How Should Christian Think About Belonging- A Conversation wtih Sarah E. Westfall

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I am pleased to be joined by Sarah Westfall. Sarah is a writer, speaker, and host of the Human Together podcast. And she's written a book called The Way of Belonging that's published by IVP. And so today, we're going to talk about the way of belonging and probably a host of other issues and other things as we go along. But welcome, Sarah. Thanks for being on the podcast. Oh, it's a joy to be here today. Thank you for making space. Yeah, absolutely. So I read The Way of Belonging, and I think it might be a good place for us to start if you could give some sense to the listener. Why did you write this book? Like, what was the prompting to really say, you know, the way of belonging is the book I need to write. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the question of what does it look like to belong or what is belonging, I think, has followed me since I was a really little kid. You know, part of that's baked into my personality. I tend to walk into a room acutely aware of what I lack or what I sense that I lack internally and pair that with growing up with trying to fill in some of those gaps that I perceived as lack with performance and achievement. I really tried to pursue belonging that looked more like recognition or acceptance than it did like true belonging. And so, you know, personally, I've been on quite a journey with asking the question, what is belonging? And we can get into that as much as you would like. But this book in particular, I've had I've had the joy and the privilege of working on college campuses and kind of getting a front row seat to the struggle many of us have to connect and to ask questions related to both our identity and how that intersects with the ways that we relate to one another. And so out of that, those experiences combined with some of my own kind of years of reckoning, we went through a season of deep grief and in a season where I literally could not do a whole lot for myself. It was so overwhelming and had to depend upon community in a different way and come in. So those two things combined has really shown me the beauty of what it looks like to live a more communal life, a more deeply connected life with other people and with God himself. And so this book really became me asking deeper questions of what does it really look like to belong? Because there have been many times in which I pursued it kind of more formulaically. Like if I do this and this, if I invite this person to so many coffee dates, then we will automatically become best friends and I will have a place and I will have a person and everything will go great. And that just hasn't been my reality most of the time. And so it just really caused me to ask those deeper questions. And what is it really? Is it at this like mercy of other people all the time or is it something more substantial? And so that's what the book tries to explore both through the lens of my own personal story, but also through the biblical narrative and combined with some research from, you know, neuroscience and relationship and attachment theory and things like that. Why don't we, because one of the things that really struck me was when I was reading the book, you talk about learning to hide and it feels like maybe that is a really, at least when I was reading it, I was like, this is a really helpful way to understand the difference between fitting in and belonging. And so maybe talk about a little bit about that. When you say learning to hide, what are you conveying there? What is that? What's the dynamic in a relationship where we learn to hide as opposed to trying to fit in or trying to belong? Right. I love that we're diving in deep. Let's go for it. You've made a really good differentiation that I try to do in the book of saying that belonging is not the same as fitting in. Fitting in often asks us to bend or shift or to hide certain aspects of who we are or questions we might have or uncertainties we carry with us because fitting in often has a really defined set of rules, whether those are spoken or unspoken, as to what it looks like to be part of a group. And so when we are pursuing trying to fit in, that often asks us to be a less authentic version of ourselves, to show up, maybe not quite so fill in the blank, you know, whereas belonging invites us to, this is the words of Brene Brown, not myself, but invites us to be the truest version of who we are while still and maintaining kind of that measure of groundedness. But I think what happens along the way is that living this way of belonging often gets really hard and interacting with human people because we are human people prone to wounding one another that when who we are, we sense that that's not accepted when we sense that it's not welcomed, that that shame that kind of enters into the narrative causes us to pull back and either to pull away and hide. You know, I'm thinking even of like that initial story in the Garden of Eden when, you know, Adam and Eve's first response was to go and hide after they ate the fruit from the tree, that they allowed that shame to pull back from God, to pull back from, and then to be in contention with one another as well. And so I think that it's a really human reaction to hide who we are and to pull back from one another. But I think that when it comes to our belonging, it really becomes a barrier because we tend to treat then our truer, fuller, more complicated selves as as almost like a dirty little secret. And that's a lot for us to carry both internally and then it always kind of can be a wedge to us relationally as well. Would you say that, so I have particular instance in mind and I'll try to explain it, but I guess what I'm wondering, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts of whether you think that fitting in is bad in every circumstance or whether we should be seeking belonging in more intimate relationships versus transactional relationships. And maybe that's an artificial distinction, like maybe all our relationships should be intimate, right? But it feels to me like there's the body of Christ where I want to belong. Then there's work where maybe I do need to do some degree of fitting in. Bringing my full and authentic self to work may not be the best move, right? And I think something else that came up as I was reading your books, like performance can cover over a number of sins. And so even when we have these features that the organization might not seek out if they're hiring a new employee, they sit back and they say, no, this is not the ideal person for this job. Your performance can actually help you overcome those so you can get almost a false sense of belonging. But really what you're doing is fitting in. You know, you're giving that it is very much transactional sort of relationships. And so maybe my first question is, do you think that maybe it's a more pragmatic question. Do you think belonging is realistic in every context? Do you think we should always be shooting for belonging or do you think that we should be OK just fitting in at certain points? I'm going to answer this kind of twofold. I think it'll be helpful to kind of back up and define belonging maybe first and foremost. Perfect.

