This is the final of a six-part series on the Beloved Community.  May we continue to look for it, talk about it, and manifest it in our life together. 

Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

Believeland and the Beloved Community.

If you’re not from Cleveland, like I am, you may not know that fans of the Browns, Cavaliers, and Guardians are apt to wear t-shirts and jerseys that say Believeland.  It no doubt comes from years of rooting for Cleveland teams that disappoint, tease (we were so close to winning the World Series in 2016!), amuse the rest of the sports world (the Drive, the Shot, the Fumble, the Rain Delay), and break your heart.  Believe me, I know.

So, we resort to religious words like believe and make it part of our name, identity, and fashion statement.  We think that if we just believe hard enough our teams will finally win the big one and all will be right with the world.  Hmm.

The word believe has taken us on many a trip.  Sports fans attach wishful thinking to it and religious folk tend to think our way to faith.  For years I have been telling you that the Greek root for believe is credo which means “what you give your heart to.”

Scholar Marcus Borg goes further in a quote I read recently from a Diana Butler Bass blog as she mused about the TV show Ted Lasso and the omnipresent BELIEVE sign hanging in the locker room:

Prior to the seventeenth century, the word “believe” did not mean believing in the truth of statements or propositions, whether problematic or not. Grammatically, the object of believing was not statements, but a person. Moreover, the contexts in which it is used in premodern English make it clear that it meant: to hold dear; to prize; to give one’s loyalty to; to give one’s self to; to commit oneself. It meant. . . faithfulness, allegiance, loyalty, commitment, and trust.

Most simply, “to believe” meant “to love.” Indeed, the English words “believe” and “belove” are related. What we believe is what we belove. Faith is about beloving God. . . To believe in God is to belove God. Faith is about beloving God and all that God beloves. . . Faith is the way of the heart.

Believeland, you see, is much like the Beloved Community.  We hold our community dear.  We give ourselves to it.  We are committed to it.  It’s all about loving the people in it and around us.  We belove people and we believe in them.  And our hearts will break not because a team loses but because we all lose when we don’t belove the world and all that is in it.

Grace and peace,

Harry