someone once told me that because of the way i was created i will naturally reap the best of what life has to offer... kind of like a giraffe she said... they don't have to compete with the other animals for the tree tops... they probably don't even realize that their height is the ultimate advantage... in fact... it probably feels like an inconvenience every now and again... hmmmubuntu
I just talked to my sister… and she loves me… really.
This thing… this love thing… sometimes I am pretty unaware of it… it is all around me. I am pretty lucky…
Beyond this love thing… and totally unrelated to it… but it is… is this internet thing… it is the way that people stay connected and remind themselves that there is someone out there far away that they love… If I really wanted to I could probably google every crush, date, kiss, boyfriend and the un-boyfriend-able… weird…
I refrain… but this internet thing keeps us connected… sort of… I have such mixed feelings about it. I love seeing photos of my nieces and reading about my sisters little lives… I am far from them… separated, but am sporadically made aware of their day-to-days. I do love this. I love knowing their experiences… and a phone call is better…
I realized that today talking to my sister… I try to call them on Sundays… my sisters and my mom… These conversations convey a presence and awareness that can never be conveyed by a few flat photos followed by writing… Their voices and words are more… They are real... and they love me.
Home teacher pointed out the scripture about how the children of Israel could have just looked and they would have been healed… but it was too easy… so some didn’t look…
Connection… being human… ubuntu… humans aught to treat each other humanly… a drunk zulu man once explained this to me…and the really reliable source wikipedia quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
“ 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 is easy to connect… and… for me… the best exchange that life can offer… it so easy. why don't I do it more?
Last night my friend gave a woman a dollar… or tried to…the woman was too something to realize she was being handed what she had asked for… I on the other hand didn’t make eye contact… that was very human of her… not so much of me… I don’t feel bad… just will remember it next time I have the chance to treat another human as a human
Connection.
Especially now… I have a lot of solo time… I treasure it when I am taking the time to connect to God… but… but… when I am not… I don’t always remember that it is all around me… this love thing… I like being reminded.
7 comments:
I really, really like that quote, about how you're happy for others when they accomplish good things because you realize that you are part of a great whole. That is profound. I want to write it down and hang it by my computer.
I hope Wikipedia told the truth - that Desmond Tutu really said that - that is powerful. Wow
See. . .you say things so well. That quote sums it up pretty well, doesn't it??
Okay, I had to read it again and I realized that UBUNTU is what I've been trying to put words to forever. This is how I feel. Ubuntu is my moto and I didn't know it. Thanks for giving me the vocabulary to express what it is that drives me and why it is that hearing derogatory remarks about ANY human being grates on my nerves sooo much and makes me want to get up and walk away or close my ears to it.
Thanks for the thoughts. I just took three really out of shape scouts on an overnight 65-mile bike trip. They were extremely slow (I think we averaged around 8 miles per hour) and not very capable. I could have used some of the humanness you describe because I was cursing at them under my breath most of the way. I wasn't mean, but I was silently frustrated, and that made my trip unpleasant; it probably didn't make their experience very much fun either.
chalice... hi... you inspire me :) and a drunk zulu man gave me the vocabulary that i now give to you...
jaol. i missed that you were biking... wow... i almost wrote... wow!!! 8 miles an hour is awesome... i could usually only get groups of incapable and unmotivated kids to hike 2 miles and hour... but biking.... oh... ya... you had every right to abandon all human-ness. kay, i don't really mean that.
p.s. i just heard from a friend that the word ubuntu is being exploited by an nba basketball team...the celtics i think...
i guess it is good to get the idea out there... but to me it makes it feel somewhat - Macdonald-ized...
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