You know, a lot of what we've been talking about is the type of belonging that is what other people extend to us. Whether or not we are either accepted, welcomed, said, Hey, you're one of us, come and Let's me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. You are wanted here. So often we think about belonging in those terms, and that's not necessarily absent from the definition. But I think to broaden the definition of belonging, we also then need to include what it looks like to belong to ourself and also to God. And those are the two things that I lean into most in the book because those are the things that we have agency over. Those are the two things that we can not affect change, but we can continue to grow and to embrace those two things. Whereas I can't force anyone to accept me. I cannot force anyone else to be that person of welcome to me. And so belonging then becomes a welcome that first and foremost is embedded in who we are as bearers of the image of God. It is included in the essence of every human. It's what makes us human and it means we have worth. It means we have dignity from the very essence of who we are. And so we carry that with us and then belonging then becomes this thing that's more substantial as we learn to both embrace that love of God and to embrace who he has created us to be in our specificity. And so belonging, you know, I say the way of belonging, it's learning a way of being, a way of being in the world that says I am beloved. I am worth, you know, that worth is built in, but I am also a person who is finite and fragile and prone to wandering and getting lost. And the invitation then from God is to become more like himself. And so, and those are the things, those are the aspects of belonging that I can, that I have agency over, that I have a sense of like, I can embrace the love that God has extended to me and I can then extend it to other people as well. And so when you're thinking of all of these different places and people that we encounter in the midst of our everyday life, we can bring that internal groundedness that says I belong because I am human. I belong because I am beloved. We can bring that into any space that we occupy. Now, the other piece of it, when you're like, well, do we kind of shape shift a little bit just so that, you know, it's like appropriate in certain circumstances. And I would say that is, we probably do that, but I think that we can still belong in those instances because the differentiator to me is that we can be authentic all the time, but we do not have to be transparent with everyone all the time. There is a big distinction between authenticity, being who you are versus revealing everything to everyone. Because I think that transparency piece is where time, trust, safety, those things are reciprocity. Like those are essential ingredients to the more intimate, deeply connected relationships that we desire. But that's not going to be the case with all people and all places and all the time. So let me try to read that back through an, this something I've thought about a lot, Paul's adaptability that he talks about in first Corinthians nine, being all things to all people that he might save some. I mean, what I hear you articulating is very similar to the way I think about what Paul's doing there. He has a set of convictions that he's not willing to bend on. And yet he recognizes that he can, he can be, to use your language, authentic without being transparent, that he doesn't need to force the Jews to be, to give up everything that they value in order for him to interact with them and, and to encourage them in Christ. He doesn't need the Gentiles to give up everything that they value in order for them to, you know, change to fit his, his, his thought process. He's got such a deep understanding of who he is in Christ that he knows how he can adapt within those situations without compromising who he is in Christ. Is that a fair way of sort of summarizing where you're headed? Yeah. Cause I, you know, even in describing that, I'm like picturing Paul with a very clear understanding that he is held by God, like right in the midst of that, that he can, can be that person of welcome. He can extend the welcome of God to both Jews and Gentiles. And, and those things aren't in like, they're, they're not competing, you know, against each other because, because he is already held by God. There's that settledness there. There's, you know, some people might say there's, there's groundedness there. And I like to use that grounding term only because, you know, that word human to be human and to be human together, that word human is humus. It's of the earth. It's to be very familiar with where we have come from and where we are going, you know? And I think it's important to differentiate too. Like that's a really good example with Paul. And even if we look at Jesus in that, he was authentic with the great crowds of people, but he had these like circles of belonging in which there were smaller, he had his 12 disciples and then he had his three, you know, uh, that were even closer than that, that he, who he took when he went to the garden to pray. And he said, come with me or up to the mountain. And we can see from that, that Jesus was Jesus was Jesus, no matter where he went. He was authentic, but he did have these other qualities of relationships in which he was more transparent in which they saw his tears. They saw the, the looks of concern in his eyes. They saw the dirt covered feet and the way he might've had morning breath, you know, in the mornings. And, um, and so we, we see that there is authenticity, but, but not necessarily transparency with all people. And so when I think of that phrase, you know, being all things to all people, that doesn't also mean being a welcome mat. It doesn't mean extending ourselves and just having no boundaries at all. You know, there needs to be some, some measure of boundaries, um, in the ways that we relate to one another. I don't recall you mentioning him and maybe, maybe you do. And I just don't remember it, but, uh, Freeman's work, a failure of nerve. Have you ever read that book? I have not. No. It's fantastic. I recommend it to you. He talks about, uh, this in terms of self differentiated leadership. And he talks about a leader within an organization needs to be the non-anxious presence. And they achieve that by something similar to what I think you're saying, which is recognizing where I end and other people begin and not allowing their, their needs to encroach on what I can actually provide in the moment. Right. And so he's not arguing for a lack of empathy. He's not arguing for us not to care for others or anything like that, you know, just sort of isolate ourselves and stay within our bubble, but to recognize the limitations that we have and to engage again, to use a word you've been using authentically within that as ourselves without necessarily taking up all of the challenges and problems that everybody in an organization is facing because then the leader becomes that doormat or, or that, that frenzied presence that is trying to solve all the problems.

problems as opposed to just being stable and clear and really maybe carving out a space within an organization or community or whatever we would say that allows them to be made sense of. People get them now. Whether they like them or not is a whole different question, which maybe we can get into as well. I think there's a sense in which belonging doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be liked, but it does seem to mean that you'll be made sense of to a certain degree. Is that a fair distinction? Yeah. And I love that. I am familiar with the phrase, the non-anxious presence of, and I love that. The more I kind of dig into what that means and some of the work and the research behind it, I think there is a correlation to that. And some of what I have learned and discovered. And I, you know, and I was thinking as you were talking as well, that there's a there's a quote by Parker Palmer in his book, Let Your Life Speak. This is not word for word. This is just the gist of what he said. But, you know, that being in community is trusting that when I can't be the answer, I can't be the person who responds, being in community is trusting that there will be someone else, that there will be somebody else in the broader community who can step in and step forward. And and I think in a way that that's humility. That's humility and saying, like, I know that there's an answer and I trust there's an answer, but it's not me. Yeah. Because I think sometimes we want to, maybe not, maybe not everyone. I will speak for myself. I think that sometimes I get a little shot of pride when I'm like, Oh, I could be this person's someone, you know? And I don't, that's not a good way to start a relationship. That's not a good, that's not good for, um, my soul, and it's not good for the way that I'm posturing myself to this other person either. Yeah. Well, you know, given the way you've described belonging, can I, can I assume that you would recommend that people who want to really cultivate a sense of belonging, that they begin with themselves, that they begin with their relationship with God and begin to develop not only a deeper relationship with God, but also a genuine self-awareness that maybe is nonjudgmental. I'm wondering how, I guess, maybe the deeper relationship with God question first, that seems like maybe that's the easier one. But then the second one is, as we're developing self-awareness, sometimes we can get into this, at least this is my experience. I can get into a cycle where I'm not assessing my capabilities. I'm, I'm actually deciding I'm not good enough. In other words, I'm not owning my own limitations in such a way where I can say, uh, I have this limitation and it's okay to have this limitation. And that there's only a certain amount that God wants me to do anyway. There's a, there's a certain use that he wants me to have. And so he's created me in that fashion. I'm more, the limitation is a bad thing. If