My third-grade teacher taught everyone in my class how to make a string of paper dolls. We cut and cut until everyone unfurled the paper, so the dolls appeared to hold hands. The teacher thumbtacked them at the perimeter of the bulletin board and placed individual dolls within the interior. She told us we needed to keep the circle open.

Then she put letters one word at a time in the center, teaching us a very adultish poem beginning with: “He drew a circle that shut me out.”

She asked, “Have you ever felt excluded?” Oh, many hands shot up with stories. We could not name or blame, just share how we felt.

The next line had a big word: “Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.” If I ever use the word flout I still think of this poem.

She asked us to wonder if hurting another person helps us heal?

We lingered over the next line, “But love and I had the wit to win.” We imagined all of the ways wit and love create a winning combination.
The last line stitched this poem in my heart: “We drew a circle that took him in.”

This fall, we will explore all the ways we belong to God through Jesus and this church. We will draw circles with love, to invite and hold. Come be a part of it.

He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in.
­—Edwin Markham