Yesterday was my friend and housemate Aidan’s first Sunday to serve as the priest at a new parish. I attended the service along with Melanie, Aidan’s wife, and their daughter (my goddaughter) Felicity, sitting in a pew near the front and helping Mel with the fidgety two-year-old.

During the announcements, Aidan introduced himself to the congregation and then pointed to our pew. “This is my family,” he said. He asked Mel and Felicity to stand up and said, “Mel is my wife, and Felicity is my daughter.” And then he indicated that I should stand too. “And this is our friend Wes. We live in Christian community. Wes shares our home and is Felicity’s godfather.”

When I told another friend about what Aidan did, he replied that it was “a public declaration that ‘We all belong together.’” Precisely.

People sometimes ask me what I envision when I say we need more public recognition and honor for friendship, “thicker” practices of belonging and kinship with one another, and even vows to seal those things. I don’t want to say my particular form of belonging is the best answer, let alone the only one, but what my friend Aidan said and did yesterday is the kind of thing I have in mind.