My friend J recently sent me an email that shared the concept of Ubuntu. When I looked up Wikipedia*, Ubuntu means: "I am what I am because of who we all are." (a definition offered by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.)

What I really liked was a quote Archbishop Desmond Tutu offered in a 1999 book:

A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from 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.

Archbishop Tutu further elaborated in 2008:

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.

This concept of Ubuntu is not unique and it is similar to how the ancient Hawaiians defined the Aloha Spirit, and how Christ Himself defined humanity.

Jesus himself gave us a new commandment that sums up the ethos of Christianity: "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Simple, powerful and altogether not easy to accomplish.

If we do as Jesus did, then we would be preaching the good news to the poor, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming freedom for captives, releasing from darkness prisoners and comforting all who mourn. (Luke 14:18)

We would take the social teaching of the Catholic Church seriously which espouses human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity.

We would actively love the least of our brothers and sisters in order to show our love for Christ.

We would reach out to strangers, the needy, sick and imprisoned, and not just stay within the comforting confines of our own little worlds.

Edmund Burke said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

It's quite easy to feel disassociated and become inured to the acts of violence, injustice, abuse and calamity we read about in the newspapers and therefore do nothing.

Unless we begin to think that every act of injustice, abuse or indignity against any human being is an act of injustice, abuse and indignity against me, in our shared humanity. Ubuntu. Or Christ.

* To read more, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy)