I was reminded this week of the concept of ubuntu which Desmond Tutu popularized: We are only who we are thanks to other people.
This stands in stark contrast to almost every other message I’ve been given as a White American—messages about competition, individualism, striving, power over instead of power with.
Desmond Tutu says,
A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able or good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong to a greater whole and are diminished when others are humiliated or diminished.
It’s hard to know we belong to a greater whole if we are not in community! This isn’t something we can just sit and meditate on (though do that, too!). It’s easy for us to think of ourselves as kind, virtuous, or generous until we bump up against people who irritate us or love us imperfectly. There’s someone in my little workout group at the gym that’s testing my ideas of myself as an accepting person! I’m trying to think of him as my spiritual teacher.