I was deeply saddened this morning to learn of Desmond Tutu's death. My heart is also filled with gratitude for the incredible gifts and the enormity of the difference that he made in the world. Desmond Tutu was such a model of courage and integrity, truth and wisdom, activism and inspiration, compassion and love. This is in loving remembrance of and deep gratitude for this beautiful human. 🙏💗 Molly
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.
A time of crisis is not just a time of anxiety and worry. It gives a chance, an opportunity, to chose well or to chose badly.
We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.
The Dead Sea in the Middle East receives freshwater, but it has no outlet, so it doesn't pass the water out. It receives beautiful water from the rivers, and the water goes dank. I mean, it just goes bad. And that's why it is the Dead Sea. It receives and does not give. In the end, generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.
Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.
We are made for loving. If we don’t love, we will be like plants without water.
* * * * *
Transformation begins in you, wherever you are, whatever has happened, however you are suffering. Transformation is always possible. We do not heal in isolation. When we reach out and connect with one another—when we tell the story, name the hurt, grant forgiveness, and renew or release the relationship—our suffering begins to transform.
We can carry the burden of hurt throughout our lives. We can make the hurt that we have experienced the defining aspect of our stories of ourselves. That means that somebody else gets to say who we are, somebody else gets to decide how we feel, and somebody else gets to decide how we see the world. Forgiveness not only frees us from the burden of someone else's opinion of us, but it allows us the opportunity to really write a story of ourselves that we can love, enjoy, relish, and live into.
We are not responsible for what breaks us, but we can be responsible for what puts us back together again. Naming the hurt is how we begin to repair our broken parts.
Forgiveness
is truly the grace by which we enable another person to get up, and get
up with dignity, to begin anew. To not forgive leads to bitterness and
hatred. Like self-hatred and self-contempt, hatred of others gnaws away
at our vitals. Whether hatred is projected out or stuffed in, it is
always corrosive to the human spirit.
It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.
You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.
Forgiveness does not relieve someone of responsibility for what they have done. Forgiveness does not erase accountability. It is not about turning a blind eye or even turning the other cheek. It is not about letting someone off the hook or saying it is okay to do something monstrous. Forgiveness is simply about understanding that every one of us is both inherently good and inherently flawed. Within every hopeless situation and every seemingly hopeless person lies the possibility of transformation.
What about evil, you may ask? Aren’t some people just evil, just monsters, and aren’t such people just unforgivable? I do believe there are monstrous and evil acts, but I do not believe those who commit such acts are monsters or evil. To relegate someone to the level of monster is to deny that person’s ability to change and to take away that person’s accountability for his or her actions and behavior.
Forgiveness is abandoning your right to revenge.
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.
* * * * *
We learn from history that we don't learn from history!
When
we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we
oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is
dependent upon recognising the humanity in others.
Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering — remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you don't want to repeat what happened.
Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.
I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.
Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.
If I diminish you, I diminish myself.
If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
* * * * *
One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.
Ubuntu speaks of the very essence of being human. We say... "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say, "A person is a person through other persons."
A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.
I
have seen firsthand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are
powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and
no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are
in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and
speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty go unchallenged.
We are all connected. What unites us is our common humanity. I don't want to oversimplify things — but the suffering of a mother who has lost her child is not dependent on her nationality, ethnicity or religion. White, black, rich, poor, Christian, Muslim or Jew — pain is pain — joy is joy.
* * * * *
We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family.
We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew… Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.
Discovering more joy does not, save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.
Life is more than breath and a heartbeat; meaning and purpose are the life of life.
Dream of a world where poverty is history, dream of a world where we don't spend those obscene billions on arms, knowing full well that a tiny fraction of those budgets of death would ensure that children everywhere had clean water to drink, could afford the cheap inoculations against preventable diseases, would have good schools, adequate healthcare and decent homes.
We must act now and wake up to our moral obligations. The poor and vulnerable are members of God's family and are the most severely affected by droughts, high temperatures, the flooding of coastal cities, and more severe and unpredictable weather events resulting from climate change. We, who should have been responsible stewards preserving our vulnerable, fragile planet home, have been wantonly wasteful through our reckless consumerism, devouring irreplaceable natural resources.
Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
— Desmond Tutu
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| The 14th Dalai Lama greets Tutu in Vancouver, British Columbia, April 18, 2004 |
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