I can't overcome it, I'm nothing, right? Those are the deeper, darker thoughts, right? And so I guess the first question is, you know, do you feel like that's the right starting point is sort of developing this deep relationship with God? And then the second question is how do people go about sort of beginning to process the emotions around our discrete usefulness, our discrete limitations, our unique limitations having been created by God? Yeah. You know, I think I was very intentional with how I started the second half of the book. The first half kind of walks us through a lot of my personal narrative, but also kind of the framework for a different way of approaching belonging. And then the second half is a little bit more of the, okay, but how portion of the book. And I was really intentional with the very first, first step. So I include a kind of a shift in posture with a practice that follows it. And the very first practice that I include is the art of naming. And from the very beginning, God has invited us to name things in order to make sense of them. We live in a world in which there is, especially since the fall, a lot of chaos. There's a brokenness and naming, the art of naming helps us to make sense of what is happening outside and within us. And by developing some more reflective habits and practices and being able to, whether it's, you know, I'm a writer, so I lean toward, you know, the written word, but maybe for some of us, that is the spoken word or like conversation. You know, my mom is a verbal processor, so, you know, I'll just be on the listening side of that sometimes. So we all do that, the reflective piece differently, but I think that there is great value in this, this topic of belonging of setting aside time to be familiar with how we are wired, being honest about the good and the bad that exists within us. And developing, because I think that really sets the ground to, to have this kind of, you know, again, we kind of go back to that grounding metaphor, that this really supple soil that like, I'm really familiar with who I am, both my my worthiness and my weakness. And that helps me to remain really, really humble and to have a settledness of saying, okay, this is who I am. And God, you and I are deeply familiar with who I am. And it helps me to have more compassion with myself. And in the ways that I, the places that I am not an expert, the, the, the things in which I say, oh gosh, I just don't know. And it also then helps me to have more compassion for my fellow man, recognizing by recognizing the complexities within myself. I think I become quicker to recognize that other people carry complexities as well. So that naming, which I really actually appreciated when I read the book, that, that first step of naming, what I was taking it as was, It's this act of honesty where we're trying to do something that I think I've written a fair amount too. And it's like, you're trying to choose the right word to convey the concept that you're trying to get at. And so if we define ourselves as failed, That's going to carry a certain conceptual and symbolic notion with it. If we label ourselves as constrained, that's a whole different sort of feel to it. It has a completely different conceptual and symbolic world. There may be some overlap there, but one is evidently more positive and one is more negative. And so as you're seeking to be honest, are you, would you also say you're seeking to be really nuanced and like deeply understand theologically, personally, The limitations and the dependence that we, you know, the dependent relationship we have with God. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with the Enneagram at all, but I'm an Enneagram four. And so I kind of live in the gray space a lot. I live in the nuance a lot. So I'm like, yes, bring on the nuance. That's my, my gut reaction. I actually struggle a whole lot more with black and white and rigidity personally. Um, but I think just by honoring our own complexity and honoring the complexity in other people, it just helps us to remain tender toward, um, the things in ourselves that I think it was, um, oh goodness, now I can't remember who said it, but just, it wasn't me. All the things that are like unresolved within us, you know? Um, and to be patient. Toward those things because a lot of what you're talking about, you know, when you're naming something, you're revealing something about your identity or how you see yourself. And so, you know, through the book, um, I, I write quite a bit about the story of what we call the story of the prodigal son. And, um, Henry Nouwen writes how so often we identify with one son or the other, either the prodigal or the older brother. But the, the ultimate. Invitation now in rights is not to just identify with one son or the other, but it is in the presence of the father in that story. It is to become more like the father who just wanted his boys to come home. He wanted their nearness. He wanted their proximity and presence. And, um, and so I think when it comes.

