Ingrid Loeuis - On Belonging

Ingrid Loeuis

“Belonging:” a word to which I never gave much attention, as it relates to me, until I was about 20 years of age. You see, I had left what I had taken for granted: birth country, community, family and friends who had coddled me, all providing an environment where I had so belonged that there was no need to think of it. I just belonged!

Life in a new land with no family members meant that belonging was just not going to be a right and so I worked at it in order to find new situations of belonging. In my search for those places of belonging, however, I experienced and learned about a sense of isolation, overcoming exclusion, being a foreigner, out-of-place, “otherness” and, flat out, you-don’t-belong-here.

Twelve years ago, I took the plunge to make my first attendance at Beacon and as I walked up the steps, very much self-conscious that I was not of the same skin color and features as most people in the hallway, I was surprised at the genuinely warm greeting I received from the former minister, Rev. Vanessa and Dr. Tuli. This greeting brought me back many more times until I eventually became a member.

But there was always a doubt inside me as to whether I was really welcomed as they seemed to project or was it just their progressive religion pretending to welcome and include me. Then a few years later, when I experienced a medical crisis, I got my answer. For, there was Rev. Vanessa with warm smiles visiting me in my hospital room; members of the Pastoral care team phoning my husband to find out how they could make our lives easier; others were insisting that they be allowed to visit me at home and keep my company; and still others offering to take me to medical appointments. I was so touched by all the care offered to me that now some eight years later I can see all the faces who reached out to me.

The point of this sharing is that I recognized that belonging is a two-way street. One must want to belong just as much as others wish to extend belonging to you. While you may be so taken with counting the ways you are different from the dominant people in the group you can be missing out on authentic grace and compassion. So now, whenever a new face at Beacon reaches out to me, I listen. Can I see in the eyes and body posture a true welcome and if so, do I enter or let an opportunity for outreach just slip by?