So much of my life is spent wondering,
Do I belong?
Do I fit in?
 
I’m a writer. 
Yet I don’t fit in with art galleries who choose to display beautiful paintings and sculptures
but have no place for us wordsmiths.
 
I’m white and male,
Middle-aged and willing to live on the inside edge of the church and faith and spirituality,
But the church doesn’t know what to do with lay people like me.
 
You name it.
There are so many characteristics, so many boxes we put ourselves in,
And all of them reinforce our own false beliefs that we don’t belong.
 
But we do belong.
All of us.
To the human race.
To the heart of Infinite Love
In whose image, we have been made.
 
Perhaps underneath that sense of not belonging that we all experience from time to time
Lies a deeper question:
Am I separated from God?
from my authentic Self?
 
And the answer is, No.
I am connected to the Source,
to the One who created me.
 
I do belong because I am created in the image and likeness of the Creator.
And nothing can separate us from the love of the One who made us,
who made heaven, and earth and the sky;
who has counted every hair on my head.
 
I do belong.
And the sooner I glean this truth,
The more authentic I will become.
 
brian j plachta
brianplachta.net