When it comes to this wider topic of belonging, there's the piece that we can see ourselves. We can identify, oh, okay, that, I see this in myself, but then there's still this open door invitation that God says, come home to me, become like me, be formed by my presence. And so I think that in the art of naming and taking time to reflect and to use words and wrap those words around your experience. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. That becomes just like little steps along the way that reveal things about ourselves that then God can say, okay, let's shape and polish and form and make you into the truer version of who I created you to be. Yeah. It does seem to me, once we get a grasp of our own belonging, our own belonging with God, our own sort of ownership of ourselves or belonging to ourselves, that this would have pretty tremendous implications for how we accept other people, how we view them. You talked a little bit about having compassion for other people, but maybe talk about your vision, having written this book and thought about it an awful lot. How does this sort of belonging that we cultivate within ourselves ultimately transfer into other people? How do you think about other people differently, maybe, when you have a deep sense of belonging to God and to yourself? You know, I think I can answer in two different ways. I find that when I am more deeply connected with remembering who I am and who I am in God and that he goes with me, you know, God's like, I'm with you. When we go to Trader Joe's, I am with you. When we're in the school car line, I am with you. And that presence transforms then the way that I see other people. Now, do I still get irritated in the school car line? Absolutely. However, everyone does. It's like the bane of my existence. Right. But it does change the way that I become more aware of the stories that I'm telling myself about the people that I'm interacting with and become more aware of the ways, the subtle ways that I can kind of put people in boxes of this us versus them or elevate myself above others. And so it does help me just in that very like everyday kind of way to remember that the person that I'm interacting with, even if they're being awful, is no less loved by God. Yeah. And if anything allows me to remain tender and to not let bitterness and a hard heartedness kind of settle in to myself. The other piece that I am still very actively learning to walk out is how this shapes the people, the ways that I relate to the people with whom I have great deference. That might be difference of ideology. That might be a difference in politics. That might be a difference in ethnicity or socioeconomic. There's a lot, you know, fill in the gaps. There's lots of options there. But this posture of being a person of welcome, of loving God or loving people as God does, which is unconditionally. It is limitless of learning to love in that way and to honor who I am and my views and my opinions without diminishing the humanity of the other person. And I'll say like that's the part that becomes really hard. I think it's become increasingly hard over the last four or five years. But when that happens and we are able to kind of learn to love well amidst deference. I just listened to a podcast yesterday. That sounds fun. Annie F. Downs had Jonathan Merritt and his dad, Dr. James Merritt, on and they have some really, you know, differences in belief and ideology, but they have a deep, deep love for one another. And I think the more that, I don't know, I just, I see the way like stories like that, we need more stories like that, by the way. And I see in that the way that I think Jesus interacted with other people. Like he was, you know, he was honest, but he also was very present with others and was very compassionate and kind of understood the inner workings of what was going on in people's hearts, but still like sat at the table with them anyway. Yeah, I mean, it strikes me again. It struck me when I was reading the book and it strikes me when I'm talking to you now. There's this interesting interchange between if we just think through the life of Jesus, he has an inclusivity to him when it comes to the message. No one is precluded from hearing the message of the gospel. Everybody gets to hear it. Everybody gets to interact with Jesus. Everybody can experience him and be with him. He's not closing people off no matter what station in life they inhabit. And yet there is a clear distinction that if you want to continue your life, living your life authentically in the way that you define authentic humanity versus coming to Jesus on God's terms and truly experiencing an authentic human life, there's a line there. And so he's out there with all these people and he's not making them feel horrible about themselves. I mean, he was relatively popular. People were compelled by him. Sometimes I suppose they were repelled by him too, but he wasn't like anathema everywhere he went. People didn't hate Jesus. And so he had a way of engaging people, but also drawing a firm line to say, look, I'll accept you as you are to the extent that I'm willing to interact and we can be in presence and community with one another. But I love you enough to let you know that this life you think you're living isn't the right life. Does that meandering sort of make any sense to you? When we think about belonging, that seems to me like there's a there's a danger almost if we when we accept when we when we talk about not loving people unconditionally, but accepting people unconditionally, there's a danger there that we forget that loving them unconditionally requires us to point them to Christ. You know, I love the way Augustine puts it. You know, you're supposed to love your neighbor. You're supposed to love God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your strength. You're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself. But to love yourself, you have to love God. And so to love your neighbor, you have to point them also to the love of God. Like that that tiering, I think, is really compelling. Yeah. Any any thoughts on that, like as you've as you've thought through this, as you've talked with other people about this, if you've gotten responses from readers, like have there been any confusions about that or am I just sort of being too heady about the whole thing? Yeah, no. And I maybe you're being too heady. I don't know. No, I'm just kidding. You know, and I think I even I jest about that, but I wonder a little bit if sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves as humans to to take up some of the roles that are only God's to take. Like it is not ours to convict. It is not ours to To impress upon people. I even I even get really uncomfortable with kind of having agenda driven conversations with people about God because I feel like I don't I'm just I'm uncomfortable with that and in myself. But I think there is some.

