Creating Communities of Change: Weekly Summary
Sunday
As creative nonconformists, we will be difference makers, aliveness activists, catalysts for change. Like salt that brings out the best flavors in food, we will bring out the best in our community and society.
—Brian McLaren
Monday
We need people who are not okay with the status quo of ongoing economic injustice, exploitation, and inequity, but who are freed from the tyranny of power, prestige, and possessions into a radical belonging and a radical love.
—Drew Jackson
Tuesday
Actual Christian behavior might just be growing more than we realize. Behavior has a very different emphasis than mere belonging. Remember, it’s not the brand name that matters. It is that God’s heart be made available and active on this earth.
—Richard Rohr
Wednesday
Our work is not only to preach a theology of love and belonging, but to ensure that our communities strive to embrace that mandate. That is the amen effect—the sacred mandate to hear each other, to embrace each other, to love each other up, especially on the hard days.
—Sharon Brous
Thursday
I know this to be true: The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together.
—Jacqui Lewis
Friday
At Alcoholics Anonymous, no one’s in charge. And yet, at the same time, everyone’s in charge. Because there is no one in charge, everyone is responsible for keeping themselves—and everyone else—on track.
—Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
Week Twenty-Six Practice
Creating a Culture of Belonging
We want to commit to creating a culture and community of cherished belonging.
—Gregory Boyle, Cherished Belonging
Father Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang-rehabilitation organization that operates on the principle that in the kinship of God, we all belong.
How do we arrive at a place and tenor of community that asserts: Nobody VS. Anybody? This is, in fact, a good definition of the kinship of God…. No Us and Them, just Us. This is, indeed, God’s dream come true….
I recently spoke on a panel … [and] I told the crowd that two unwavering principles held at Homeboy Industries were the following: 1) Everyone is unshakably good (no exceptions) and 2) We belong to each other (no exceptions). Then I posited: “Now, do I think all our vexing and complex social dilemmas would disappear if we embraced those two notions?” I paused, then continued, “Yes, I do.” And the entire audience exploded in laughter. I was startled. When the laughter subsided, I repeated quietly: “Yes, I do.”
These two ideas allow us to roll up our sleeves so that we can actually make progress. So that we can love without measure and without regret. So that we can cultivate a new way of seeing. We finally understand that the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion. How else do we bridge the great polarizing divide that presents itself now, as a clear and present danger in our country? …
Homeboy reflects elements that we think can put us on the fastest route of healing, good diagnoses, relational wholeness, and cherished belonging. When we embrace relational wholeness, our divisions tremble. We aspire to be on the lookout for the secret wholeness in each other. We zero in on the precious soulfulness in everyone. We see as God sees. Vice president of operations, homie Steve Avalos, says, “A structured place is a safe place. It is there that we see the homies’ hearts until they can see their own … then they leave here, and they see other hearts.” The homies don’t need saving. They need healing. I am certain that I am not a healer. I’m equally certain that at Homeboy, healing happens.
Reference:
Gregory Boyle, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times (Avid Reader Press, 2024), 1, 2–3, 7.
Image credit and inspiration: Joel Muniz, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. In a simple act of solidarity, this photo captures people delivering food to a food bank during the pandemic—a quiet reminder that real change happens when we show up for each other.
