This old Peanuts cartoon that has stayed with me ever since I first read it more than 35 years ago. Charlie Brown is walking with Linus and trying to help him to deal with an odd fear that Linus has.

“I think I can understand your fear of libraries, Linus,” Charlie Brown says, consolingly. “All of us have certain areas in which we felt out of place.”

“Oh? In what area do you feel out of place, Charlie Brown?” Linus replied.

Charlie Brown leans on a wall and rests his head in his hand and says with great resignation: “EARTH!”

I was probably around 12 when I first read this comic, and it resonated with me so deeply it stays with me to this day. I don’t know if you are 12 now or if you remember what it is like to be 12 (or 13 or 14), but Charlie Brown summed up exactly how it felt to me.

It’s not that I had a bad life. Certainly not. I had parents who loved me and a roof over my head and a good school to attend. It’s just that there is something about being an adolescent. Something that made me feel like a Martian in my own skin. Something that made me feel like an alien in every situation. Something that made me sure that I was the most awkward, socially unacceptable, weird person on the planet.

As I’ve watched my own children go through adolescence and wrestle with some of the same feelings, I’ve realized that there are some ways in my own life that those feelings have faded and I feel more self-confident and comfortable. And, if I’m honest with myself, I realize there are ways those feelings are still there – and I’ve just learned to get much, much better at hiding them.

One of the things that attracted me most profoundly to All Saints Church is our mantra: “Whoever you are and wherever you find yourself on your journey of faith you are welcome to come to Christ’s table.”

It’s an aspirational value to be sure – especially for a church! So many people – way too many people – way too many of us – have experienced churches as places of judgment, places where we needed to hide big pieces of ourselves in shame, places where the last thing we felt comfortable doing was showing and sharing who we really are – if we could even figure out who that was to begin with.

And in the face of this, we believe God is inviting us into something radically different, radically hospitable, radical loving.

We have a new creative worship space for children because we want every child to know they are welcome to be in worship with their All Saints community – that they don’t need to feel out of place just being themselves.

We are beginning to incorporate more Spanish and Mandarin in to our worship services and communications because we want every person to know that their heart language is spoken at All Saints Church – that they don’t need to feel out of place just being themselves.

We are centering voices that the world marginalizes – voices of color, voices of women, voices of children and youth – because we want every person to know that their voice is powerful and beautiful and valued – that at All Saints Church nobody needs to feel out of place just being themselves.

This is not a new trajectory for us but merely a continuation of the journey we have been on for decades. A journey of radical hospitality and love. A journey that will change who we are and liberate us in new ways we can scarcely imagine. A journey that will make us richer by the moment as more and more of us are able to offer our full selves in love to one another and to the world in this community.

I think what I loved most about that Peanuts cartoon wasn’t that my 12-year-old self resonated so much with Charlie Brown’s words … but that he had a friend in Linus with whom he could be honest about those feelings.

That’s how beloved community starts – with one person who is a safe place to share that we feel so out of place … and together to begin the journey of acceptance and grace and love.

May we each find that for ourselves.
May we each be that for one another.
May together we be the place that no one ever need fear.

By Mike Kinman, Rector of All Saints Church: reprinted from the March issue of Saints Alive.