Saturday, February 07, 2009

Belonging

I don't really remember when I got switched on to this, but I'm convinced that belonging and significance is, outside from the great shortage of love in the world, what global society lacks the most, and what we hunger for, in our core.

So let's talk about belonging. My wife was telling about someone she knows, who was adopted, and who was then "abandoned" later in life, when a birth child came a long. I also know someone, whose parents adopted and fostered dozens of children, some from the far corners of the world. The heartbreaking story is that some of these children, some that were saved from certain death, are now turning their backs on the people who have loved them and nurtured them.

These are difficult stories to hear, absorb and process.

I am eternally grateful that I belong to my birth family, and now my own family. I am someone who was, since childhood, was looking for a lifetime companion, and was fortunate enough to find one. I belong to her, and she to me. My children belong to me, and me to them. Its such a symbiotic thing. Not co-dependence. Just being. Together. Individuals. But together.

We long to belong.

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