Photo by Carmy Mirabeau aka Carmilla Mrabeau

By Ajung Sojwal

I have called you by name, you are mine. –Isaiah 43:1

Nobody can prepare you for that moment when you get to meet your child for the first time. For nine months, I nurtured and carried her in my womb; never could I imagine what she would look like or who she would be. When I finally held her in my arms, I was overcome with a deep sense of recognition of her as mine completely. Yet, for reasons unknown, I also felt a profound sense of loss as I unraveled her swaddling cloth to find the raw umbilical cord — severed from me, neatly tied over her belly. I realized, then, as much as her being had become a reality in my life, she had already begun her journey away from me. At that moment, I understood — true belonging is something I cannot impose on anyone, not even my children.

My earliest sense of belonging came from being identified with a particular family, which included not just my parents and siblings, but also the larger extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. In many ways, that sense of belonging was in fact a claim laid over my life that came with certain expectations and an unspoken demand for loyalty. That sense of belonging got challenged when I developed new friendships in school as I negotiated different sets of expectations and values. It got challenged even more as my world got larger and more diverse. A sense of belonging was the unmentioned glue that held together the many relationships and groups I became a part of; it went without saying that we belonged together because of shared interests and values.

The first time I really grappled with what a true sense of belonging is was when I got married. The sense of belonging that gets addressed in a marriage relationship in India, especially in the deeply communal culture that I grew up in, is beyond just two people agreeing to tie the knot. “You are marrying into a family” was said to me by everyone who was considered an elder in my family.  Having been raised in a close-knit, larger-than-most family, I never had to deal with what it means to be the someone who is the outsider. I married someone outside our community, from the other end of the country, from a family with whom we had only Christianity and the English language in common. It was then that I suddenly felt the need to explore where my sense of belonging comes from. If we had not decided to make our home amongst my husband’s people so to say, maybe I would never have given a second thought as to what it means for me to belong anywhere.

Having to learn a new language, a new cuisine, new way of dressing even, a new way of relating to people and situations, a new way of doing things, and yes, a new way of seeing myself, all led me to claim Isaiah 43:1 as my own. Like a treasure hunter scavenging through a mountain of junk hoping to find that one antique piece that would somehow make me feel a little more special for having found a piece of history, I searched through the many communities that I became a part of to find where I truly belong. I saw that I belonged to all, and yet belonged to no-one. It is not the languages I speak, it is not the ability with which I can change from one way of being to the other depending on which community I happen to be in, it is not my skin color or the shape of my eyes, it is not the clothes I wear or the food I eat, it is not where I live or which car I drive, it is not even which church I worship at; belonging is about freedom from everything temporal that prevents me from seeing my true self.

God alone can see and know my true self. Because He is my Creator, He alone can appropriately name me for all that He has woven into my being. I know I have come to the place and the one I belong to, as He gazes into my eyes and I see it’s not merely about being known completely but that I am free — free to be who I am. In that freedom, I can embrace with joy what He says, I have called you by name, you are mine.

Ajung Sojwal is the Interim Rector at Trinity Episcopal Church, Tariffville,CT. She lives with her husband in Tariffville, CT.