remembering what it is to belong...

I am sitting in miss-matched socks, comfortable trackie and flowing green shawl, feeling infinitely glad to be me. The outfit may be eccentric but it is sooo comfy and suitably warm and in my own space, amidst my own comfy chairs and family works of creativity, where the mugs are striped and filled with chai and my favourite Koto music flows from the Cd player as I read an eclectic selection of short stories with the dog’s head resting on my knee and my hubby painting diligently in the background…I feel like I belong. And after all isn’t a sense of belonging the very thing we all need? To know that somewhere in the world we are totally accepted for ourselves and free to be just that. How lucky I am that this is my lot.

It makes me sad to think of all those in search of belonging….to read that yet another boat of refugees has graced our shores in search of belonging and safety and warmth and the freedom to wear odd socks if they choose, only to find that they are pawns in a game of give and take over which they have no control….how desperate would one feel to belong nowhere…to have no safe comfy couch to retreat to and no guarantee of one ever appearing to house your weary limbs….

It’s too hard to imagine and too overwhelmingly heartbreaking to condone…Many asylum seekers in Australia are denied work permission, language classes, access to health services and basic financial support while they undergo a prolonged wait (often years) for their fate to be determined. Nearly half of all refugees worldwide are under 18, and across the globe, an estimated 25 million children have been uprooted from their homes as a result of war. If anyone is in any doubt as to the real plight of these folk they should take a breath and look at these real stories… http://www.refugeeaction.org/stories/refugee_stories.htm

Mother Teresa has said there is no peace because we have forgotten that we belong to each other….we are all humans struggling to find our own comfy places and feel the warmth of belonging…we are not some stone pieces in a game of numbers…surely shuffling people, ridding ourselves of the need to open our hearts and our arms is a travesty of the worst kind?

We will not belong less because we share our belonging, we will belong more…we have a chance to grow our sense of family and enrich our minds and souls, how come so little activity is happening on the refugee front…we get all stirred about the environment, animal cruelty and so on but we seem to have become bored by the plight of fellow humans…..

If we do nothing else we should write letters to newspapers, to members of parliament and we should remember those who do not yet belong in our prayers and our meditations and when we are comfy in our belonging…