Stepping Up

I was thinking the other day about what I could do to make a lasting impression on the world. That’s a heady thought! What can one person do? Haven’t I already done a lot of things that would add up to some lasting good if they were all taken together? Perhaps so. But not likely.

Philosophical statements can provide inspiration for this sort of thinking. So I began reading a lot of material. Collected a lot. All of it pretty good. But then I couldn’t decide which was the best to follow.

Kept on looking. Stared at my list of ideas but couldn’t come up with anything with strong focus. Then, Rocky sent me this:

“An anthropologist proposed a game to children of an African Tribe. He put a basket of fruit near a tree and told the kids that the first one to reach the fruit would win them all. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying the fruits. When asked why they ran like that, as one could have taken all the fruit for oneself, they said, ‘Ubuntu, how can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?’ Ubuntu is a philosophy of African tribes that can be summed up as ‘I am because we are.’”

                                                            ~facebook.com/TheGreatSpirit.God

Group in place of one. Group working together for the benefit of all. Many hands make light work of large tasks. Rising tides lift all ships. Sharing good ideas makes for one great idea.

All those statements are true. All are worthy of our attention and support. But we do not follow through most of the time. A fire burns down a neighbor’s home. The neighbors band together and help the burned out family with clothing, alternate housing, meals and help in rebuilding their lives. The community comes together in churches and clubs and raises funds for medical help and permanent housing solutions. Amazing work gets done through the acts of many. And it warms our hearts that we can do this together. It gives shape and value to our lives.

Ubuntu. We are here together, not alone. We were born through the actions of two people. But the family and village sustained us, nurtured us. Ubuntu. I am because we are. A good philosophy!

Americans have difficulty with this in the main. We yearn for the togetherness, sure; but we also compete to build lives of success and plenty. Doesn’t that describe the capitalist system, and the open market ideology? Trouble is, none of that works without the Ubuntu. Think about it. That’s where peace comes from. That’s where justice is done. That’s the place of community and group accomplishment. It is society. It is the workings of many people to make good things happen.

It is not socialism. It is not communism. Although there are ideologues among us who would like to make that claim! Sad for them. Not for us. We need to deal with our common business to strengthen our lives together.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said it well:

“When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast with a scientific and technological abundance.

We’ve learned to fly the air as birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas as fish, yet we haven’t learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.”

In times of crisis we do walk together. We do yearn to fill the void from poverty of spirit. Our instincts are there but our competitive nature tends to divide our efforts, not unite them.

Our current economic plight is a crisis. There are plentiful answers but they have to be chosen carefully and implemented with common hopes and aspirations. Doing several things that oppose each other at the same time only muddies the waters and outcomes. We must choose wisely. We can only do that by working together.

A quote from www.facebook.com/WeLoveToIrritateHatefulRepublicans provides this thought:

“I’m voting for Democrats because our country IS better off today than when Bush left office. It’s also obvious that Republicans HAVE tried to keep times hard on Americans so they could falsely blame the President. Let’s face it, Republicans haven’t acted patriotically and THEY’VE failed America.”

I readily admit this is an intemperate statement. But it rings true. Senate and House leaders on the Republican side of the aisle have openly stated their one objective is to make Obama a one term president. They have thwarted every move by the White House to turn our economy around. And then they say ‘his failed policies’ are to blame. No, they are not. Congress’ indecision and divisiveness are what failed America. And it is the voters’ duty to make that point when they vote on November 6^th.

Stepping up to the plate of responsibility, both Democrats and Republicans need to do the right thing. Keep Obama in office, and instruct Congress to work together to solve our common problems. Ubuntu!

October 19, 2012