When it comes to race relations — I say “Ubuntu”!
I recently read a powerful article that interviewed Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter the Rev. Mpho Tutu on the topic of race relations. They shared an ancient South African concept of Ubnbutu. “Ubuntu holds that individuals exist only in relationship with other living beings: I am because we are. It is our responsibility as relatives to take care of one another.”
The two believe that Americans can benefit from this sense of interconnectedness. Here are some of their thoughts:
Desmond Tutu: Ubuntu speaks about how we need each other. God, quite deliberately, has made us beings that are incomplete without the other. No one is self-sufficient.
Mpho Tutu: Ubuntu recognizes in the most profound way that we are interdependent, and that any action that I perpetrate against you has consequences for me and for my life. And so, the golden rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you — is a more Western expression of the concept of Ubuntu. What you do to me lives on in you.
As we continue this month focusing on Ebony and Ivory, continue to pray with me that our nation can come together racially and live together as brothers and sisters.
Your Pastor,
Dr. Sheron C. Patterson