’s all good. “Everything belongs” doesn’t mean “everything’s OK.” We’ll talk more about that in a minute.
Let me tell you about a time when I realized this truth, that “everything belongs.” It happened in prison (where many of my #FoolishChurch ideas originated). I saw the power of “everything belonging” in a moment when it probably wouldn’t have, in most churches I’ve ever known.
I was leading a memorial service there for a woman I’ll call Barbara, who had died just a few weeks after she left prison. The time came when her still-incarcerated friends could share memories of Barbara, and many did, their sadness palpable, their tears watering every phrase.
The “everything belongs” moment happened when Pam took the microphone and began sharing about her long friendship with Barbara, which predated their respective stays in prison. Pam told about how kind Barbara had been to her years earlier, taking Pam into her home, treating her like one of the family. It was the kind of tribute you might have heard at any funeral.
Except the reason Pam was there, the reason Barbara had welcomed her, was so they could get high together. They were both drug users at that point in their lives.
Pam recalled Barbara pulling her aside and telling her, with some urgency, that first time they met: “Pam, I want to make sure you know my husband is a retired cop.” This got Pam’s attention; was this some kind of a set-up? No, it turned out. Barbara just didn’t want Pam to hear that afterward, and get all worried about it. “He’s cool,” Barbara said. “It’s all good.” And Pam felt cared for, in a way she rarely had.
Pam shared this memory of her friend, right there in the midst of other mourners, without a hint of irony or apology. It was a lovely memory to her, deeply felt. “There are a lot of people who would steal you blind, if you let them get high in your house,” Pam said. “But Barb trusted me. She saw something in me, that I was different.” Around the room I saw nods, and words of encouragement, with not one shred of criticism.
I stood by, bearing witness to this moment that felt indisputably holy to me. It was one of many times inside the prison that I experienced church that was big enough to hold Pam’s true experience and gratefulness, without disqualifying her words based on the shady context in which they were born.
I can wish that Barbara and Pam had met under other circumstances; I’d love to live in a world where drugs don’t consume people’s lives. But that’s not our world. And I can celebrate with Pam that she found a friend in Barbara. That friendship was real. It was a gift that benefited both of them.
In many settings, that friendship and that memory wouldn’t feel fitting. It would be immediately clear that none of Pam’s memories belonged. But I think they would belong at a dinner table where Jesus is sitting with “sinners and tax collectors,” like in Matthew 9. The religious people complained (to no one’s surprise), wondering why he would do such a thing. “I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners,” Jesus said (Mt. 9.13b).
Jesus sits down at a table, and we quickly discover that everyone belongs there. All of us sinners and saints.
But the belonging is bigger than that. If we’re going to be really welcome, if we truly get to belong, there has to be room for what we carry with us: our life experiences, our success and mistakes, our happy and our heartbreaking memories, our questions and our doubts, our certainties, our complaints, and our confusion. We can hardly say people are welcome without making room for what they bring.
I spent the whole first chapter of Foolish Church considering this truth that the church shouldn’t make us hide the hard parts of our lives. Last Sunday I shared this theme in my message to my church, based on Matthew 15.21-28 (scripture and sermon begin at minute 15:50), focusing not just on the church, but on our life together, however it happens. Whether or not we are meeting people in the context of church, Jesus invites us to a kind of openness in which everything belongs. It’s a truth for our life with other human beings. The first rule.
I said earlier that even though everything belongs, that doesn’t mean everything is good. If we watch the news, or look around at our lives, we will quickly find things that we feel stuck with, and unhappy about, and that we would resist or fight with everything in us. Saying “everything belongs” does not mean we have to accept everything just as it is. We’ll see that the rest of our four rules offer some important guidance for how we can respond to challenging people and circumstances.
Still, I think we’ll discover this first rule makes a powerful difference. It invites us to begin with our arms extended, rather than with the isolation and contempt that feel all-too-natural to us. It invites us to be open and curious about even the uncomfortable feelings that arise in our own selves. How freeing.
Let’s practice that starting point, while we wait for the rest of the four rules to unfold. See what a difference it might make, starting today, to begin with everything belongs.
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