We belong together
AM Psalm 105:1-22 • PM Psalm 105:23-45
Gen. 32:3-21 • 1 John 2:18-29 • John 10:19-30
“To whom do you belong?”
“They went out from us, but they did not belong to us.”
“You do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.”
The notion of “belonging” evolves in today’s readings from Jacob’s sheep in Genesis, to the antichrists in 1 John, to Christ’s sheep in the Gospel of John. Jacob sends droves of livestock ahead of him on his journey to Esau’s land, thinking, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me.” Motivated by fear and guilt, Jacob hopes that the loss of his belongings will be made worthwhile by his brother’s forgiveness. In sequence with the readings, I tried to shift my perspective from guilt-ridden transactionalism to the risks and rewards of collective belonging.
Enter: the library.
I borrowed 76 books from the Fayetteville Public Library in 2021. Most of the books I read are borrowed from the library, in fact, though my shelves at home are well-stocked. Yet I seldom lend my books, and when I do I’m anxious for their return to me. But the worst person I’ve ever-or-never met could be in the same hold queue for a high-demand library book, and it belongs to them as much as it does to me.This kind of belonging—to a library system, to the Church, to Christ—grants us certain rights and access, and we can screw ourselves out of that access in various ways, but inherent to our belonging is that other people, like them or not, also get to belong. Our belonging to Christ specifically, the one no one can snatch us from, is a piece of what Robert Farrar Capon called the outrage of grace, a belonging “[t]hat is no doubt more unfair to all concerned than any tit-for-tat arrangement the world would ever make; but it is the only way we can live.”
Written by Kathryn Haydon
Kathryn holds a doctorate in Plant Science from the University of Arkansas and currently lives in St. Louis where she works as a food and plant scientist and frequents both the city and county libraries. She shares a happy, book-filled home with her husband Nathan and their cats Ollie and Adair.