Build the Beloved Community

When big things happen in the world, I often react by asking ‘what can I do now?’

One of the worst feelings, in my opinion, is when it feels like there really isn’t an answer.

It’s a feeling that’s gotten a little more common, though, with current streams of social dysfunction feeling like they’re at way too big of a scale for anybody.

There’s the way a culture of bullying has been normalized. The fact that people evade accountability all the time by building themselves a rabid fanbase. And the way the most vulnerable always pay the harshest price.

Of course these problems are too big for any individual. That’s why the way forward must be together.

Belonging is such a powerful need. Sometimes you wonder how so many people seem to live in an alternate reality; in denial about urgent problems while up in arms over fictional ones… but the bulk of our brainpower isn’t meant for logic. It’s meant for survival. And we’ve always found survival in belonging.

People’s ideas and actions are most often determined by their sense of identity and where they find belonging.

It actually makes a lot of sense that our current age of anger comes after an isolating decade, that ended with the UK and Japan appointing Ministers of Loneliness.

There’s a renewed urgency to John Lewis’ charge: to build the beloved community. Not a club that excommunicates members for not being perfectly aligned, but a community where everyone’s wellbeing is interlinked.

Lately, when big things happen in the world, I find myself wanting to be with people. To listen.

It’s easy to feel like the scope of the world’s problems is out of reach… and that’s because it is. But everyone can do something to extend a sense of belonging and I cannot overstate how powerful that is. To know you’re accepted. Not alone.

It’s a game changer for sure.