The Great Belonging and Taylor Swift: Introduction
See a list of all The Great Belonging and Taylor Swift posts here.
The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other is available here and wherever books are sold.
Image from Taylor Swift as Books on Instagram
I want to write at least three posts for this website about various more pressing things than chapters of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other paired with Taylor Swift songs. Still, after several hours with my first book and all of Taylor's music, here I am with a complete list.
So, I will post one chapter and song pairing at a time most days.
I know myself well enough to know that I don't need to commit to posting one daily.
The Great Belonging begins with this sentence: "Sometimes I wonder if loneliness resides in an extra, secret organ within the body—maybe the size of a plum, a storehouse of dense alienation hidden deep within us." And at the end of the introduction, I invite readers to wade into the waters of loneliness with me and add, "I pray we arrive on the other side with hope."
I chose the song "Clean" for the book's introduction because I love how it explores the idea of paradox. I’m a fan of paradox. And the song’s lyrics capture feelings about loneliness, belonging, and growth that ring true to me.
Then I went further back into Swift's catalog and added "A Place in This World," which is way more straightforward and a great song for the beginning of a book about loneliness and belonging, don't you think?
The other 43 chapters of the book have only one song. For now.
I know myself well enough to know that I don't need to commit to posting only one song for the remaining chapters.
Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. She’s currently writing her next book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024.