Longing For Belonging – Rev. Mark Anthony Lord
DESCRIPTION
Tired of Looking? Still Longing? It’s Time to Heal Your Belonging! We’ve been conditioned to seek belonging in the most elusive places – through people, performance, approval, and perfection. Simply – this world. But the world’s equation for belonging is broken — and it’s breaking us.
It’s time we expose the false roots that keep you feeling unsafe, unworthy, and always outside the circle. Then we’ll go deeper — into the unshakable ground of your true belonging in God.
This isn’t about pretending you’re “enough.” It’s about coming home to the Source that created you and never left. Real belonging isn’t earned — it’s remembered. And when you remember, everything begins to change.
SUMMARY
- The speaker shares personal experiences of feeling like he didn’t “belong” from a young age, and how this is a common human experience rooted in fear of being exiled or excommunicated.
- He discusses how the ego’s drive to “seek and not find” perpetuates this sense of not belonging, and how true belonging comes from anchoring oneself in the awareness of belonging to God.
- The speaker examines biblical stories like Adam and Eve’s banishment from Eden and the stoning of the adulterous woman, seeing them as metaphors for the human experience of feeling separated from our true divine nature.
- He emphasizes the importance of inner healing and aligning one’s consciousness with the truth of our inherent connection to the divine, rather than seeking external validation or belonging.
- The talk culminates in a meditation and affirmation of being “light” and belonging to God, who is described as a source of unconditional love and grace.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Mark Anthony Lord (00:00):
Thank you. Hi everybody. Hi. Morning. Glad to be here. I have to take a moment. I was having these flashbacks of hearing use me and the grand opening of what was Chicago Center for Spiritual Living. Daryl was the sound and in the band and some of them, maybe another two or three were there and I don’t know. And just watching Linda receive your recognition and John and I just loaded up a Honda Element in 2003, me and Patrick with two dogs, one had been hit by a car and brick was probably the worst dog on the planet, but he came and it’s just, I’m humbled by God’s movement, by what was caused from that. When you just say yes to God and you have no clue where it’s going to go and how it’s going to spread. So I’m just having a lot of appreciation for that. Alright, so in the Bible it begins with Adam and Eve, and as you know, they are banished from the garden. Further through the book there’s a story about Cain and Abel and Cain kills his brother Abel and he has sent out excommunicated into restless wandering. There’s a story in the New Testament where a woman is being stoned by the masses for her adultery. One Corinthians, it says, expel the wicked person from among you. Welcome to a talk about belonging.
(01:48):
I reference that and we smile and we laugh and we should, but it’s important. It’s important because we don’t recognize the impact of this book and the many books, the spiritual books that when misunderstood and when read at the first level really represent what we fear being ex-communicated. It’s happened throughout all of time. When people were ex-communicated from a tribe, when they were sent out, when they were punished, they got the, you do not belong here. It happens to this day, it happens in families. When someone appears shows up in the family system that doesn’t match the family system. The family system sometimes can’t hold it and so they throw them out. This is a pervasive fear. For some it’s high for others not as much, but it’s in the air and I want to recognize that because if we don’t, then we miss an opportunity for a deeper healing.
(03:01):
As a child, I knew I didn’t have the word, but it was clear at three years old that I looked like the boys, but I wanted to play with the girls. Like that was just inside. I was a girl outside, I looked like the boys. And from three years old, I knew somehow to begin putting up a facade and begin to learn how to belong to something out there so that something in here could feel, okay, that’s young, three, four years old, I’m already deciding I don’t belong. And the reality is I didn’t belong to that system. I don’t think any of us do ultimately, but we don’t have that awareness. We need to be a part of something for survival and that’s where it gets us. You see the need to survive in this world, the belief that we are a body remains at the core of the block to the real spiritual awakening that’s available for us as was read by Rob from upcoming book.
(04:24):
And that was pretty dark. I’m going to have to lift that up a little bit. But the need for belonging is inherent. It is big and it is important, but it is in the seeking. This is the game that changes here. This is where all of the game gets flipped because the ego’s mandate is seek and do not find. And that is how the game is played in this world. That is the ego’s world. The world of duality is seek and do not find. Now the ego’s smart. It’s not going to make it so much seek and do not find because if it does, you’ll look at it and you won’t play. So it gives you a little bit of finding just enough, just enough. So you go, ah, this feels good and it does feel good. Those moments of belonging, connecting, and that can be owning something, accomplishing something.
