"Reconciliation - The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu" by Michael Battle is a book that I have recently started to read and I thought HubPages would be a great space to discuss what it is and how it works.

I first heard the word Ubuntu at a meeting my daughter attended. She is part of the Windsor Fellowship and one of the presenters asked the question "What Is Ubuntu?"

I came home, searched Google and found (as well as information about a hosting company!) that its meaning is

"I am because you are because we are"

Ubuntu theology refers to our inter-connectedness. When I hurt you I hurt my self and I hurt the community. When I love you I love myself and I love the community.

By loving you and seeing you as a finite creature made for the infinite I know I am loving myself and those in my community.

Desmond Tutu says...... well let me let the Archbishop speak for himself!

No real human being can be absolutely self-sufficient. Such a person would be subhuman. We belong therefore in a network of delicate relationships of interdependence.

The only way we know we are human is because we live with humans who teach us how to be human. Think about the story of Tarzan. Raised with apes he knew how to communicate and live like them because that is how he was raised. So our survival and actual understanding of who we are is dependent on other people. The first people of course are our parents. We may also have grandparents, siblings, teachers, pastors - all of these people connect to make us who we are.

What I have been taught living in the UK is that life is about the individual. Everyone "does their own thing" and "lives their own life" but Ubuntu teaches us the impossibility of living that way and being jouful. It teaches us about our inherent need to be connected.

The loss of Ubuntu plays a part in loneliness because if you live with Ubuntu you would never be lonely! We would live in a world where we understood how important connecting with each other really is.

Ubtuntu

For us it means

The world is too small
Our wisdom too limited
Our time here too short
To waste any more of it winning fleeting victories at other peoples expense

We have to now find a way to triumph together

Bill Clinton

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. "

- Desmond Tutu