#belonging — Public Fediverse posts

WE'RE BACK!!!🤍

MEET OUR GUEST FOR EPISODE 16 — ADRIAAN VAN KLINKEN

What happens when we place gender, sex, sexuality and spirituality under the same microscope?

This is a conversation about faith, identity, difference, sexuality and the spaces where they collide — but also about the possibility of creating something more inclusive, compassionate and liberating.

Episode 16 drops Friday, 11 September 2026🎙️

#Belonging #Belonginghappy #Theology #Queerspirituality #LGBTQ+Podcast

The Beauty of “Incompetence”

As a pastor—and in many other roles—I have often felt underqualified, overwhelmed, awkward, and incompetent. Perhaps you have had similar experiences.

Those feelings can quickly become spiritually corrosive. Insecurity turns into bitterness. A lack of recognition feels like disrespect. Another person’s success awakens jealousy. Discouragement becomes depression, and honest self-awareness hardens into relentless self-criticism.

Eventually, fear can keep us from releasing the very gifts God has entrusted to us.

Yet Scripture offers a surprising vision of our inadequacy: weakness is not merely an obstacle God must overcome. It can become the very place where God’s grace is most clearly revealed.

Paul pleaded for his “thorn” to be removed, but Christ answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God did not tell Paul that his weakness was imaginary. Nor did God promise that faithful people would always feel capable. Instead, God promised that divine strength could inhabit human frailty.

This is the beauty of incompetence—not that incompetence itself is virtuous, or that we should resist learning and growth, but that our limitations can free us from the illusion of self-sufficiency. We do not need to be everything. We were never meant to be everything.

The image of the body of Christ makes this especially clear. An eye cannot resent the hand for being able to grasp. A hand cannot despise the foot because it travels farther. Nor can one part say to another, “I don’t need you.” Every member is limited, and every member is necessary. Our limitations are part of what draws us into dependence upon one another.

Sometimes I feel incompetent because I am comparing my gift with someone else’s. At other times, I may genuinely be trying to perform a role for which another member of the body is better equipped. In either case, the answer is not self-hatred. It is humility: understanding my place, recognizing the gifts of others, learning where growth is needed, and allowing Christ to coordinate his body.

My weakness does not excuse irresponsibility. I should still prepare, learn, seek counsel, repent when necessary, and develop the gifts I have been given. But faithful preparation is different from trying to prove my worth. I do not serve so that I can become valuable. I serve because, in Christ, I am already loved—and because grace has given me something particular to contribute.

Perhaps the gifts buried beneath our self-criticism are not waiting for us to become impressive. Perhaps they are waiting for us to trust God enough to offer them imperfectly.

God has always worked through unlikely people: Moses, who protested that he could not speak well; Gideon, who considered himself the least; Jeremiah, who believed he was too young; Peter, who repeatedly misunderstood and failed Christ’s teachings; and Paul, whose ministry displayed both remarkable power and profound weakness. Each of these people’s usefulness did not rest on personal adequacy but on God’s presence.

The church does not need us to become flawless. It needs us to be available—honest about our weaknesses, willing to grow, ready to receive help, and courageous enough to offer what God has placed within us.

I may sometimes feel underqualified, overwhelmed, or awkward. But that does not mean that I am therefore unusable. My limitations can become an invitation: to rely on grace, to honor the rest of Christ’s body, and to discover that God’s power is often most beautiful where and when human strength runs out.

You notice you're part of a harmony when another voice enters and everything rearranges.

Further reading: https://emotusoperandi.medium.com/your-self-care-action-items-f1c98bcedca6

#RMaurice #LifeboatAcademy #StayHuman #Belonging #Practice

You notice you're part of a harmony when another voice enters and everything rearranges.

Further reading: https://emotusoperandi.medium.com/your-self-care-action-items-f1c98bcedca6

#RMaurice #LifeboatAcademy #StayHuman #Belonging #Practice

You notice you're part of a harmony when another voice enters and everything rearranges.

Further reading: https://emotusoperandi.medium.com/your-self-care-action-items-f1c98bcedca6

#RMaurice #LifeboatAcademy #StayHuman #Belonging #Practice

When somebody says to you that they like you, will you ghost them if you do not like them?

