Author Mungi Ngomane explores the lessons of ubuntu she learned from her grandfather, Bishop Desmond Tutu (1931–2021):
If we are able to see ourselves in other people, our experience in the world will inevitably be a richer, kinder, more connected one. If we look at others and see ourselves reflected back, we inevitably treat people better.
This is ubuntu.
Ubuntu shouldn’t be confused with kindness, however. Kindness is something we might try to show more of, but ubuntu goes much deeper. It recognizes the inner worth of every human being—starting with yourself….
Ubuntu tells us we are only who we are thanks to other people. Of course we have our parents to credit for bringing us into the world, but beyond this there are hundreds—if not thousands—of relationships, big and small, along the way, which teach us something about life and how to live it well. Our parents or guardians teach us how to walk and talk. Our teachers at school teach us how to read and write. A mentor might help us find fulfilling work. A lover might teach us emotional lessons, both good and bad—we learn from all experiences. Every interaction will have brought us to where we are today. [1]
Theologian Dr. Michael Battle reflects on the spirituality of ubuntu:
[Ubuntu] is a difficult worldview for many Westerners who tend to understand self as over and against others—or as in competition with others. In a Western worldview, interdependence may easily be confused with codependence, a pathological condition in which people share a dependence on something that is not life-giving, such as alcohol or drugs. Ubuntu, however, is about symbiotic and cooperative relationships—neither the parasitic and destructive relationships of codependence nor the draining and alienating relationships of competition.
Perhaps Desmond Tutu … put it best when he said:
A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished. [2] …
Our planet cannot survive if we define our identity only through competition. If I know myself as strong only because someone else is weak, if I know myself as a black person only because someone else is white, then my identity depends on a perpetual competition that only leaves losers. If I know myself as a man only by dominating women, if I know myself as a Christian only because someone else is going to hell, then both my masculinity and my Christianity are devoid of content.
Rather than reinforcing competitive ways of knowing self, Ubuntu offers a way of discovering self-identity through interdependence. As such, it is possible to argue that my very salvation is dependent on yours—radical stuff for Western ears to hear, yet vital to the survival of the earth. [3]
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5 On Friday John Chaffee
| 1.”There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me but always bad. He is Micaiah, son of Imlah.”- 1 Kings 22:8 NIV. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a story about Micaiah, son of Imlah, who is considered one of the few or last prophets who listened to Yahweh. Fascinatingly, the kings of his day ran about to all the other prophets because they told the kings what they wanted to hear. One king, Josephat, chose to avoid Micaiah because ‘he never prophesies anything good about [him].’ One thing that stands out to me about the role of a prophet is that they do not preach doom and gloom to those who are not on their side; instead, they preach doom and gloom to those on their side. As I see it, this is the counter to the conventional, pop-culture understanding of a prophet. True prophets are more often critical thinkers about their own leadership. Isaiah preached to Israel that their exile experience was just, but also that it could be considered a new exodus. Ezekiel rails against his own leadership for having lost perspective of the holy and, therefore, calls for a rebuilding of the Temple. Jeremiah goes with Israel into exile, saying that they deserved whatever hardship came their way because they abandoned the Covenant made with Yahweh. We need to pay careful attention to the people fulfilling the role of a prophet today. It is not the people who are applauding the leadership. Again, true prophets are the ones who can think critically about their own leadership and call them out for when they have lost the plot, live without integrity, have lost sight of compassionate justice, and fall into ethics that are far below that of the Sermon on the Mount. 2.”Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’ Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”- Henri Nouwen, Dutch Priest” Beloved” is our true name. 3.”The state wants men to render it the same idolatry they formerly rendered the church.”- Frederick Nietzsche, German Philosopher. Civil religion is alive and well. In the vacuum of religion’s departure or devaluation in today’s culture, we cannot help but go somewhere to find a narrative to live within that tells us what values we ought to live by. Nietzsche is correct here. When belief in God is subverted or dismissed, we tend to place our hopes in the government. Even worse, we merge faith in God with faith in the government, repeating the mistakes made after Constantine made Christianity the formal religion of the Roman Empire. As soon as that happened, Christianity lost its prophetic voice. 4.”The people who know God well — mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God — always meet a lover, not a dictator.”- Fr. Richard Rohr, Franciscan Friar To all who actively wonder if God is infinite love, I would point to the experiences of the saints, mystics, sages, hermits, and holy fools of the Church. Thomas Aquinas, the Christian philosopher who “baptized” Aristotelian thinking for use in the Church, gave up writing his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica. He gave it up because he had an experience of the love and glory of God that was so grand and beautiful that he realized everything he had ever written about God was “as straw.” Meaning it was only suitable for the flooring of a barn. The Gospel has always been that God is love, not some cosmic pharaoh, retributive Marduk, or tyrannical divine emporer. 5.”All spiritual speech is 90% intuition and 10% ordering it.”- Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk. Intuition is a tricky thing. It is a little hard to define, but it is that sense we get when we use something other than logic to observe the world around us and allow our intuition to inform what we might do in a given situation. I have noticed over the years how particular interpretations of spirituality dismiss, bypass, or gaslight someone’s internal compass or intuition. Some interpretations seek to devalue someone listening to their gut instincts, leading people to trust others (usually those in authority) more than themselves. This, to me, feels inauthentic and dehumanizing. Any interpretation of spirituality worth its salt will empower and encourage people to listen to God for themselves and not seek to control the actions or decisions of others. I wonder what churches could look like if we focused on helping people to listen to God for themselves… Be free, and listen to God for yourself, with the total weight of the responsibility of what you choose to do next. |
