Thursday, September 25, 2014

YOUR LIFE A-Z: UBUNTU


ALL FOR ONE-ONE FOR ALL
Sometime ago there was a post on FB of children sitting in a circle and creating a another circle by touching their feet together with outstretched legs.  The story was about UBUNTU.  UBUNTU is an African word that means human kindness in a very progressive sense.  These children were told that candy was beneath a tree and the child who got there first won all of the candy.  Instead of running off to the candy, the children reached for each other and ran together holding hands for the candy.  They explained to the reporter that it is not kind for one to be happy and the rest to be sad.  UBUNTU is a word that has woven itself deep within the African culture inclusive of its socialistic politics.  This deep equality of UBUNTU brings people together on the same playground and motivates them to work together for the good of the whole.   How do you practice UBUNTU in your society and community, even if some are strangers or they look and act differently than you?  Desmond Tutu writes in 1999, “A person with UBUNTU is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from 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, when others are tortured or oppressed.” The stranger next door is your brother or your sister so practice UBUNTU toward him or her.  Let UBUNTU exude from your heart everyday.





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