#dating #socialpressures #livedexperience #poll #reflections #boundaries #neurodiversity #mentalhealth #vulnerability #selfworth #belonging #solitude #relationships

Past relationships taught me that...

#dating #socialpressures #livedexperience #poll #reflections #boundaries #neurodiversity #mentalhealth #vulnerability #selfworth #belonging #solitude #relationships

I am considering ceasing to pursue dating, as I feel that the societal message suggests I should not attempt it.

#dating #socialpressures #livedexperience #poll #reflections #boundaries #neurodiversity #mentalhealth #vulnerability #selfworth #belonging #solitude #relationships

photofri.day #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/79718 This is a fun thing - the idea is that a new topic is posted each week and then members post up to five photos to their own account on Mastodon or Pixelfed, and then this account boosts them to all followers at a certain time. I'm not clear on how the timing works, mostly because week 1 hasn't really started yet, but the first topic is #belonging so I'm looking for that in photos I've taken this week.

"No matter how kind or well-intentioned you believe yourself to be, you’re still an American spending dollars."

Samuel Autman for Panorama: https://panoramajournal.org/issues/issue-18-belonging/belonging-terms-conditions/

#Longreads #Reading #Travel #Tourism #Belonging #Queer

Walking the messed-up Cambodian streets, same broken footpaths as the rest of SEA, but different vibe. Relaxed. Slow. In tune. No more meditating at home with eyes closed.

I do it eyes open in the busy marketplace. Ten months in and I finally feel real rapport. Calm amongst the chaos. Like I belong. What I needed wasn’t to shut the world out. It was to open to it.

https://whothefami.substack.com/p/in-tune-on-messed-up-streets

#SoutheastAsia #Cambodia #OpenAwareness #SlowTravel #Belonging

#belonging : a sense of fitness or relationship

- French: appartenant

- German: zugehörig

- Italian: appartenenza/possedimenti

- Portuguese: pertencente

- Spanish: pertenencia

------------

Fill in missing or incorrect translations @ https://wordofthehour.org/r/translations

What do people value and what are the challenges in creating a sense of belonging and community?

In the latest issue of #ChangingPopulations, we report on two projects that explore #community resilience and cohesion: one based on fieldwork in #Stobswell, a neighbourhood of #Dundee, #Scotland, and one that uses innovative #digitaltools to collect large-scale public data on #social cohesion, trust, #belonging, and #community life across #Britain.

Head to page 5: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

Is this what scares them? To acknowledge that I may be a species apart from H. sapiens which removes from their narrative the biological and identity spheres, and places me on the moral ground that guarantees the right to life to all species?
https://medium.com/prismnpen/a-trans-womans-view-of-homo-sapiens-i-may-not-belong-here-55472db1e2c3?postPublishedType=repub

#LGBTQ #Transgender #Belonging

In this episode of Belonging: Gender, Sex & Spirituality, host Mpho Tutu van Furth sits down with Rev. Isaiah Brokenleg for a thoughtful conversation on faith, identity, gender, sex, and what it means to cultivate true belonging.

Join us for a conversation that invites reflection, compassion, and a deeper understanding of what it means to belong.

Episode 14 Drops this Friday with @sicanguwinkte 🤍

#Belonging #Belonginghappy #Theology #Queerspirituality #LGBTQ+Podcast

#belonging #self #music

https://protyusagendherpoet.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/between-you-and-me/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

#CfA Ninth West Coast #Germanists' Workshop: Borders and Belonging

📍#Applications for a #Workshop at #UCBerkeley with #GermanHistoricalInstituteWashington

🌍 Topics: #GlobalHistory, #Borders, #Belonging, #Migration & #GermanStudies

📅 Deadline: 22 November 2026

🔗 https://www.maxweberstiftung.de/aktuelles/ausschreibungen/einzelansicht-calls/call-for-applications-ninth-west-coast-germanists-workshop-borders-and-belonging-dhi-washington.html

🎙️ Meet our next guest: Rev. Isaiah Brokenleg.

Rev. Isaiah is a minister, speaker, and advocate whose work explores the intersections of gender, sex, spirituality, and belonging. In this episode of Belonging: Gender, Sex & Spirituality, she shares thoughtful reflections on faith, identity, and creating spaces where everyone can belong.
Join us for a conversation that invites curiosity, challenges assumptions, and inspires hope.

