Sorry I'm out of touch with whomever reads this blog. I was in Canyonlands National Park, Needles District. I'll write about that as soon as I have pictures to add. Needless to say, for those of you who have ever stepped on that earth, I have been to the portal of heaven.
But what I am so intrigued by on this Holy Saturday is something Desmond Tutu said in an interview in Vanity Fair magazine in July 2007. It has to do with a word in one of the African languages, the word ubuntu:
"Ubuntu is the essence of being human. . . something you find especially in the Old Testament, when you're not quite sure sometimes - when you are reading, say, the Psalms - whether the Psalm is speaking, where it says 'I', only of an individual, or is it speaking in a corporate sense? We [Africans] say a person is a person through other persons. You can't be human in isolation. You are human only in relationships."
This confronts the dominant Western view that what it means to be human is first and foremost defined individually. We never even question it. To be human is to be "me." Finding one's humanity means finding one's self.
But Tutu, speaking on behalf of most Africans, is saying that what it means to be human can only be found by finding oneself as a part of a people. As N.T. Wright says, significance and personhood can only be known by being a part of a people. In other words, as a Christian I am led to confess that the Church, the people of God, is what I am born into, and it is only from the Church that I come to find out who I am. It is only in the Church that I can know why I was dreamed up and placed here. One's true identity is only to be found by immersion in the people of God.
I think that's exactly what I experienced last night after the Good Friday service at the church I serve. The couple who have not been able to have children, and who have sought adoption of a baby, and who held that baby in their arms, and who had that baby taken back by the birth mother on Thursday last week - I hugged them and listened to them, and realized that what life is really all about is being in relationship together as we suffer our way through this Veil of Tears. The couple who have just returned from Serbia, where their lives were in danger because of political hatred for the U.S.A. - I hugged them and listened to them, and realized that what life is really all about is reunion with loved ones, safely home. The young man from South Carolina who has just arrived to be our Senior Pastor, broken hearted by the absence from their dear, dear friends in Hilton Head, in the midst of strangers - I hugged him and introduced him to some of his new family in Christ, realizing that it is in the midst of the family of God that he and I will find out the will of God for our lives.
Ubuntu. Now that's something worth pursuing.
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5 comments:
Great Post!
Can't wait to see the Canyonlands pictures.
There are two hard parts for those of us who have been brought up valuing (maybe overvaluing) individuality.
The first is coming to grips with the beautiful insight Desmond Tutu offers us. We will do well to mull over it long and deep.
The other hard part comes from humanity's seeming inherent dissatisfaction with our own background. The more reflective a person is, the easier it is to think that newer, different, other ideas are more important than what we've grown up with.
Case in point is this east-west scenario. The east seems more family/group oriented in terms of identity. The west seems more individual oriented.
We in the west have missed out so much by neglecting or minimizing the family/group that when we see it we think it is "the way" to approach identity.
I imagine it is more both-and rather than either-or.
I have much to learn from the east and maybe to unlearn from the west, or better, to seek to find the balance.
quad p!
hi!!!
-mary kate
amen, amen, amen.
it's hard to evade the many ways the west has isolated the individual, rejecting responsibility for others around us.
but after india, i realized the detrimental effects of deep tradition.
balance.
it's everything.
knowing that helps me only a little.
but we keep learning, right?
although i was floored by the beauty of the himalayas this spring break,
i never forgot the comfort i find in the utah sky,
the vastness of the red with the sage against the blue.
and all the memories canyonlands holds?
it makes me jealous of your trip.
i'm looking forward to stopping by your home someday and hearing your stories.
What is so amazing about understanding identity is that as a Christian, a child of God, we are able, even commanded to live and love in the community and fellowship of the brethren. Jesus said: “Joh 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” This community cuts across all boundaries whether ethnic, social, or national, whether East or West, North or South. Paul could say: “ Ga 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Our identity IS an individual identity but it is realized and fulfilled and prospers first in our relationship with Jesus and then in our on going daily relationships with His people. As Dan said, “ a both/and”. You give some wonderful heartfelt examples in your post of what my daughter calls ”...discovering daily the joy in the journey (a blatant plug) Ubuntu or koinonia....it is, I think, truly the “communion of the saints” as expressed in the Apostles Creed.
Pastor Paul, another good post that requires both an intellectual exercise as well as a search into our inner most emotions. I guess that’s why you call it “Head and Heart”!
Did my pictures work!? Post them!
Let's go back to Utah.
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