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You might like this book, Rocky. It's by the so-called Vicar of Baghdad about his work of reconciliation in the community there. The book was given to me yesterday by an unbeliever friend - he'd read it and found it fascinating, which is quite something for him, being as he only read books on military history. https://www.amazon.com/Father-Forgive-Reflections-Andrew-White/dp/0857212923 Andrew White's "Reflections on Peacemaking." Available on Kindle, shows US$11, but possibly a different price if you order from a US internet address.

I checked out the website for the author of the book you suggest, Rocky. She's a "bright young thing" and I noticed her video of people dancing, playing together, and generally looking as though they were having a good time. I'd just make the point that it's ever so easy to feel lonely in a big crowd where you feel you ought to be having fun … but somehow, the fun has passed you by. It seems to me that the best way to "belong" is to participate in something you're interested in and to give of yourself, which is harder than it seems. Forget yourself, and think about the other participants, or the activity itself. And enjoy, too. Enjoy "belonging."

We’re social animals. We’re not built to live alone, but in relationship with one another. A rather famous book tells us “It is not good for [man] to be alone.” I’ve been pondering “relationships” for some while now. We all have relationship, ideally across several groups. Doesn’t matter who you are, or what you do: there are few of us that have no relationships. Maybe it’s a church. Maybe it’s the model railway club. Maybe it’s your mates as you enjoy a drink in the pub. Your relationships help you feel grounded, safe, a part of where you are: you belong. As Rocky comments, I work with vulnerable and street people. The homeless community is exactly that: a community. Like any other community, it has sub-branches. This particularly struck me last Saturday night, talking with a woman who’d settled into a doorway. She wouldn’t go into the covered car park where homeless people often stay – “They’re dirty people down there.” We visited that group of people too. There were five of them, smoking heroin and doing other drugs. A very weird bunch. But a definite “community” and supportive of each other. Sometimes, relationships aren’t helpful. The drug-taking (or drinking, or whatever) people that we saw – it’s hard to leave for those who want to be clean, to start afresh. They have to leave that “support” group and take steps into a world that they left because it was painful or frightening. And that world doesn’t really want them because it sees them as a problem. They don’t “belong” in the non-druggie world. I don’t know if Rocky started this thread because of the Charles Manson thread, where we discussed reintegration into society after many years in prison. Ex-prisoners often have a huge problem reintegrating. By getting incarcerated, they cease to “belong” to the “non-con” world, and generally prison doesn’t help people address the cause of their offending and rehabilitate them to a more “normal” (?) world. They don’t belong there; they don’t feel safe. Some reoffend because they like being in jail. They feel safe. They feel they’re in a community where they belong. In the UK now, there’s a push to remove all custodial sentences of less than 12 months, because of the realisation of the huge breaking of support bonds, relationships, within the “non-con” world. Better to keep people in their existing relationships – better from so many points of view, but not least, to help people not re-offend. (It doesn’t mean offenders aren’t punished; just that they don’t go to prison – probation, community service orders, requirements to undertake courses like anger management etc, reparation of various types) (and obviously, not for very serious offences.)