#Belonging #Belonginghappy #Theology #Queerspirituality #LGBTQ+

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

Every life carries something no one else can carry for it, yet none of us carries everything alone.

Further reading:
https://medium.com/collaborative-action-network/is-that-the-best-you-can-do-7f4781486e96

#LifeboatAcademy #StayHuman #UrsulaKLeGuin #Belonging #SharedHumanity

Interesting episode: "This is the psychology of how shows about the British class system became comfort viewing for the people it should enrage. And how we fall in love with the Myths of the Super Rich today."

With interesting information on the author of Downtown Abby in the replies (he did write it like this on purpose).

The Psychological Trick That Keeps you Obedient
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ApSH0fCIjTY

CW: contains one shot of a deceased baboon in the last part, but not gory.

Might be a bit superficial for people who are more informed on the subject, at least that's my experience with some episodes.

#ClassWar #CompostTheRich #belonging #propaganda #burnout

How to remember who you are when you've forgotten.

https://spawningfish.substack.com/p/the-outsider?r=473d8h

#fiction #shortstory #belonging #wisdom #selfawareness

I've been kicking around the idea of a community built around belonging, curiosity, service, and genuine connection. A place where people can gather regularly, hear someone's story or learn something new, have thoughtful conversations over coffee, and build real friendships. Then once a month, instead of just talking about making our community better, we'd go volunteer or work on a local service project together.

Not a church. Not an anti-church. Not a political group.

Just neighbors creating the kind of community many of us wish we had.

Being based in Liberty, MO I've been calling the idea "Liberty Circle" because I love the symbolism of the circle. No one at the head. No one left outside. Just people coming together, making room for one another, and growing together.

Has anyone here been part of something like this? I'd love to hear what worked, what didn't, and what made people keep coming back.

#Community #Belonging #Humanism #CommunityBuilding #Volunteer #LibertyMO #Missouri #SocialConnection

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

💙 ISDI GoFundMe Campaign — Become a Founding Supporter and Help Build the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion to Fight for Fairness, Inclusion, Equal Opportunity and Human Dignity For All — Nationwide
https://gofund.me/11c9c1cf3

I'm Dr. Kirk Adams — blind since age five, former AFB president & CEO, now ISDI's Executive Director. Help launch this national coalition. Tax-deductible. 💙

#DisabilityInclusion #DEIAB #Accessibility #Inclusion #Belonging #Nonprofit #DEI

Some places make belonging feel effortless.

Everything is structured in a way that leaves no friction: paths are clear, rhythms are shared, nothing pushes you to the edges.

It looks natural from the outside.

But it’s not accidental.

It’s the result of systems designed well enough that people don’t have to fight to be part of them.

https://open.substack.com/pub/associationredefine/p/the-civic-architecture-of-a-city-c69?r=6l8ed8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#Education #Belonging #PublicSystems #SocialInnovation #LearningBeyondSchool #CivicDesign #Democracy #YouthEngagement #SystemsThinking

Australia’s ‘strategic infantilisation’ by the US is undermining our security in Asia

"We are a perennially anxious nation, seemingly unable to come to terms with the reality of our geographic position. We reflexively identify with faraway members of the Anglosphere, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. But even more consequentially, we outsource responsibility for our foreign and security policy to one great and powerful friend or another. "

Others "view us as an appendage of America’s grand strategy, with little capacity for independent thought, much less action...This may spare our policymakers from the challenge of thinking independently. >>
https://theconversation.com/australias-strategic-infantilisation-by-the-us-is-undermining-our-security-in-asia-278068
#sovereignty #Australia #war #AUKUS #MiddlePowers #belonging #Anglosphere #anxiety #subordination #SubimperialEnforcer #DistanceAndDestiny

#ChickfilA puts out a '#woke' #cookbook.

The #fastfood #chain hopes to #foster a new #conversation. The chain committed to fully #divesting from #organizations #opposing #samesexmarriage in 2019 and, most recently in May 2023, hired a #VP of #DiversityEquityAndInclusion to ensure that its #staff can "combine [...] unique #backgrounds and #experiences with a #culture of #belonging."

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Business #Progress?

https://www.thestreet.com/restaurants/chick-fil-a-puts-out-a-woke-cookbook