The Gospel of the Belly Button

Do you all have a belly button? Does anyone not have a belly button? Your belly button is the physical reminder that you did not make yourself. You were made in your mother’s womb, and your belly button is the reminder that for nine months, give or take a little, you were fed through an umbilical cord that attached where your belly button is now. And then when you were born, even though the umbilical cord was cut and you became separate from your birth mother, someone had to look after you, feeding you and changing you and making sure that you were safe, for quite a long time, until you were able to look after yourself. And even after you are able to look after yourself, you still depend on others for so much: very few, if any of us, grow all of our own food; our water comes from wells and springs and streams and taps; we depend on a healthy community and a healthy economy and a healthy environment for so much of what we need; we depend on community water and sewer systems and grocery stores for our physical needs, on electrical networks and natural gas pipelines for heat and light, we depend on friends and family for our emotional and spiritual health. And after you grow old and are unable to look after yourself again, others will look after you again, caring for you, right to the end. That is the way life works. We are cared for, we have others whom we care for, and then we are cared for again. That is the gospel of the belly button, the good news that we are not alone, that we are surrounded by care, from beginning to end, our lives are sustained by love. Thanksgiving is the time of year we make a point of expressing our gratitude for that love and care.