ISSUE No. 45 | May 2024
WELCOME
If you’re new to CULTIVARE we welcome you! CULTIVARE is a monthly field guide for life and faith, brought to you by TEND. Each month we explore a specific “field” – a topic or theme through which we seek to cultivate contemplation, engagement, and deeper understanding. Our guiding questions are:
What are you cultivating in your life?
What fruit do you want your life to bear?
Each issue of CULTIVARE is structured into three parts:
Cultivate: Examines a specific “Field” or facet of life and offers questions to unearth and challenge our held perspective; along with concise kernels of truth which we call “Seeds.”
Irrigate: Explores the ways we nurture our understanding, which varies from individual to individual. We offer six means of irrigation: Art, Poetry, Profile, Film, Essay, and Books.
Germinate: Encourages practical ways to engage in becoming more fruitful and free in our lives.
Our name, CULTIVARE, in Spanish means “I will cultivate.” We hope each issue of our field guide will encourage you to do just that – cultivate new thoughts, actions, faith, hope, and fruitful living. We invite you to dig in and DIG DEEP!
FIELD
For we are partners working together for God, and you are God's field.
(I Corinthians 3:9)
Our theme this month is BELONGING. Poet John O’Donohue observed: We all have a hunger for belonging, and it is a kind of homesickness that lies at our heart. What is your sense of belonging in this season? To whom do you belong? What contributes to your sense of belonging?
For those of us who live in the US, a country and culture that highly values individualism, the cost for placing such a high value on individualism can be a diminished sense of holistic belonging. In the absence of belonging many feel isolated or lonely. Many long for a deeper sense of belonging.
I love the list of synonyms found in the thesaurus for “belong”:
Have a rightful place
Be found
Be included
Be part of
Be in the hands of
Fit in
Be suited to
Have a home
As you read that list, what feelings surface for you? How would you describe your experience of belonging in this season?
In this issue we profile Father Gregory Boyle, who founded and leads Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, a ministry with former gang members that impresses upon them the difference between healthy belonging and unhealthy belonging. We feature an essay entitled What Our Search for Belonging Reveals. And our featured book is Alan Noble’s You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World.
The Heidelberg Catechism, written in 1563, is a Protestant confessional document that was written in a series of questions and answers, and for centuries has been used for teaching about Christian doctrine. There are a total of 129 questions contained in the Heidelberg Catechism. Question #1 is a central and foundational question:
Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
How might a deeper sense of belonging to Christ free you to build stronger bonds of belonging with others? How might you experience belonging in new ways? What are your areas of healthy and unhealthy belonging currently? What might God be calling you to do in order to experience a deeper sense of belonging? (DG)
***
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
(Psalm 24:1 NIV)
So, in Christ we, though many, form one body,
and each member belongs to all the others.
(Romans 12:5 NIV)
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers,
but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.
(Ephesians 2:19 NIV)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people;
once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
(1 Peter 2:9-10 NRS)
SEEDS
A handful of quotes to contemplate and cultivate into your life
The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't. (Wendell Berry)
It’s a deeper word than inclusivity, belonging is a word that evokes human acceptance and human connection and a genuine sense of being respected and honored. (David Hempton)
We all are born into the world looking for someone looking for us, and we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives. (Curt Thompson)
Our uneasiness with our own feelings of foreignness, our own rapidly fraying sense of belonging. To what do we pay greatest allegiance? Family, language group, culture, country, gender? Religion, race? And if none of these matter, are we urbane, cosmopolitan, or simply lonely? In other words, how do we decide where we belong? What convinces us that we do? Or put another way, what is the matter with foreignness? (Toni Morrison)
Meaning springs from belonging. (David Steindl-Rast)
That is the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong. (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance. (Brené Brown)
Belongingness entails an unwavering commitment to not simply tolerating and respecting difference, but to ensuring that all people are welcome and feel that they belong. (john a. powell)
As long as we belong to this world, we will remain subject to its competitive ways and expect to be rewarded for all the good we do. But when we belong to God, who loves us without conditions, we can live as he does. The great conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God. (Henri Nouwen)
ART
Music Video:
I Belong Here
By Rudy Currence
Rudy Currence is an American singer, songwriter, producer, and keyboardist, whose 2020 Gospel single "I Belong Here" peaked at #1 on the Billboard Gospel Airplay Chart. In addition to his gifted vocals, Currence is trained in classical and jazz piano. We encourage you to watch the Music Video below. We have also included excerpts from the lyrics.
