Ubuntu Please!

Ubuntu, a philosophy with its origins in Africa, can sometimes be translated as "I am because we are". A way of knowing and living the interconnectedness of all things. We are all reflections of the Divine of the universe. Every time we look at another person or all of creation for that matter, we are seeing the Divine Spark alive within everything.: the Divine Spark alive within everything connects all things.

Ubuntu is closely related to the golden rule, which I regard as a truth instead of a rule to be broken and a God who will punish us: do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a truth, a spiritual truth, that the more we treat each other as we would like to be treated the better humankind will be, the better our world will be, and the more every human can thrive and live in freedom. Jesus expands this succinctly in the Gospel of John as well other places: Love as you have been loved.

This concept of Ubuntu is a universal spiritual truth: We are all connected to one another. It may seem that someone starving in another land, or a child dying on another continent, or someone is freezing because of being unhoused, or a parent is overwhelmed, or someone fighting addiction is not our problem because of being physically separated.

If we truly understand this concept of Ubuntu and hold the Golden Truth in our forethought, we may begin to realize our vocation as human beings is to co-create, along with the Great Creator, God, YHWH, Christ, a community called beloved. What Jesus refers as the Kindom of heaven. The heart and essence of God.

Before we can get to a place of real human thriving and freedom for everyone we must deal with the negative side of humanity, the human predicament of every generation. When we only think about our own little selves, in our own little communities, in our own little families, we begin to live in silos of separation.  When we live like this, we become blind to the divine spark in our neighbor, ready willing and able to crush the human spirit under the weight of oppression.

When we become blind the Divine spark in all of humanity, all of creation, we then turn our attention to “them”, “those people”, “those others” who are not like us and a creation to be exploited to annihilation. This becomes a slippery slope towards dehumanizing “others”, which we can more easily oppress, disregard, plunder, kill, maim, enslave, obliterate, exploit, and so on.

Not all hate speech leads to genocide. But all genocide begins with hate speech. When we allow the dehumanization of others to be our language, we not only sin against the Divine, we also perpetuate an unhealthy living environment for all of us.

Think of slavery and the treatment of the indigenous people on this continent as well as Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust as only a couple examples as to what happens when we lose our ability to not just see but to honor the divine spark in others as we honor it in ourselves. When this happens, we are played for fools by tyrants and humanity is poisoned.

The most pressing problems of the world won’t be solved by more division, separation, hate speech, and separation between us and them. We need fresh ideas and fresh ways of understanding how to be in community with one another. Maybe that begins with realizing our connectedness to one another.

The idea of Ubuntu, the golden truth, begins with honoring the divine spark in others runs counter to the empirical, hierarchical, patriarchal world view that leads to domination.

Seeing the divine spark in others opens our hearts to see their plight as our plight, their hunger as our hunger, their oppression as our oppression, and their right to human thriving and freedom as our own.

If I truly honor that divine spark in myself then I seek to answer the most pressing questions that stymy human flourishing. Human flourishing for me and mine is tied up in the human flourishing in all of humanity.

To live in Ubuntu, to live the Golden Truth, is to humanize all of creation. Humanizing all of creation means that our first spiritual response is empathy towards others instead of exploitation and oppression.

Let us open the eyes of our hearts.

Let us do the work of honoring the divine spark in all of creation.

Let us do the work to break down all barriers to human flourishing and freedom.

Let us begin by honoring the Divine Spark within each of us.

Let us all live into our vocation as spiritual beings, divine spark bearers, as co-creators with the Great Creator of this community God calls beloved.

Let us live into the ethic of Christ in Jesus: Love as you have been loved.

Ubuntu please.