Food for the Soul | June 10th, 2020
6/10/2020
Dear Friends,
Isn’t it comforting that even in the plant world we can find expressions of compassion? The above picture shows a flower most of us know by the name of Bleeding Hearts. (In German it is called Weeping Hearts – Tränende Herzchen.) I look at this beautiful arc of flowers and I am overtaken by the miracle that everything that exists has the power to love and to be compassionate. We humans are still in the process of learning just that.
A PRAYER - A PRACTICE - A POEM
A PRAYER
Psalm 15
Lord, who can be trusted with power,
and who may act in your place?
Those with a passion for justice,
who speak the truth from their hearts;
who have let go of selfish interests
and grown beyond their own lives;
Who see the wretched as their family
and the poor as their flesh and blood.
They alone are impartial
and worthy of the people’s trust.
Their compassion lights up the whole earth,
and their kindness endures forever.
The Psalms (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
A PRACTICE
You all know by now that I am an ardent follower of Richard Rohr (and a few others). His essays and meditations speak to me very deeply. Here I am sharing from one of his recent daily meditations (May 9, 2020) in which he focuses on the need to create the beloved community. I recognize it is on the rather long side. May your reading and meditating on it be your practice this week, your Lectio Divina.
Ubuntu: I Am Because We Are
One place we might begin to prioritize community is with the spiritual traditions that supported and informed the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In her essay from the book Revives My Soul Again, author Diana L. Hayes explores the basis of King’s vision for the “Beloved Community”:
African American spirituality was forged in the fiery furnace of slavery in the United States. The ore was African in origin, in worldview, in culture and traditions. . . . There is no life without the community and there is no community without the active participation of all. As a well-known African proverb states: “I am because we are.” That is, unlike in Western society, it is not the individual but the community that is of critical importance. [Richard here: We’re seeing this value in action right now with individuals changing their habits, lives, and livelihoods at great personal cost for the sake of the global community.]
African spirituality is grounded in the very lives and activities of the African people. They live it, breathe it, walk it, sing it, and dance it. There is no life without religion, the interconnection of all people, all created things, and God: . . . “Relationships among all elements of creation . . . are the essence of African spirituality, because Africans believe that only through harmonious relationships is cosmic existence possible and its vital force preserved.”. . . [1]
An extension of this understanding can be found in that of Ubuntu (other names are used by different African peoples). . . . “A person with Ubuntu (full humanity) is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good.”. . . [2] What Ubuntu underscores is “‘the vital importance of mutual recognition and respect complemented by mutual care and sharing in the construction of human relations.’ [3] Ubuntu is manifested in self-giving and readiness to cooperate and communicate with others.” [4]
This understanding . . . of full humanity lies at the heart of [Dr. Martin Luther] King’s efforts to develop the Beloved Community, which he saw as that “period of social harmony and universal brotherhood that would follow the current social struggle.” [5] At that time, blacks and whites would be reconciled and able to walk together as a family of brothers and sisters without racial strife or disharmony.
The wisdom of Ubuntu, this reminder that “I am because you are,” seems particularly important for our times, especially in the Western world. Even before social distancing began, loneliness—and the anxiety and depression that often accompany it—had reached epidemic proportions and I imagine those numbers will only increase with so many people being further isolated by recent circumstances. I hope and pray that God, who is relationship itself, will not let us forget that we belong to each other.
[1] Laurenti Magesa, What Is Not Sacred?: African Spirituality (Orbis Books: 2013), 195. As cited by Hayes, 45.
[2] Desmond Mpilo Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (Doubleday: 1999), 31.
[3] Mogobe B. Ramose, “The Ethics of Ubuntu,” The African Philosophy Reader: A Text with Readings, eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 2nd ed. (Routledge: 2003), 329.
[4] Magesa, What Is Not Sacred?, 13.
[5] Richard Lischer, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word That Moved America (Oxford University Press: 1995), 234.
Diana L. Hayes, “A Great Cloud of Witnesses: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Roots in the African American Religious and Spiritual Traditions,” Revives My Soul Again: The Spirituality of Martin Luther King Jr., eds. Lewis V. Baldwin and Victor Anderson (Fortress Press: 2018), 43, 44–46.
A POEM
There Was a Time I Would Reject Those
Muhydiin Ibn Al-‘Arabi (translater unknown)
There was a time I would reject those
who were not of my faith.
But now, my heart has grown capable
of taking on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
an abbey for monks.
A table for the Torah,
Kaaba for the pilgrim.
My religion is love.
Whichever the route love’s caravan shall take,
That shall be the path of my faith.