The Center

“We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.” – William Glasser

If you hear do not hear this from anyone else today, or haven’t in a long while, you are seen, worthy and belong. If you haven’t said that to another in a long while or to yourself, do so today. And each day. A gesture, a smile, a text, a call, a card in the mail. Be a doorway, a window, a bridge.

Each of us belongs and need to see and be seen. Be in the business of seeing and saying, an encourager and light. We have plenty of critics and “non-see-ers.” We belong to each other, connected by our humanity, vulnerability, strength, tenderness, toughness and resolve. Good enough and good. The center.

A prayer for when you feel invisible by Kate Bowler, Good Enough,

“Dear God, I always feel like the last one picked. The left out, the unclaimed. It’s hard to miss.

My gifts are not welcome. My tears are not seen. My pain is not registered. I feel invisible.

Jesus, when You walked among us, You became the one rejected. You were abandoned—even betrayed—by Your best friends, barred from the religious institution, rejected by Your very own people.

You became one with suffering itself, and as an outcast You opened the door for us to find a home with You, a community of outsiders.

You showed us exactly what You thought of such exclusion and rejection. You loved what the world devalued and demeaned: “the poor, the sick, foreigners, women, those deemed unclean, the imprisoned.”

You flipped the “who’s in” and “who’s out” upside down. You radically broke every social and religious barrier—shattering them for all time.

Your touch brought healing and restoration and hope to people who too felt like they didn’t belong. But You didn’t just bring them into the fold. You moved the center of Your kingdom there—with us, the left out.

We know that we are not alone. Our God delights to be with us, and has moved heaven and earth just to be where we are.”

Blessed are we who belong here, with God, and who make space for others to sit with us, who practice radical belonging and hospitality because we know what it is like to be locked out. Amen.”