to be said about talking about the ways that we have known and experienced God freely with other people. And, and that is where we, for me, what it means to be a Christian is to not hide those aspects of who I am, no matter who I'm talking to. And not in an agenda driven way, not in a like, okay, now I'm going to walk you through these colors on my bracelet kind of way. That was a thing, by the way, in the nineties that I experienced. okay, okay. Like, not that kind of way, but it's, for me, an opportunity, maybe an opportunity, that's not the right word, but it's, again, that continued invitation to be authentic. And part of my authentic self is that I deeply love God and that I want to follow Jesus and I want to be formed more in the likeness of God. And so what that means then in my relationships with other people, and I think that, you know, Jesus kind of got real simple with us. And when she said, love God, love, you know, love others as yourself, and then, and have honest conversations, be authentic in all of that. That's my addition. Jesus didn't say that. But also, in other, you know, in his own way. But when it comes to, when it comes to our places of difference, especially, you know, I think a lot of like theological differences, things that the church are currently wrestling with or political differences in which it's really easy for us to put on the hat of like, this is what is right. You are wrong. And I need to prove it to you. I just don't think that that is helpful. It opens up a really huge door of dehumanizing other people. But I also think that ultimately, you know, again, I'm referencing this conversation I listened to yesterday on that Sounds Fun podcast, but somebody in the midst of that said, you know, each of us ultimately has to be accountable to the beliefs that we choose to embrace and to live. And while we can have open conversations about those things, that I think what is most loving is to not to try to constantly be changing one another while at the same time being honest about who we are and where we stand. And it's a really hard balance, you know, it gets weird sometimes. And sometimes we have, I apologize a lot. So... I don't know if that helps. I feel like I kind of... No, I actually think it does, because I think one of the things that I came away with after reading your book, here's what went through my head. I really enjoyed the book because it wasn't about a strategy. It was about a way of being. And so there's something about the strategy, and what I mean by strategy is, you know, sort of a tactical, calculated approach to going about accomplishing a task of, let's say, that task is changing someone, saving someone, whatever that might be. And after I was done reading your book, I was like, she's not advocating that. She's advocating, just be. And in your being, there will be plenty of opportunities for God to use the way you are to testify into other people's lives. And I don't know that sometimes those summaries are a little too nuanced, but does that seem to be a fair summary, maybe, of what you are really saying? Like, don't try, just be. Yeah. Right, and that's why we were really intentional with the way that we titled the book, of the way of belonging, that it is a way of being. It is not a place of arrival. It is not like something you can check off a box, because I don't know about you, but my sense of belonging shifts, that it can change in different seasons, depending upon what I'm going through personally, you know, through life circumstances, a move, a job change, a death. All these things affect our sense of belonging. And, but, like this way of, the way of belonging, the way that I feel like God is continually inviting me into is to something that remains sturdy within myself, something that remains solid, even if I feel like I'm floating on the waves a little bit. And that, and that it's not, you know, sometimes I feel like I talk about it, I'm like, oh, this sounds really woo-woo, like woo-woo, hippy-dippy, and maybe it is a little bit. Like, maybe there's that element of, like, God with us that our human words just does not do justice. Yeah. And so the more that we can learn to live into that, into that, like, capital K knowing God, that just affects then how we relate to one another. Yeah. And it, and it's ongoing. It is not, I have, I have not arrived in any capacity. I don't know, I mean, I personally don't think it sounds hippy-dippy, but, but I, but I also think that, that we're not used to thinking this way. I think we're used to following a recipe for the Christian life. And there's a, there's some really great cognitive psychology research, John Verveke, if you're familiar with him, he wrote, you know, he does the, he's got a big YouTube thing on the crisis of meaning and all this kind of stuff. But he talks about four ways of knowing and his last one is participatory. And, and when I was reading your book, that came to mind. And essentially what participatory knowing is, it's, it's this co-creation between yourself and various elements within your environment so that you know in a way that isn't propositional. It's not a fact, but you, you know it still. And so the way I illustrate it is, like, everybody can tell the difference between doing a cannonball into a pool and a baptism. And you, you know it. You can distinguish between the two. And when you see a cannonball, you're at no risk of mistaking it for a baptism because there's other elements within a baptism that makes sense of it other than just being immersed underwater. All those elements sort of come together to make that into what it is. And again, as I was reading through this and thinking through belonging, it feels to me like that's the sort of knowing that we're shooting for. How are all these different elements in our lives making sense to us to create a context in which we can be our authentic selves, where we can be and be comfortable. And as we change, and you know, you mentioned, you