But perhaps those two aren't that far apart. Reading yesterday I came across a word that was new to me. Ubuntu. A South African term, the word can be loosely translated "People are people through other people."
Desmond Tutu once said of it,
“ A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has 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.”
It recalls to me John Donne's conviction that "No man is an island, entire of itself..." Who we are, and what we become is all tied up, in other words, with who we connect with and what we take care of. Precious, irreplaceably unique individuals who are, nonetheless, inextricably parts of a larger whole. Which is to make more concrete and immediate the insight we have always been taught: that when we "do unto others as we would have done to ourselves" we are, in fact, actually doing it. It is the full-circle of our influence, at once sacrificial and self-enhancing.
People are people through other people. Ubuntu. Community. Stewardship. Our giving is the measure of our becoming. Responsibility. Possibility. It makes the idea of signing a pledge card this Sunday the least of my worries -- and my opportunities.
Let the offering be given and received.