Music Video: View Now
There is a place for me
There is a place for me
There is a place for me in the body of Christ
Yes there is a place for me
There is a place for me
There is a place for me in the body of Christ
[Chorus]
And I belong here
Yeah I belong here
Oh oh, yeah I belong here
I belong here
[Bridge]
I won't run away, and I won't be afraid
No I'm not ashamed
I'm the body of Christ
I won't run away
I won't be afraid
I am not ashamed
I'm the body of Christ
I won't run away, I won't be afraid
No I'm not the ashamed
I'm the body of Christ
See there is a place for you
And there is a place for me
There is a place for you and me
It’s in the body of Christ
And I belong here
POETRY
The Sun
(excerpts from)
By David Whyte
… I want to walk
through life
amazed and inarticulate
with thanks….
I want to know
when I lean down to the lilies
by the water
and feel their small and
perfect reflection
on my face….
I want to know
what I am
and what I am
involved with by loving
this world
as I do….
I want to be found by love,
… I want to come alive
in the holiness
of that belonging.
PROFILE
Father Gregory Boyle
By Amy Drennan
Imagine a circle of compassion and no one is standing outside of it.
(Father Gregory Boyle)
The instant you walk through the doors of Homegirl Café in downtown Los Angeles, you sense that you’ve stepped into a well-oiled, professional, communal network of women who are seeking to provide an excellent food and cultural experience for their customers. Homegirl Café, an extension of Jesuit Priest and native Angeleno Father Greg Boyle’s ministry, Homeboy Industries, brings hope and a sense of interconnection between ex-gang members, restaurant customers, and the city of Los Angeles through this creative non-profit organization.
The food at the cafe is spectacular—as you feast on their signature chilaquiles (my personal favorite…don’t forget the carnitas and an added egg) or a flavorful fish taco, you may be tempted to settle into the experience and miss the deeper meaning here. This cafe is an extension of Father Boyle’s ambitious and hard-won ministry to help empower ex-gang women and men to receive vocational training (along with other legal, educational, mental health, and tattoo removal services) for the purpose of seeking gainful employment and leaving lives of gang involvement.
In his book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, Father Boyle describes the reach of the organization:
Homeboy Industries is not for those who need help, only for those who want it. In this sense, we are a gang-rehabilitation center. Often the homies who come to us are not-ready-for-prime-time-players. Just released from prison, they are offered what is often their first jobs, where they glean soft skills at Homeboy Industries like learning to show up on time, every day, and taking orders from disagreeable supervisors.
For six years prior to the establishment of Homeboy Industries, Father Greg served as a priest to an area of Los Angeles known for its highest concentration of gang activity in the city; he witnessed numerous acts of gang-related violence and killings, as well as the waves of impact that gang violence had on the community and inability of gang members to find meaningful vocations and futures. It was out of these horrific experiences that this community leader sensed the need to bring new creative spaces of hope, healing, and belonging to this community. To capture this sentiment in his book, Father Greg cites poet Denise Levertov, who says “It’s when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart.”
One of the central values of Father Boyle’s vision for Homeboy and Homegirl Industries centers on the concept of belonging he calls “kinship”, which he describes as “souls feeling their worth” and “being one with the other”; it is a stance of refusing to forget that we belong to each other. To this end, he writes, “With kinship as the goal, other essential things fall into place; without it, no justice, no peace. I suspect that were kinship our goal, we would no longer be promoting justice—we could be celebrating it.” (Ch. 9) The kinship that Homeboy and Homegirl provides is a supportive, structured, meaningful space of belonging that supersedes other aspects of belonging that may accompany the cultural/societal pressures of gang affiliation. Father Boyle’s work recognizes this universal need to belong and has created a pipeline that helps men and women in gang-affiliated situations transfer their sense of belonging into a community that fulfills these longings and opens doors of possibilities.
Father Greg Boyle is an inspiration to those who seek to identify and create innovative ways of shaping human experience to mirror principles of the Kingdom of God. His work is contextualized in a particular area of Los Angeles with a specific marginalized population who benefit from ways of belonging. Father Greg notes that the “job description” of human beings seeking kinship is simple yet profound: “It’s about “appearing” (i.e. showing up), remembering that we belong to one another, and letting souls feel their worth.”
