RIP – Desmond Tutu
I started looking up Desmond Tutu quotes this morning, and I was in awe. I was quickly reminded why Desmond Tutu is revered as he is, all over the world.
“Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.”
― Desmond Tutu
As much as I love to write, it diminishes any experience. So does a picture. Stories and photographs limit the reality of the actual experience. Stories and pictures serve as perspectives and reminders of the feelings and the awe and the rush and the emotions and the sensations of any particular experience, but they are not the experience itself. I could write a story about an experience that we both had, and you could write a story about that exact same experience, and whoever was reading our words could easily think they were two entirely different experiences. (because, in a sense, they were – my experience is unique to me; your experience is unique to you) It is the same with paintings and photographs. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in “capturing the essence” of anything, that we miss out on the true, in-the-moment experience. Our language creates the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives, and these stories become our reality. As Desmond Tutu said, “Language is very powerful.” We must choose our language and our perspectives very carefully, because they are, in fact, our reality that we are creating for ourselves.
“My father always used to say, “Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument.” Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.”_ Desmond Tutu
It’s true, right? We tend to get loud when we are emotional and out of control. We tend to get loud when we are trying to overpower people, in order to get our own way. We can’t listen when we get loud. We can’t hear others, and we can’t hear ourselves think. When we get loud, the focus is removed from what we are saying, and more on our out-of-control behavior. Respect is diminished all of the way around.
“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.”
― Desmond Tutu
It’s hard to stand up to injustice, isn’t it? As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” It takes a great deal of strength and courage to leave our own comfort zones, to help others out of the abyss of their oppressive situations. I am proud of moments in my life, in which I stood up for myself and for others, but if I am honest with myself, those moments are much more rare than the moments that I stayed silent and detached and scared and secretly relieved that it wasn’t me being tormented. Most of us agree that bullies are bad, but how many of us have stood up to bullies, for ourselves and for others? We aren’t the actual bullies, so we’re in the clear, right? We should look at ourselves in our mirrors and ask ourselves that question. Cringe.
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
― Desmond Tutu
What a lovely, lovely man the world has lost. Let’s work on doing a little bit of good where we are, in honor of Desmond Tutu’s amazing life.
“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.”
― Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.