Belonging has never come easy to me.
Growing up, there was my mutated national identity to deal with—my not-quite-American, not-quite-Indonesian soul, restless in both countries. Later, when I came out as a celibate gay Christian, I found I didn't fit into the church as easily as I used to. I've often wondered what it means to belong to others even when I can't manage to blend in with them.
The way Jesus tells it, if we give up on belonging in order to follow him, we'll find ourselves belonging anyway. We might not belong the way other people do, with normal homes and normal families and normal ways of fitting in. But we'll belong in a way that's a hundred times better. We'll be fully in place because we know we are out of place. We'll belong like aliens. Maybe you're caught in the same tension as me, wanting to fit somewhere even as you're permanently out of place. Maybe you feel like an alien.
If so, let's be aliens together.
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“Vivid, whimsical, and poignant.”
— Michelle T. Sanchez, executive minister of Make and Deepen Disciples, Evangelical Covenant Church
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Gregory Coles is an author, playwright, and songwriter. He spent fifteen years growing up in the Muslim neighborhoods of Bandung, Indonesia, in the shadow of a golden-domed mosque marked by a spire with a silver crescent moon. The son of two committed Christian teachers, Coles learned from a young age to look for God in the world around him. He learned to speak several languages and published his first short story while still in high school. At age eighteen, Coles returned to the United States to pursue his education, earning a bachelor’s degree in communication with emphasis in English literature—and graduating at the top of his class. Today he is a doctoral student and part-time English instructor at Penn State University.