Ripples #1433: The Courage of Belonging
Nov 9, 2026
PEBBLE
Belonging…is a chair pulled out at a crowded table, a hand extended across unfamiliar ground, a place where your voice doesn’t have to whisper to be welcomed…
Belonging is more than finding shelter…it is becoming shelter for someone else.
~excerpted from The Architecture of Belonging, performed on 11/5/26 by Uche Uwaezuoke, 2026-2027 Cincinnati Youth Poet Laureate, and Desirae “The Silent Poet” Hosley, Executive Director of WordPlay Cincy
BOULDER
If we think of belonging only as membership in a club, organization or church, we miss the point. Belonging is the risk to move beyond the world we know, to venture out on pilgrimage, to accept exile. And it is the risk of being with companions on the journey…people who came from the same place we did, people who came from entirely different places…those known to us and those unknown.
~Diana Butler Bass, shared by Dottie in Cincinnati, OH via Sara Bessey’s Field Notes from the Wilderness
PONDER
I was wrapping up a completely different issue of Ripples when I paused to dash downtown for a gathering I had been looking forward to, Dear Future Us: An Afternoon of Belonging & Possibility. It was spectacular, and inspired me to scrap the previous version I had worked up (stored away for another time!) and pivot to the topic of belonging.
The event began with an incredible spoken-word performance, and I borrowed a few lines for today’s Pebble. They were still reverberating in my soul as Dr. Shawn Ginwright, author of The Four Pivots, began his talk.
Among the many things I scribbled in my notes was Dr. Ginwright’s challenge to recognize the humanity of people who don’t recognize our own. He acknowledged that this is hard work, but here’s the thing: seeing someone’s humanity doesn’t require us to agree with them or overlook harm. It does, however, ask us to venture beyond the comfort of people who think and live like we do.
Ginwright also explained why he chose the word “pivots.” Change can feel enormous and overwhelming, while a pivot can be a small adjustment in direction. Keep going and you’ll eventually end up somewhere quite different than you would have without the shift.
That seems like a helpful approach to belonging, too. None of us can single-handedly make the world more welcoming. But what if we commit to small pivots in how we show up? Reaching out to someone unfamiliar, listening with a little more curiosity, making room for a person who might otherwise feel left out.
These are the ripply actions that help me remember what Mother Teresa and Ram Dass have helped me come to understand: we really do belong to each other, and we’re all just walking each other home.
Peace,
Paul
P.S. A shoutout to my friends (and neighbors!) at Interact for Health who organized the event, and to my super-networked sweetie who made sure it was on my radar.