SPECIAL NOTE: Father Boyle’s forthcoming book is entitled Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times, available this coming October which you can pre-order now. The book draws from the two unwavering principles that guide Homeboy and Homegirl Industries, namely 1) Everyone is unshakably good (no exceptions) and 2) We belong to each other (no exceptions). For more information on the book click the link below:
FILM
Each month we recommend films focused on our theme
Lion (2016)
Five-year-old Saroo gets lost on a train which takes him thousands of kilometers across India, away from home and family. Saroo must learn to survive alone in Kolkata, before ultimately being adopted by an Australian couple. Twenty-five years later, armed with only a handful of memories, his unwavering determination, and a revolutionary technology known as Google Earth, he sets out to find his lost family and finally return to his first home. Nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Lion tells the true story of Saroo Brierley who wrote his life story in the book A Long Way Home which was adapted to the screen by Luke Davies. The film marked the directorial debut of Garth Davis and stars Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman. Available on various streaming services.
Documentary Film
The Journey to Belonging (2017)
In 2017 Kenora Association for Community Living (KACL) In Canada collaborated with Upriver Media Inc to film a documentary about the history of the Arts Hub, Rhizome and Fitness Friends and the connections being made with community members. The result is the film The Journey of Belonging which focuses on the shift in perspective that can occur when people of all abilities are given opportunities to learn, grow and explore together. The film presents a short history of institutionalization and deconstructs the false beliefs (social myths) that historically removed individuals from their homes. KACL emphasizes the profound importance and human need for creative self-expression and the right of all people, regardless of their ability, to discover and explore their own unique gifts within community. When people gather around a common interest, differences become less apparent, humanity shines through and we all belong.
Short Film
Purl (2018)
(9 minutes)
Purl, directed by Kristen Lester and produced by Gillian Libbert-Duncan, features an earnest ball of yarn named Purl who gets a job in a fast-paced, high energy, bro-tastic start-up. Yarny hijinks ensue as she tries to fit in, but how far is she willing to go to get the acceptance she yearns for, and in the end, is it worth it? A Pixar Sparks Short film.
Ted Talk
How to Build Community When You Feel Isolated
(10 minutes)
College can feel like a lonely place, especially if you're a student of color, a low-income individual, a first-generation youth -- or all three. Educator Chitra Aiyar outlines how she encourages her students to cultivate spaces for other marginalized students to connect and help each other grow.
ESSAY
What Our Search for Belonging Reveals
By Jeremy Linneman
In this article from The Gospel Coalition (TGC) author and pastor Jeremy Linneman makes the following assertion:
“We can learn much about the deep longings of our communities from the buzzwords that we use and overuse.
Savor. Vulnerability. Presence. Influencer. Belong.
It’s the final word—belong—that has caught my attention and sparked immense reflection. Why has belonging become such a popular idea across secular and church cultures?
It makes sense: Many have lost, or never had, a true sense of belonging.
For all our great advances in technology, modern Americans are more distracted than ever before. Despite constant, always-on connectivity, we’re lonelier than any other human group in history. All is not well with us.”
We encourage you to read Linneman’s encouraging article at the following link: View Now
BOOKS
Each month we recommend a book (or two) focused on our theme
Non-Fiction
You Are Not Your Own:
Belonging to God in an Inhuman World
By Alan Noble
"You are your own, and you belong to yourself." This is the fundamental assumption of modern life. And if we are our own, then it's up to us to forge our own identities and to make our lives significant. But while that may sound empowering, it turns out to be a crushing responsibility―one that never actually delivers on its promise of a free and fulfilled life, but instead leaves us burned out, depressed, anxious, and alone. This phenomenon is mapped out onto the very structures of our society and helps explain our society's underlying disorder. But the Christian gospel offers a strikingly different vision. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, "I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ." In You Are Not Your Own, Alan Noble explores how this simple truth reframes the way we understand ourselves, our families, our society, and God. Contrasting these two visions of life, he invites us past the sickness of contemporary life into a better understanding of who we are and to whom we belong.
Fiction
Everything Sad is Untrue
By Daniel Nayeri
Winner of numerous Best Book of the Year awards, Everything Sad is Untrue is a sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it?
"A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore.
Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. Everything Sad is Untrue (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.
Childrens Book
The Circles All Around Us
By Brad Montague
This is the story of a circle. When we're first born, our circle is very small, but as we grow and build relationships, our circle keeps getting bigger and bigger to include family, friends, neighbors, community, and beyond. Brad Montague originally created Circles as an Instagram video adorably narrated by his kids, and now this picture book adaptation is the perfect way to start a conversation about how to expand our worlds with kindness and inclusivity—even if it seems scary or uncomfortable.
DIG DEEPER
Practical suggestions to help you go deeper into our theme
1. QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
Devote some time and thought to these reflective questions on our theme:
a. What does it mean to belong?
b. What do we gain from belonging?
c. Can you gift belonging?
d. When have you felt the strongest sense of belonging?
e. What contributes to that strong sense of belonging?
f. What does it mean to you that “You belong to God?”
2. THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF BELONGING – Psychology Today
2023 marked 80 years since Abraham Maslow published his Theory of Human Motivation. That article reshaped psychology—as well as fields like education, social work, and management —laying out a radically new classification system to map out both the basic needs and higher aspirations of human beings. Maslow’s 1943 article was also historic for a lesser-known reason. It emphasized a fundamental idea that hadn’t been explicitly studied in psychology up to that point: belonging. Maslow placed “belongingness”—what he described as the human need for interpersonal connection and acceptance— in a prime position in his hierarchy, just after the needs for food, clothing, shelter, and physical safety. At a time when psychology was primarily concerned with “mental chemistry” and scientific models of pathology, this was a radical proposition.
3. I DO BELONG: HELP MY UNBELONGING – CT
In this article from Curtis Freeman in CT, Freeman asserts: The task of teaching everything Jesus commanded is not a matter of conveying a checklist of beliefs and behaviors necessary to belong to the church. Christian formation has always presupposed that believing, behaving, and belonging constitute a holistic approach to disciple-making. But over time, Christian catechetical practice settled into a pattern that prioritized believing as primary, while behaving and especially belonging were emphasized less.
4. SEVEN DRIVERS THAT BUILD BELONGING IN THE WORKPLACE
In this article from greatplacetowork.com author Ted Kitterman highlights that creating a sense of belonging takes effort, but the return is worth it. He outlines how every leader can make employees feel like essential teammates, as opposed to meaningless cogs in a machine.
5. PRAYER
The prayer below comes from a morning “Act of Faith” recited daily by Moule; H.C.G. Moule, Thoughts on Union with Christ, Seely & Co., London, 1885.
I believe on the Name of the Son of God.
Therefore I am in Him, having Redemption through his Blood, and Life by His Spirit.
And He is in me, and all fulness is in Him.
To Him I belong, by purchase, conquest, and self-surrender.
To me He belongs, for all my hourly need.
There is no cloud between my Lord and me.
There is no difficulty, inward or outward, which He is not ready to meet in me today.
The Lord is my Keeper.
AMEN
ROOTED
But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.
(Jeremiah 17:7-8 NIV)
POLLINATE
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FIELD NOTES
Images used in order of appearance:
FIELD: Victoria Pope, National Geographic Magazine, “The Communal Table,” Milpa Alta, Mexico
2. SEEDS: Karen Kasmauski, Nat Geo Photo of the Day, “With Grandma,” April 1990
3. ART: Briarwood Detox Center, Austin & Houston, TX
https://www.briarwooddetox.com/blog/what-to-expect-when-you-go-to-your-first-aa-meeting/
4. POETRY: Chasity Maynard, Tallahassee Democrat, “Here’s a Guide to Tallahassee’s Veterans Day Events,” November 8, 2023
5. PROFILE: Photo courtesy of Homeboy Industries.
6. FILM: The University of Tennessee, Commencement
7. ESSAY: Tomasz Tomaszewski, Nat Geo Photo of the Day, “Passover Seder,” Warsaw, Poland, September 1986
8. BOOKS: Trevor Fleeman, West Texas A&M Buffaloes, “WT Baseball Remains Fourth in the South Central Regional Rankings, May 11, 2022
9. DIG DEEPER: Hope Ngo, mashed.com, “The Untold Truth of the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich,” June 16, 2020
https://www.mashed.com/218266/the-untold-truth-of-the-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich/
10. ROOTED: Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, The Last Supper, 1896, Musee d’Orsay, Paris, France
TEAM CULTIVARE: Duane Grobman (Editor), Amy Drennan, Greg Ehlert, Bonnie Fearer, Ben Hunter, Eugene Kim, Andrew Massey, Rita McIntosh, Heather Shackelford, Jason Pearson (Design: Pearpod.com)
WE'RE LISTENING:
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and suggestions for future issues.
Email us at: info@tendwell.org
