Christmastime is a season that makes us think of family and friends, or parties and church services and meals around a shared table. Unfortunately, for many, it’s a lonely time of solitary days and nights away from loved ones, from anyone, separated rather than together. However Christmas is not the only time people tend to draw together. Humans are a social species and we require relationship.
“Emotional bonds are the psychological glue of families, groups, organizations, communities, and nations. They motivate cooperation and foster group cohesion. Most experts agree that without emotional bonds, we would not have survived as a species, much less constructed civilization,” Psychology Today reported. This is what people are yearning for through every avenue of their lives. We long to belong, to be “with” others, to be a part of a group, to be together.
One example of this need for belonging can be seen in sports fans. We rally around a team, wear our team colors, logos, and gear, we cheer and wave towels, and we are one. I’m not a sports fan, per se, though I will occasionally watch a televised or live game of a variety of sports, but I noted with some self-deprecating humor the ease with which I slipped into “fan mode” last weekend when the Seahawks played the 49ers. I am from San Francisco, born and raised, and though I cannot name a single player on the team, all it took for me to join in the Facebook fray of trash-talk was one negative comment about San Fran posted by a friend. All of a sudden I am a 49ers fan, cheering for my team and dissing on the ‘Hawks. (We won, by the way.)
Why did I so quickly jump on the bandwagon and start to cheer? Because MY team was being challenged, MY hometown team, MY people. My, mine, belonging. I belong to San Francisco forever, though I will likely never live there again. It is my home and my people, forever. This bond I feel to my birthplace is inexplicable in many ways, but there it is and I feel it. When I meet someone who also hails from the Bay Area (as if there is only one bay in the entire country?) I immediately feel this bond, we are united in our shared hometown even though we know nothing else of each other.
People long to belong, and all of the holiday hype elevates this need to the forefront of our minds both for good and for bad. Wanting to reestablish relational ties is what compels us to drive cross-country in foul weather just to share a meal, to spend more money than we should on gifts to show how much we value those relationships, to take and send photographs to share our lives, and to gaze lovingly at old photographs of loved ones we have lost.
As this year winds to a close, we should remember that it is our need for relationship that drives the human soul to search for God, and the all-knowing, all-loving, God of the universe, who sent Jesus to be one of us, to truly belong with us and to us.
