You hardly knew
how hungry you were
to be gathered in,
to receive the welcome
that invited you to enter
entirely…
You began to breathe again…
You learned to sing.
But the deal with this blessing
is that it will not leave you alone,
will not let you linger…
this blessing will ask you to leave,
not because it has tired of you
but because it desires for you
to become the sanctuary
that you have found…
~ Jan Richardson
Jan Richardson begins with hunger. And so do we. Just saying the word “inclusion” conjures it up: The
primal hunger to belong; the longing to be let in. No one likes standing outside the circle. No one likes
leaning against the locked door listening to everyone else laughing inside. From the time we are little,
inclusion and belonging is the thing we seek. It’s the hoped for Holy Grail. The promised resting place.
But Richardson will have none of that. To belong is only the beginning. That’s what she wants us to
know. One minute she’s wrapping us in comforting words about settling in and allowing ourselves to
finally breathe. The next she’s shaking us awake and telling us to get up and go.
That shaking should tell us something.
Or to put it another way, hers is not a gentle invitation. It’s not some sweet reminder to think of
others. It’s a warning: Beware of the kind of belonging that only wants to bless you!
Deep down we know this. The hard part is to remember it. To use Richardson’s language, if we find
ourselves being invited to linger rather than leave, alarm bells should go off. We need to be weary of
those who welcome us with a members only card and a soft couch. They may have let us in, but soon
they will enlist us into the work of keeping others out. There will likely even be a part of us that wants
to keep others out. After all, closed circles don’t just set us apart, they also sit us above.
But they also keep us small. Maybe this is why Richardson’s blessing is so intent on not leaving us
alone. It knows that we only grow when the circle does. Circles that keep others out also keep the air
out. No one inside a closed circle truly sings; they only suffocate, slowly.
It’s all one big reminder that the true blessing of inclusion is not that you get to come inside the circle;
it’s that you get to participate in expanding it. As the circle grows, so do we.
Looking for more?
- Visit the Soul Matters Inspiration Facebook page.
- UUCM Members can access additional theme resource materials here.