Dear Friends: I began this year as an online participant at Southern Africa Yearly Meeting, where we explored the depths of meaning in the word ubuntu. I had some prior familiarity with the word, especially thanks to the writings of anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu. This event, though, gave me a more specifically Quaker insight into the profound way ubuntu is practiced by Friends in Southern Africa and beyond.
In the Zulu language, ubuntu means something like: “I am because you are” or “we are because you are.” It’s a word that emphasises interdependence, mutuality, and environmental protection. It inspires the theme of the upcoming 2024 World Plenary Meeting of Friends World Committee for Consultation, “Living the Spirit of Ubuntu: Responding with Hope to God’s Call to Cherish Creation and One-another.”
The planning team for the 2024 plenary is trying to reflect ubuntu in our work – like providing options for online attendance and subsidies for participants. I look forward to learning more of ubuntu through this work.
– Tim Gee, Friends World Committee for Consultation