Ubuntu

I learned this today in my African Religions class and since I really enjoyed it and I have a few Africa lovers who read this I thought I would share.

Ubuntu stands for the African anthropology and cosmo-vision of life in community. The South African Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes Ubuntu in the following way:

"It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness, it speaks about compassion. A person with Ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are. The quality of Ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them."

Although I do not have time to unpack this statement to you as I would like, I think it is brilliant that so many things scream God in some many ways. Not to say that this statement is Christian or totally right, but to say that it's a great thing to strive to be this person who has proper self-assurance that does not feel threatened when others thrive. We can learn so much from other cultures and peoples that can make us better people by taking the time to listen to their wisdom.