Healing Disconnections

 

 

Prison Cell of Nelson Mandela

Robben Island, South Africa

Personal Photo, 2012

                  

Edmund Pettus Bridge

Selma, Alabama      

Personal Photo, 2020

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Matthew 29:39 (NIV)

Africa, the cradle of humanity, has given America a priceless gift

—the language of Ubuntu.”

Mark Mathabane,

How do we heal our disconnections?  Can ideas of unity prevail over the ideas of power and privilege?  We need big ideas that result in resolution.  We need courage to cross the rivers that deeply divide us.

One such unifying and powerful idea that has provided a framework of healing responses is “ubuntu”.  It has roots in South African Zulu culture.   It was the underlying idea of the transition from apartheid to a more inclusive society in South Africa.  How can we learn and implement this idea?  

We need cross-cultural reporters like Mark Mathabane, but we also know what ”ubuntu” looks like in the lives of Rep. John Lewis and C.T. Vivian.  Their works are described as “love in action”!  

We need to “see” what connects us.  Together we can pursue connections within our best faith traditions and its music.  We will find our lives filled with purpose, meaning and beauty.  Our stories and songs of unity have and will reveal that healing!  Check out the song “Glory” from the movie “Selma” that reveals what “ubuntu” looks like in America.

Marvin

References

Mathabane, M. (2018) The Lessons of Ubuntu: How an African Philosophy Can Inspire Racial Healing in America (p. 235). Skyhorse. Kindle Edition. 

Bumley, L (2020) John Lewis and C.T. Vivian belonged to a long tradition of religious leaders in the civil rights struggle.

https://generocity.org/philly/2020/07/20/john-lewis-and-c-t-vivian-belonged-to-a-long-tradition-of-religious-leaders-in-the-civil-rights-struggle/

Hage, M. L. (2012). Rx Ubuntu.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2012/04/rx-ubuntu.html

Common and John Legend, “Glory” from the movie Selma, 2014