(05:27):
Moments that make you go, ah, this feels good. There’re moments of connection and they’re beautiful and they’re beautiful. I don’t want to take that away from anybody, but they’re temporary that we know that at this stage in life they come and they go and they’re beautiful when they come, but when they go, this is where many people crumble. And the reason people crumble when they go whatever our belonging or attachment is, is we’re not anchored at the core. We’re not anchored in the place of deep belonging to God. And the book of study this week, Brene Brown Wilderness,
(06:12):
Braving, braving the wilderness. I love Brene Brown, I really do. And if I may, it’s very therapeutic. It’s very much about muscling up having the courage to make these changes. And I’m a fan of that. I’ve spent my whole life doing that. But there’s a fine line that we have to pay attention to because when does the courage become effort and force and when does the courage become that which leads us into grace? That’s what we’re looking for because when you have the courage to just step to the right and you’re being carried by grace, that’s when real healing becomes available. But we don’t have enough wisdom if we move quickly to discern, because again, that ego will pop in and like, okay, be brave, do the wilderness effort and then suddenly without realizing it, you are pushing. You are moving from a vibration of I don’t belong.
(07:12):
This isn’t okay. I’m afraid. Trying to create a connection now that’s just basic math. It doesn’t work. You can’t create connection from I don’t belong. And that’s what we’re all walking around trying to do in this world. The other challenge is, again, I talk about this all the time because it can’t stress it enough. We can’t find it in the body first. We can use the world as an access point and we can do the both end. You can do the inner healing and you can practice in the external world, but they both have to be in partnership. And I have learned that the external focus without the internal focus first is a lot harder. And it’s challenging to anchor our belonging in God because of what I started with. If Adam and Eve were banished and they were the first fricking people made, come on. There’s just stories and stories and stories where this God swoops in and says, enough, you guys have messed up. You’re done. You’re out. Starting over, starting over. So I’m saying to you, you belong to God.
(08:37):
We have to reconnect this and remember this, but we also have to pause and look at the trauma that lives in the gap. I was listening to someone, a YouTube something or other, and this Indian woman, American Indian woman, she belonged to this tribe and her great grandfather was this great teacher and spiritual leader and he passed the gifts onto her and she was talking about 12,000 years ago there was a conscious breakthrough and consciousness and this industrial age, the shifting of the physical world happened. And for 12,000 years there was this creation of the uprising of the cities and the power and all the things that are built. And we are now at the beginning of the next 12,000 year cycle and at each 12,000 year cycle, something deconstructs so that something can reconstruct, well guess what is deconstructing not the physical world. All of the consciousness that has been running the physical world that no longer can move forward, we are awakening to the power of being.
(09:53):
But we have been appointed to do the trauma work because for 12,000 years, deep traumas were occurring and they didn’t know. They didn’t have the awareness to know that when they were beating their children because that’s in the name of God, when they were excommunicating their family members in the name of God when they were denying themselves a thousand times a day, they didn’t know that that was causing separation, separation, separation, trauma, trauma, trauma. So here we are at the end of 12,000 years being asked to begin doing the work to begin healing. So every healing that you have that is available to you that you choose is a gift you give today, truly, it always has been true, but when one mind is healed and restored to its truth, it ripples in the mind of the collective consciousness forever. It impacts thousands and millions of lives.
(10:57):
Everything you do, we are now creating the interconnection at the spiritual realm, at the energetic field. And in order to do that, it requires deep healing. So there are generations and there are phases of to what is spiritual, what is the work of the time. I’m a eighties guy, that’s when I was a teenager and I belong to a place called Church of Today. It was in Warren, Michigan and probably many of you, if anyone has heard of this guy, Jack Boland, he was huge. He created the mastermind program. I would go to a new thought church. This was unity, but you didn’t know it was unique. It was so huge. 3000 people on a Sunday, 3000 people, you know what they were doing? They were building their masterminds to get their cars, to get their job, to get their increase, to get their second home.
