Today we look a bit more at Ubuntu - Michael Battle.
To become a healthy person we must be fully human both as a person in community and as a self-differentiated person. My argument, however, is that the very act of self-differentiation is itself the beauty of Ubuntu. You cannot know you are unique or beautiful or intelligent without the reference point of a community in which such attributes become intelligible. We need to become communal selves.
A healthy person also means a healthy community because the two are to be so tied together. This sounds very much like family systems. A healthy community is able to have individual who offer their gifts and yet do not attempt to destroy the integrity of the other. We become more fully human as we interact and the interactions are honest, caring, deliberate, and truthful. When that is the case, we can count on others to help us on our journey - no matter where we are going. We also become a part of the making of other's journeys. Within the community, each individual cannot collapse him/her self into the the image of the community. Rather, we must each become the individuals we must be - unique and valuable and coming into the community with gifts that can and will be of benefit to the rest even as the community is a benefit to the individual. We we simply become enmeshed in the community we can easily lose ourselves and that...can look like a cult. Ubuntu seems to avoid such cult making.
Connection: Though each of us is a vital part of the whole, the community (or family) in which we live must be a living organism that weighs in to nurture each person. Sometime, that means being able to say yes and no.
Stir up our hearts, O God, and come among us to shape a people who are eager to embrace all who long to be a part of the creative image of your Reign. Remind us of the wonder that comes as we expand our lives within the wideness of your community of saints. Amen.
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