It is an odd concept “to belong” to something but it is an important one. I am convinced it is a real part of what it is to be human. Most people, but not all, need to belong. A few years ago, I received an email inviting me to be a part of the annual general meeting of the Avalon Liberal Association. Do you know I actually considered it for at least a little bit? In the deep past some decades ago I had been a card-carrying Liberal. I had been a candidate for the Liberals but even after that I had done some door knocking in a couple of elections. I was a poll captain for the late Paddy O’Flaherty who had run well in a challenge to John Crosbie.

The internal decision in my head to not participate this time around in politics was swung partly by the fact that the meeting to which I was invited was a virtual meeting. That meant, among other things, no hotels, no beer by the barrel, no late nights or free stuff of any kind. I mentioned all this to someone I knew that I had considered it, and she said, “You just want to BELONG to something.” You know, upon further review as they say in sports, she was right. We all want to be part of something. We want to belong.

The opening to the TV series Cheers always struck an emotional chord in my heart. The setting was a place in which individuals were finding relief from some awful emptiness of the world by being in a bar sipping beer. The benefits were spelled out. Cheers was a bar where “everybody knows your name.” That defines a kind of salvation from the realization that on some important level; you are alone in the world and the path you walk is often walked by yourself.

The Toronto Maple Leaf experience is like that. It is the failure of a team over decades. The edge of that failure becomes blunted in some way and a salve applied to the wound by making it a shared experience. The approach is given life by an expression that I love, and it is “Leaf Nation.” That expression could bring tears to my eyes. So many people brought together a great tsunami of lost hope and disappointment somehow made at least bearable by it being a shared experience and a confirmation of the truth that each year when an NHL team wins a championship, 31 teams lose.

In the middle of that emotional angst, you are at least not alone. You belong to something. You are part of Leafs Nation. There is a religious aspect to it. A shared set of beliefs and someone to stand with you. 

A quick sidebar story. I am a rabid Manchester United soccer fan. Not just a recent one but I go back to the days before Georgie Best and all the way back to the Munich plane crash disaster that destroyed half the club. In 1980 going through a long, twisting boarding lineup at De Gaulle airport in Paris I passed a young man in a Manchester United shirt. I was wearing a Manchester United hat. He looked at me directly and spoke.

There is only ONE United. That was a reference to the fact there were many soccer teams that carried the name “United”, but the real one was Manchester United. I nodded and tipped my cap to the young man and said, “ONE United!”. He smiled.

Consider now a line from Leonard Cohen. It is to me one of his very best lines. It is from Dress Rehearsal Rag and references a 17th Century metaphysical mystical group still active in the 21st Century called the Rosicrucians. To wit: “Why don’t you join the Rosicrucians they will give you back your hope”. It refers to that of which I speak. It is the idea of finding meaning in something larger than yourself.

It is in the end all about belonging. The Rosicrucians, the Leafs, Cheers, or the Avalon District Liberal Association. They are all places to go. It is the great struggle to belong to something and avoid the great consequence of being in the universe on your own.

I know there is only “ONE United.”

You can contact Jim Furlong at jfurlong@ntv.ca