(11:57):
They were getting things and that was in the name of God. It was and it was real. It was real. It was where they were. And it was important because they were collective people that were living as worker bees and they weren’t getting how powerful they were. So the world of form was activated. And seriously when someone would drive in their Mercedes, people clapped because they won. That’s what it was. That’s not what it is today. Today we’re at a newer level and we stand on the shoulders of people that did that work. Today it is venturing and exploring the inner world, the inner domain and one piece. Therapy is beautiful, 12 step is beautiful. All these support systems are fantastic, but I really believe what we do here is the core. It’s the core. There’s a lot of conversation in the greater CSL right now.
(13:02):
Go March, be an activist, do that. I’m one that shy away from that because I believe if I march and I’m out there, this is me. If I believe I’m doing that and I believe there’s something wrong with them, or if I even believe there’s another person, I should put my sign down. I’m just adding to the problem. I don’t know enough. I don’t have enough wisdom to know when I’m really in alignment with God and when I really see God in the other person, now everyone’s to choose that on their own. Someone else could march their butts off and they should because that’s their calling. But you hear us here, we have the higher opportunity and the deeper call to make sure we’re in alignment first and what people still don’t get. And I wish we could because this room would be overflowing 10 times over if we really got that.
(13:55):
The healing of your mind saves the world. That is not bullshit. And Bre Brown used that word in her book, so I’m allowed that is real. But people don’t want to do that. They want to face the big dramas. And I say to them in your hula hoop, why don’t you just treat your partner better? Why don’t you forgive your neighbor today? Oh no, no, no. I’d much rather focus on the big dramas and the hurricanes in the world than actually connect the dots. I don’t even know how I got there. Now I got to figure out how am I going to get back to belonging? God help me. You got it.
(14:42):
All of this is ours to do today. All of this is ours to do and none of it I feel, well, lemme say it better. It all begins with the remembering to whom we belong. And when we really are restored, when that root chakra is locked in, that’s where the courage flows. Because the reality is there isn’t safety and security in this world. Don’t look for it, but establish it in God is my safety and security, and I kid you not. When you lock that in, you will. The paradox is you will walk through the world and the world will part for you. You will be safe and secure in the world. There’s a story, I probably told it here. I’m a Byron Katie fan, like ridiculous. And there’s a story I think I could get it wrong, the details, but the story’s correct. She’s walking through a street in Atlanta and Byron Katie is a fully awakened, like she is fully freaking awakened.
(15:51):
She’s walking down the street in Atlanta and a guy walks up and puts a gun to her head without even flinching. She just says, oh sweetheart, you don’t want to do this to yourself. And because she was so secure, because truthfully she’s told the story and she actually is like, she’s like, she never cares if she stays in the body or not. That’s so irrelevant to her. She is the ness that is body, nobody. There’s no difference to her. So she’s got an upper hand in this area on us, but still the love and the grace and the certainty of where her safety and security and belonging lies gave her the ability to say, sweetheart, you don’t want to do this to yourself. And in the moment he lowered his gun and he was saved. He was saved from the karmic retribution of killing someone by someone who stayed in love.
(16:52):
This is your call and this is the you’re at the gate and pushing you through it. You have no option. We have no option. We can’t repeat again, it won’t work. It won’t work in anyone who has ears to hear. Anyone who has an ounce of willingness to say, let me look within, let me see. Let this not just be words. The world I see is the world in me. I get that to the a hundred percent absolute degree. If I’m walking down the street and I see across the street to apparent strangers having a big fight, that’s mine and that’s my consciousness and that’s my fight. Somehow there’s still a fight in me now. I don’t blame anymore. I don’t have any blame and I don’t have any shame about that, which gives me the ability to look and see it and forgive it. As I’m walking by, I say, I ask that forgiveness set them free. I ask that forgiveness, help them remember who they are. And I said, forgiveness, reveal God right here. That’s what we do. That’s who we’re here to be. This is our calling. And it begins with belonging.
(18:20):
We are addicted to seeking where we will not find we are addicted. I am, I admit it, I’m being really brilliant right now. In two hours I’m probably buying a donut at stands. Forgive me, I’m doing the work with you. I’m doing the work with you. But now I know even when that Paul, that the pattern pulls me and I’m seeking out in the world, I know it and I’m like, okay, grace right here. And then sometimes I just keep seeking, okay, this pattern’s got me. Here I go, God’s grace right here, being awake and conscious during the pull outside of myself, outside of you, that’s a quantum leap in consciousness. And more and more realize this isn’t going to do it. This isn’t going to do it. This isn’t going to do it. God, let me be here. Let me face the God that I believe communicates.
