Belonging
For some reason I was a spiritual kid. As the family story goes, my mom decided to ask me some questions from a Reader’s Digest quiz designed to ask your kids when I was 4 or 5. One of the questions was ‘Who is your best friend?’ I answered without hesitation “God.” Now I was a country kid without a lot of external influence in my life, and my parents would have been classified as ‘Dones’, so this answer was more than a little surprising. My spirituality persisted and so my parents eventually started taking me to the only church in the nearby country town. I remember being impressed by the robes the choir would wear, and the kindness and warmth of the young minister who would tell stories about Billy Blue Jay at Children’s time. Then I would shuffle into a back room with the rest of the kids for some fun kids worship songs and then down the creaky back stairs to the church kitchen, next to the furnace, which was also my second grade Sunday School room. I don’t imagine my teacher had any theological training. I don’t know whether she volunteered to teach that year or was recruited by a desperate superintendent. I think Mrs. Louttit was retired by then, but maybe not. I did learn that she lived in the house up the road from me, at the farm on the corner with the red barn. What I do know was that she was warm and gentle. And she would become the reason I knew I belonged in the Church.
We attended haphazardly through the fall. Enough that as it started to get cold I knew that the Sunday School was getting ready for something exciting. Preparations for the annual Christmas pageant began and parts were assigned. Unfortunately, my mom informed me that I already had a conflict it in my schedule (I believe it was our Brownie Christmas party.) I was disappointed to say the least. I’d never experienced Christmas from a church perspective, and though I was counting the days to Santa slipping down the chimney and leaving a collection of goodies and toys, this seemed different and I wanted to be a part of it. Maybe it was the thought of getting to speak up front—I’ve always loved that! Maybe I imagined getting to sit where the majestically adorned choir usually sat. Did I think I might get to where one of those splendid robes? I do know I felt bitter regret to miss out. And then, by some miracle, one of the dates shifted. At the last minute, I too could attend the much anticipated Christmas pageant. Unfortunately all the parts had been handed out long ago and the rehearsing was finished. I would be able to attend and watch. I supposed that would still be good.
And then Mrs. Louttit did the simplest, kindest thing which would set in motion so much that she could never have imagined: she wrote a line just for me.
I could not have loved anyone more in that moment. I took the small scrap of paper with her beautiful handwriting on it. I treasured it the whole week. Reading and re-reading my part, determined to memorize it well and not let down this woman who had extended me such grace, such favour. The night of the pageant my nervousness and excitement mixed together to fuel a bouncy, sweaty palmed little girl. I don’t remember what I wore (though I remember coveting the shepherds’ staffs so couldn’t have been a shepherd), but I remember carefully proceeding as part of a line of other second graders up into the choir loft. At the appropriate moment we all stood, and each of us spoke our line. I belted out my precious line not just from my lips, but from the depths of my heart. I have never felt so honoured to be part of this incredible and new story. I’m certain I beamed through the entire experience.
When we retreated from the choir loft, into the back room where we worshipped on Sunday mornings, Mrs. Louttit smiled with pride and told us how well we’d done. She might has well have been looking just at me. My heart exploded with pride. I loved being part of the pageant. I loved being part of this church. I loved being part of this story—even if it was only one line, it was MY line. That was the night I knew I belonged with these people; I belonged to these people.
And I belonged to Jesus.
For obvious reasons I believe deeply in Christmas pageants. I think they are incredible opportunities for inclusion. There is so much room to explore one of our key faith stories and find ourselves in it. Every year, now after many years of preaching and teaching on it, I learn something new or resonate with a different part. I’ve resonated with shepherds on the outside, angels proclaiming messages and Mary nursing a newborn. I’ve ached with magi, far from home but sure the journey was worth it and innkeepers trying to work with limited resources to make room. This practice however, began because a gentle and kind farmer wrote me into the story in the first place.
When I think about the value of belonging, of being seen and having a people to be held by, I think of Mrs. Louttit and that church kitchen class. It is there that I fell irretrievably in love with Jesus. Because of course, it was Jesus who wrote me into His story. As a member of the household of faith, I recognize this as a crucial place where I can co-labour with Christ: to write people into the story. Create a space for that one. Not just any one, but that one. To help them find themselves in the great founding faith stories and the ongoing, unfolding faith story. To write them into belonging.
