My New Word

When I was in early elementary school, I came home one day and old my mother I had learned a new word on the playground. She was busy and her response was “that’s good” or “how nice” or something like that. Next I wanted to impress my elementary school classmate, Barbara, when she came over to the house to play in our spacious backyard. When the time was right, I inserted the four-letter word into the conversation and she never blinked an eye. The storm started brewing when Barbara went home and tried to show her mother how smart she was by using my, or our, new word. It wasn’t pleasant facing both startled moms.

With that confession as background, let me tell you that I learned a new word this morning, and I’m well past the second grade. It’s an African word: Ubuntu, which, according to writer Mark Nepo, means “I am because you are….You are because I am.” In short, it has something to do with how we need each other to be complete. It means, writes Nepo, that in our deepest joys and most profound sorrows, we are each other. We need each other to be complete. I know. It’s a deep subject and this might stretch into lots of pages if I let my imagination play. Ubuntu: “I am because you are…you are because I am.” Isn’t this the deep spiritual connection, the absolute oneness, that Jesus preached? Because we are all connected, because of Ubuntu, you and I are relatives of mountains and rivers and people who live in remote areas of Africa or in the crowded streets of New York City.

Life will be very different when we understand and respond to Ubuntu. We will honor the core sameness but go beyond that. We will see ourselves in the other who angers us, or frustrates us, and, seeing one’s own self, we will be hesitant to do damage to the other. So it is in the arena of spiritual understanding. When we grasp the deep oneness we have in Christ, when I really know that I am not just my brother’s keeper, but I am my brother, the world will regain balance, peace will be a possibility, and justice will flow like the river. Soon, please God.