(19:25):
Let that be healed in me. I know I’ve got little time, but I have to flip some of these over. So Adam and Eve, the story of them being exiled from the garden is not God punishing. It is a story of the birth of the ego. The moment that one believes in duality, the moment that one believes I can create separate from God. There was a belief, a thought of being separate and that caused a split. And when you’re in the split mind, when you’re in the energy of fear, you are not in the garden of Eden. And the course of miracles says by the way, that Adam fell asleep in the story of the garden. I was going to say garden of Gethsemane next month. So Adam falls asleep, but nowhere does it say he woke up. It does not say that he awoke.
(20:26):
We are still living in the collective dream of being separate and there needs to be a collective awakening from the dream. And when we are dreaming ourselves separate, we are efforting to create the feminine nature. Struggles to give birth. The masculine energy thinks I have got to make this happen. This is all in the ego world. All the while your truth is residing in the kingdom of heaven in effortless creation. This is how the story becomes interesting. Stoning of the woman. I’ll do one more now in this story. There’s a woman who has appeared to broken a law and all these people come mad and they’re throwing stones at her and they’re going to kill her. This is what they must do. This represents the collective thoughts in you. You are the woman in the story and you are all the parts in you that beat yourself up.
(21:24):
Do you not experience that you do something that you know is of your highest truth and don’t you have an army in your own head attacking you? Don’t you yourself? Do a number on yourself. This is what this represents and what comes into the story? The Christ consciousness, the remembered. And what does the Christ consciousness do? It is graceful. It is kind. It is forgiving. It says there’s no winning here. If you hold something against each other, there is a unifying agent, the Christ light that comes in and says, let’s heal this. All these stories, when you lift them the consciousness and when you lift them into metaphysical understanding, they become deep mystical stories for your journey and all of them point to reconnecting, remembering and belonging. Yes. Take a breath. Let’s move into some prayer. I got my music. Friends invite you to close your eyes. Take a breath if it’s comfortable for you to open. Your hands represents receptivity. If it’s comfortable for you to lift your chin up, opening that heart chakra a little bit. Nice deep breaths. Lot of information. I feel like a fire hose. Sometimes just breathe. Deep breaths. Deep breaths
Singer (23:13):
I am light, I am light.
Rev. Mark Anthony Lord (23:24):
Deep breath, breathe in.
Singer (23:28):
I’m light, I am light.
Rev. Mark Anthony Lord (23:32):
gentle smile. Breathe it in. (music in backgroung) oh, that beautiful melody lifts us right up into the highest truth. I am light. God is light. And how can light be separated from light? God is that divine life, that presence that judges nothing. That is everything. God is that source and that power that holds within it all your safety and security. There is a God. And that God says, you belong to me. There is a God and that God loves and adores you beyond human comprehension. There is a God and that God when you remember, and when you allow yourself to be anchored in the belonging to it shines through you, guides you, informs you, blesses your path, draws unto you all that is good and holy for you. And when it’s time for something to go, it gives you the grace and love to remember. You lose nothing. You see the world of form in a completely different way when you recognize I am the light of God and I belong to God, I belong to God and that God is good. I belong to God and that God is grace. I belong to God and that God is life and that God judges nothing and that God fricking loves me. That’s what I belong to. This is what you are. Take a breath.
Singer (25:25):
I’m not the mistakes that I have made or any of the things that cause me pain, I not the pieces of the dream I left behind, I am light. I am light…
Rev. Mark Anthony Lord (25:53):
Sing along softly. I’m light I am light, again, I’m light I am light… sing a little louder. Bring it up. I, I’m light, I am light. There you are. Make it a little louder. Come on,
Singer (26:40):
One more… I, I’m light, I’m
Rev. Mark Anthony Lord (26:48):
Take a deep breath, holy Spirit, let this be the healing words. Let this be the truth. Holy Spirit, thank you. Let this be the reconnecting power. Let this be the remembering. Help us to open our eyes and step back into this world renewed, restored, remembering faithful. Thank you God. Thank you God. And so it is. Amen. Amen.