Tuesday 22 December 2009

Sometimes Tutu's words really disarm me. Again from Ubuntu by Michael Battle.

Unlike many Western forces that seek to "establish" who a person or a community is, Tutu's Ubuntu excludes Western tendencies of grasping competitiveness. The beauty of Ubuntu is that instead of warring factions, when one lives in Ubuntu, instead of being manipulative and self-seeking that person is "more willing to make excuses for others" and even discover new meaning in the other persons. Therefore Ubuntu is an attribute that distinguishes humans from being mere animals; as Tutu concludes, "If you throw a bone to a group of dogs you won't hear them say: "After you!"

There is, what appears to be, a waiting and a watching that takes place before we jump into making evaluative judgments of others. Most often, it is that quickness of judgment and placement that gets all of us wound up in the many faces of warfare. Then again, it is not easy to hear this willingness to "make excuses for others." It sounds soft. And yet, it is just a matter of breathing and waiting and not jumping. The only excuse is simply the excuse to give us time to get to know the other and their wants and intentions and needs before making judgments. Dogs won't do that...get the bone....quick!!! What an image. This kind of Ubuntu thinking and acting is not at all what we usually hear from the world powers. I don't think it is merely a Western thing. I think it is more a human thing - a thought out thing that attempts to lord it over others....put others in the places we think they should be.

Connection: Again and again, I use the image of breathing. Tutu seems to want us all to breath and not make judgments in that time - but observe, listen, learn, understand. Again...not easy to do - but always worth it.

Lord of Liberation, you bring us into your world of new life through pulling us out of ourselves to be present with those who are other than us. In that time, your Spirit liberates us from ourselves and all the ways we would rule the world. Thanks be to you, O God. Amen.