know, a lot of times that you have these, like, I don't think you use this word, but crises of belonging, right? It almost feels like to me when I, when I was thinking through that, it's when things change, there are certain elements that I was putting too much weight on. They're now no longer there. And what I'm having to do is not question my, my relationship with God or my belonging to him. What I'm having to do is adjust to what I was leaning too heavily on and redistribute my weight so that I'm leaning more heavily on God. I just, that, that picture of it, that, that sort of participatory knowing to me is aligned so well with what you're talking about. But we're not used to thinking in that realm. We're not, we don't usually think that way. What we would like is, here's step one, here's step two, here's step three, and this is how you belong, right? The seven steps to belonging versus the way of belonging. I don't want to completely like poo-poo on other books that have written about like community and connection and here, try this. But I think that if we can look at those books as tools, like tools we can put in our toolbox and, oh, maybe I'll try this or maybe this will work in this situation versus formulas that have specific outcomes that it helps us to maybe have better expectations entering into the coffee date or inviting somebody over to your house for the first time or, you know, the person in the school pickup line for your expectations are for them. It just, it's helpful to, to treat those more like, for me, it's helpful to treat those more like tools or science experiments that I, that I can try and see what happens. And, but that, that way of belonging gets to, to remain sturdy and steady within me, even as life and relationships bend and flex. You know, I've seen it even within my own marriage. My husband and I will have been married 20 years in just a couple of days. And our, we, we, there's like the bones of who we are are still the same, but we are also very different people than who we were 20, 20 years ago. And so

What it has looked like to belong to one another and to show up for one another has shifted over the years as we have grown and changed and walked through deep grief and have walked through multiple job changes. I mean, we moved locations 13 times in our first 13 years of marriage. And so we had some transients that we had to navigate as well. And in all of that, and this is like the human knowing aspect, that there has been a part of knowing the bones of one another, knowing what we have that continues to anchor us as well, you know, and gets to kind of be an imitation of or a reflection of that deeper knowing that we also have with God. That's, no, I think that's great. I agree with you 100%. I think, let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? 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There are procedures that we can use along the way of knowing, and those are helpful techniques that can maybe scooch us more to the middle of the path as opposed to skirting the edges, right, we might say. But that experience is a fantastic teacher. And so as you walk through these difficult things and you sort of get the suffering and the tensions and the conflicts and all of those things, and you can weather them, you usually come out the other side with a greater understanding of your own connection and community with people. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that's a beautiful way to express it. I just, my concern would be that many times we're not thinking on that level. We think too near-term, maybe, to strategically or tactically, however we want to put that, as opposed to really thinking about it as a journey and being comfortable being on that journey. You just said the key word there, which is comfortable. I think when we approach things pragmatically that there's a measure of control that either we perceive that we have or that we want to have in that if I can do these things, this will be this outcome. Or, you know, I even see it in the emphasis, a lot of the emphasis in the church tradition that I grew up in was on this like intellectual knowing of God and his word. And not that that is absent, but there are wider ways of knowing God. But what that intellectual piece did was almost, at least the way that I perceived it, was that I thought that if I could get the right answers, that then I would know the right way and that I had this like sense of control rather than learning to live in faith, which an aspect of faith is saying, I don't know. Like my mind doesn't know. I can maybe guess. This is kind of where I'm leaning, but I don't know. Well, let me ask you, I've got a comment with a couple of curveball questions that I was hoping to ask you before we get to the end of this. So I want to do like a sharp pivot. So it'll still be related to belonging, but you host the podcast Human Together. And one of the areas I've worked on an awful lot is just thinking theologically, philosophically about artificial intelligence and technology and the distances that can both be bridged and created through technology. Have you thought any about how belonging might be impacted as we move toward a more automated society where some of the frictions and tensions that we would normally go through together have now been smoothed out and made more efficient so that even if they're still there, something else is taking care of them for us? How does that, the movement toward efficiency and ease, how do you think about that in terms of belonging and really just being human together? Yeah. I think that when we read the Genesis narrative and that the way that mankind was formed by the hands of God and dirt and breath in this very like tactile embodied way that humans came to be in that act of creation. And then even in saying, okay, man, you need another like yourself in order to exist in the communal way that I have created you to be, that while ease and efficiency