07/31/2026
Grail - International Women’s Movement
A reflection offered by Kathy Stewert for the Spirituality Network.
Belonging
Dear Sisters
Who belongs in our fractured societies?
I've been haunted by this question in recent weeks, when, to add to the harsh treatment of migrants in the USA and much of Europe, the anti-migrant movement in South Africa used threats and actual violence to get migrants to return to their impoverished countries, empty handed. Migrants from Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe have been most affected. There are so many forms of dehumanization and exclusion: the visible forms like the extreme violence against civilians in Gaza and Sudan, as well as less visible forms such as exclusion on the basis of mental illness, disability, gender, age, class, religion and cultural background. In June 2025, WHO reported that there was an epidemic of loneliness, affecting 1 in 6 of the human population, which had led to 871,000 deaths between 2014 and 2023. People need to belong, but they sometimes search for belonging in negative ways, by joining gangs, cliques or organisations which work against other groups of people.
An essential feature of most spiritualities is recognizing our common humanity and caring for each other and our environment. For example in Southern Africa, the Ubuntu principle: I am because we are. Jesus emphasized that our care had no boundaries: I was hungry and you fed me…I was a stranger and you welcomed me…In so far as you did this to one of the least, you did it to me. (Mathew 25: 35-40). The Grail celebrates diversity rather than using diversity as a basis for discrimination.
As the theme of the IGA 2026 expressed: Together in our diversity: addressing our challenges and rejoicing in each other…
John O Donnahue wrote a reflection on Belonging in the book Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on our Yearning to Belong (New York, Harper Collins,1999).He writes: We are in the midst of a huge crisis of belonging. When the outer cultural shelters are in ruins, we need to explore and reawaken the depths of belonging in the human mind and soul…Belonging is a circle that embraces everyone…It is the living and passionate presence of the soul…The deepest nature of the soul is relationship…We have fallen out of rhythm with life…Guided by longing, belonging is the recovery of the wisdom of rhythm.
John O Donnahue included this blessing in the book:
For Belonging
May you listen to your longing to be free.
May the frames of your belonging be generous enough for your dreams.
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in your heart.
May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.
May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.
May you never place walls between the light and yourself.
May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you and embrace you in belonging.
The parts are inseparable from the whole.
