Wednesday, July 22, 2026

A Field of Belonging

A story of Bhutanese refugees finding community through soccer reminds us that we are all pilgrims seeking our true home in God's Kingdom, and Christ meets us in our search for belonging.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

Psalm 133:1 (132 LXX)

These all...confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

Hebrews 11:13-14

For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.

Matthew 18:20

My dear ones in Christ, let us find a moment of quiet together. In the noise of the world, our Lord offers us His peace, a stillness where we can hear the gentle whisper of His presence. Today, my heart was moved by a simple story from a city called Harrisburg, where a community of refugees from Bhutan, having lost so much, have found a measure of home on a soccer field.

Generations gather there—those who remember the mountains of their homeland and their children born in a new world. In the simple joy of a game, they are weaving their lives together. They are creating a space of belonging. It is a beautiful and profoundly human thing to witness. The Holy Prophet and King David sang of this very grace: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” This unity, found in the shared effort and laughter on a field of grass, is a small icon of the Kingdom, a balm for the deep wound of displacement.

For to be a refugee is to carry a particular sorrow, a constant ache for a home that is no more. And in this, they reveal a truth about all of us. As the Apostle Paul writes to the Hebrews, the righteous of old “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.” We are all, in a spiritual sense, sojourners. Our hearts are restless for a country we have never seen but for which we were created. The longing for Bhutan is a real and heavy cross; it is also an earthly echo of the universal human longing for our true home, for the paradise from which we have been exiled, for the embrace of our Father.

And see how our merciful God meets this longing. He does not wait for us to be inside a church temple. He is there on the soccer field. For our Lord Himself promised, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Is He not present in this gathering, which heals wounds and builds community? The joy of the game, the movement of the body which God created and called 'very good,' the fellowship—all of it can be a vessel for His grace. St. John Chrysostom reminds us that even our rest and recreation can be sanctified. This community, in its simple play, is performing a kind of liturgy of belonging. They are reminding each other, and us, that even when we are far from our earthly home, we are never far from our God.

So let us take heart from this. When you feel adrift, when the ache of loneliness or loss feels overwhelming, remember the families in Harrisburg. Remember that our Lord sees our every effort to find connection and to create beauty. He blesses the unity of brethren. He is the true Homeland we seek, the One who is preparing a city for us, a place of perfect belonging where every tear will be wiped away. In the meantime, He walks with us on our pilgrimage, sanctifying the simple, good, and pleasant things that give us a foretaste of that eternal joy.