are great, you know, there's, you know, you and I are talking probably states away across screens. So there's ways in which it serves us really well. But if that becomes a replacement, I think for the slower, more difficult, gradual work of actually being in each other's presence and in more like embodied up close kind of ways, I think that it is deeply injuring our sense of belonging and connectedness. It is really easy to hate people at a distance. It is much harder when they're sitting at your kitchen table and you know their story and you see the way that they kind of push their broccoli to the side and you're like, oh, they don't like broccoli. Okay. Whereas, you know, again, like I'll be honest, I haven't even used AI. I mean, it's probably been somewhere that I haven't been aware of maybe on Amazon or something, but like I haven't sought it out. But I think that we do lose something both in our connectedness and in, you know, I think of it a lot in terms of myself as a writer, you know, that the act of co-creating with God. Because what happens is that in that act of co-creation, something also happens within me. And I think of it the same way of when we're having a conversation actually sitting across from one another. There is no replacement for what is happening within us in the room there. I think Kurt Thompson writes and talks often about there's something, call it transcendent, call it whatever you want, something that happens by being in the room together that cannot be replaced. And so I'm not one to say it all needs to go. You know, maybe watch Ready Player One and know that like, oh, maybe that's not the greatest way to go. Right. I think it's just holding everything in its proper place while not sacrificing what it, I just, I hate that. Like, we try to get rid of our pain so often, but sometimes pain, that brokenness becomes the sacred place for God to dwell and for us to become softened and understand, like for other people who are in pain to understand the hurt and to understand what they might be going through. I would never wish pain on anyone, but I think it's really hard to get through life without it too. Yeah. No, I appreciate that answer. I think it's largely where I've come down on it as well. I mean, obviously I think it's fantastic that we can have this conversation like you're saying across multiple state lines. But the reality is we also have to recognize what this conversation is. You know, where we've had a fantastic time talking with each other. We don't know each other in the same sense as you might know someone who's in your immediate proximity or your neighbor who you're spending time with day to day. And while we could spend more time across Zoom talking with each other, the reality is that this is a very narrow view. It's sort of tunnel vision. And so we're going to talk.

very specific topics, but we're not going to live life together on Zoom. And I think in those distinctions, we need to maintain them so that we begin to recognize that there's an aspect of our humanness that exists beyond the technology that we don't really want to get rid of. And so, yeah, I really appreciate that answer. The last question I'll ask you, which is something I ask all my guests, because this is the Thinking Christian podcast, what I like to ask is, what do you think Christians should be thinking about today that we're not thinking about enough that would really help them to be and make disciples for Jesus Christ? Ooh. I mean, my, my like Sunday school answer is like Jesus. That's okay. Talking about growing up in the church in the 90s. Get the felt board out. Yeah, I know, right? Flannel graph. Absolutely. Let's do it. I would really love for us to be thinking more of what it looks like to love well amidst difference. What does it look like to, to maybe put down our, you know, our stake in the ground of being right and trade it for being kind? And maybe even just taking like a, take a journey through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and, and say, Jesus, what did you do? You know, like observe Jesus and say, how did he love amidst the differences that he encountered of all kind? And maybe just thinking about what it looks like to return some, some humanity, some dignity to the people that we so, we want to put into these containers of us versus them. Yeah, that's good. Definitely needed today. And I think that as we, as society gets more pluralistic and more varied, we probably, it's a definitely a lesson we need to learn. So very much appreciate that answer. Sarah, it's been awesome talking with you. I don't, I don't have any other questions. And so this has been fantastic. Just encourage everybody to go out and get the way of belonging. We'll have the links in the show notes. We'll have a link to Sarah's website in the show notes and various other spots. So check those out. This is a great book and I really do believe that it's something that the church needs to, not master, but start moving along this way of belonging so that we can really have a better sense of who we are with Christ, but also a better sense of how we navigate these sort of issues in the world that we're talking about and maybe even start being more kind to people who are different than us. So thanks very much for being here, Sarah. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks so much for inviting me. All right, everybody, we will catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. A powerful prayer life does not require hiking a mountain to be able to hear from God. God can meet us right in the middle of our busy lives to help, guide, and speak to us through prayer. I'm Christina Patterson, host of the Teach Us to Pray podcast, providing practical teaching and encouragement on how you can make prayer a natural and consistent part of your everyday life. I promise it won't require hiking a mountain, but you just might develop the faith to move one. Listen and subscribe at lifeaudio.com.