In Our Search for Belonging, We Are All Longing to Be…

The Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania. The cradle of humanity. A place from which we all came, where, once upon a time, we were all one. A place of belonging.

Belonging. This word has been showing up everywhere for me over the past week. Coming up unprompted in seemingly every conversation. Surfacing over and over again in the sea of information flowing before my eyes on a daily basis.

Belonging.

Belonging.

Belonging.

Like the universe was beating a drum.

Like the universe was chanting a mantra.

Like the universe was telling me to pay attention.

I can’t remember the circumstances when it initially surfaced in my consciousness last week but I do remember thinking at the time that the word “belonging” contains the words “be” and “longing”. Thinking that inherent in the notion of belonging was a deep longing. A longing to be.

A longing to be seen.

A longing to be met.

A longing to be celebrated — to matter.

A longing to belong.

Then, out of the blue, my dear friend, Winona Lewis, sent me a beautiful poem she’d written about, you guessed it, belonging. A poem entitled “All of Me” in which she gave voice to her heart’s desire — her lifelong, as yet unrequited, quest for belonging.