Ubuntu in Action: Cultivating a Multigenerational Community Rooted in Unity and Respect

I wanted to write this post to talk about how my wife and I seek to bring people together and conjure up good spirits. I briefly talked about this in my blog post entitled, “Spirits of Chaos: The Violent Rituals of Destruction and Power.”

The other day, we celebrated KVP’s 4th Birthday. We invited some people who have been a part of her life for a while. Some have been there since she was conceived and they have experienced the ups and downs of the pregnancy, the perils of the lockdown, and heard several of the stories of the sleepless nights.

Nonetheless, we all came together to celebrate her life. As you can probably tell from the picture above, it was intergenerational. We had people there from (2) years old all there way up to age (78). We come from different cultural and regional backgrounds. We have different religions affiliations. But we all have love for the same little girl. So, we came together to celebrate her life.

There were conversations about sports, meeting famous people, aging, work, politics, life in general, parenting, home ownership, guns, pets, leadership, nature, the Bible, the Trinity, theology, religion, church, seminary, institutions of higher learning, education, American Christianity, the affects of White Supremacy in the church and in the academy, Christian Nationalism, elitism in the church and the academy, women in leadership, Black/African spirituality, Hoodoo, Vodún, Yoga, Reiki, the spirit world, burning sage, gardening, homesteading, history, writing, podcasting, and of course we remembered the ancestors. There were probably many other subjects that were discussed that I did not mention. These are just the ones that I was a part of in some way. I mentioned this list to give you an idea of the type of environment we have intentionally built for people to have a save space to voice their opinions instead being judged or having to avoid in conversations during a “church” setting. If all of this happened at a gathering to celebrate a young (4) year old girl, just think if the people of God did this during a gathering for the ultimate ancestor, the Jesus of the Gospels. We seek to create true Koinonia and true Ekklesia when we bring people together. We just call it Ubuntu.

We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.

el Hajj Malik el Shabazz