"Our true vocation is to become part of a people." -- Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove
Ubuntu: "I am because we are."
We are made up of one another's stories. This is the Southern African concept of Ubuntu. I can only understand myself in the context of who we are. And who are we? We don't seem to know.
Not really. When I say "we," I mean all of us. We do not yet have a story commonly shared which has room for all of us. Instead, we are splintered by our stories. We are often the villains in each other's narratives. As long as the enemy is still "them" and not the inhuman powers and principalities and death itself, our story is not large enough. We have not entered into a story that makes us "we."
We are African. We are African-American. We are white. We are Latino. We are Muslim. We are Christian. We have too many possessions. We do not have enough. We support this team. We watch this TV show. We play this sport. We are conservative. We are progressive.
What constitutes us?
Are we chosen by God, specially loved? Are we bound by blood? What is so powerful about some of these identities, such as politics or sports or religion, that they can cause us to hate other people? Or does it have less to do with those and more to do with the type of people we are?
In a place like the South Hills area of Grand Rapids, Michigan, we find the intersection of many stories. We have stories which trace back to the South and to Africa. Some begin in the Netherlands and Southeast Asia. We have stories of opportunity and industry and the loss of both. We have stories from the Middle East and India. And we must remember the stories of the people who lived on this land before European settlement.
As in most good stories, we sense that something is terribly wrong and needs to be made right. We have our characters and watch how they grow and change in love and struggle. We have some price to pay--some suffering to endure or journey to take--before we can find redemption. Or perhaps we have some tragic flaw, and blind to it, we let it tear us apart.
The questions here are similar to the questions in most places. How do we live in peace? How will we become free from fear and despair and live in hope and delight? How do we draw out a living from this place to support ourselves and to build a future for our children? And who are we when confronted with death and violence?
The South Hills area has become part of my story and the context in which I plan to live the next chapter of my life. In this blog, I plan to explore some of the many stories intersecting in this place. I will explain my story and how I have come to be a community connector intern for Great Lakes Urban. I will share with you some of what I learn about this place and ask others to share their stories. The goal is that we would come to know one another. Until we can do that--understand one another's stories and how we make and remake one another--we cannot know who we are or what we are doing.