Introducing The Belonging Project

Let's explore and create stronger community this year

In my circles, 2024 has been greeted with much foreboding. And for good reason. It’s not just a presidential election year, it’s the most epic presidential election year in American history, which is what we all said about the last epic presidential election year, which just about killed me with anxiety, and the previous one before that. I cried with relief watching Joe Biden take the oath of office, and I thought surely, SURELY we had finally turned a corner as a nation. Surely witnessing an attempted coup on national television would break the spell that had enveloped so many Americans, including some of my own friends and family. Right?

Our toxic politics may or may not be tied to the epidemic of loneliness that has gotten so much press lately. There are probably numerous causes for it—I offered one theory myself. But at bottom, it does seem as if Americans are having a hard time connecting on more than a surface level. Which if you think about it, is kind of crazy—it seems too obvious to suggest all the lonely people get together so they aren’t lonely. A “lonely society” seems like a tragic oxymoron.

I’m currently not lonely at all, but I’ve known deep, deep loneliness in my life. The first time I really felt lonely was when I started boarding school at age 10. Later, I would find an enormous sense of belonging there, but I lived that first year in emotional survival mode. I had no real friends and no refuge from the absence of them. The adults around me were kind, but their care was spread out across so many kids, it wasn’t what any of us needed. I was at home only about three months a year, saw my parents only occasionally otherwise, and had no other contact with them. Back in those days, in the school’s remote setting, there were no phones, or at least none of the type invented after 1885. I’m not even exaggerating. The phones at my school had no numbers, just a big crank on the side, as if you weren’t so much going to be calling someone as aiding in the construction of an oil pipeline. You cranked the crank and subsequently heard the voice of another one on the other end. You had to be extra polite or she might not connect you, or if she did, the line might not be in working order. Needless to say, I only called my parents in dire emergencies that boiled down to, I have died and am contacting you posthumously to ask that you collect my body and bury it somewhere nice. That only happened a few times in seven years.

Except there was only one operator, and she never moved this fast in her entire life.

That year, I was so very lonely, it physically hurt at times. The feeling that no one knew me, no one cared about me, no one loved me squeezed me so tight I felt I couldn’t breathe.

The second time I felt extreme loneliness was after I left Kenya—and that school, which had truly become my home and family—and returned to the US for college. For years, I felt adrift. While I didn’t have much in common with the people around me, I also made a choice not to even try. In my grief for my former life and its wholesale, instantaneous loss, I withdrew into myself, for fear thriving in this new environment would cost me even more of myself and what little of Kenya I could hang onto. So I just put up a big fence and cut myself off. Oh, except I got married. I had a barely-there connection with him, too. It turned out just great.

It wasn’t until grad school that I found real community again, with people who were very different from me. I was still a good little evangelical, and they were all heathens. All of my early interactions with them were aimed at saving them, as if I weren’t the one in trouble. Eventually, I reached the end of my lonely rope, and let them save me. I felt love and belonging. And I decided I would never be lonely again, I would find belonging no matter what it cost. I realized I could invite people into my experience, instead of warding them off with it.

And that’s pretty much what I’ve done. I don’t feel I belong in all places and cases, of course. When my kids were little, I attended the mom’s group at my church and felt the most out of place I had felt in a long time. Almost all of those women were sweet, maternal types who churned out babies like LeBron makes baskets. Honestly, if someone had delivered one in the meeting, it probably wouldn’t have been big news. “Oh look, Emily just popped out her 5th kid over by the coffee. Congrats Emily!” Emily would then refuse a ride to the hospital, because we were discussing her very favorite Psalm and she couldn’t miss that! and then she’d begin nursing her new baby on one breast while her 1 year old took the other. Oh and her outfit would be cute and her hair would be perfect. So, no, I didn’t fit in there. But I had other spaces and other friends and other ways of finding community.

Belonging is incredibly important to me. And I’ve been fortunate enough to find quite a bit of it. But I also think you can’t have too much, and there are areas in which I want to do my part to foster more. Most notably at my current church, a liberal Methodist church. We pretty much drop in for the service and immediately leave. And I don’t get the sense that many people there actually know each other. I think this is a common problem in liberal church, where the absence of guilt and fear as motivators breeds less commitment. Community does require commitment. It doesn’t just fall out of the sky. People have to create it.

So this year, in the midst of all the toxic-election-year sludge, I’m going to be meditating on and exploring the theme of belonging. I’m going to talk to some people who really know how to foster it and others who are struggling to find it. I’m going to read books and try out new things and ask lots of questions.

And I want to hear from you all. For starters—in what context do you feel the most belonging? What does that feel like emotionally?

Or—If you are lonely, what does that feel like emotionally? Why do you think you are lonely?

If you want to share anonymously, you can use this link. Otherwise, let’s have a conversation in the comments here.

Lastly, I interviewed my best friend, who is truly a queen of community (and she’s an introvert, y’all!), last year, and you can read those posts here and here.

Here’s to 2024, and to you all, who have made me feel I belong here. Thank you.