Story of the Month: February
Care-nect
In 1996, I went to visit my daughter, Rasa, in Kenya where she was studying wildlife management at the School of Field Studies, not far from Nairobi. There is something inexplicable about Africa: its endless skies dotted with puffs of clouds, and like a dream, seem within arms reach; the smell of dry bush on the savannah; the billowing dust on dirt roads; the screams of a hyrax; the way the sun, cartoon-like, suddenly pops up at dawn and as quickly drops down at the same time every evening. Africa gets in your blood. I knew it was in my daughter’s blood when she would come to our tent at six, excited to watch the sun rise and listen to the birds’ morning songs. This enthusiasm came from a girl who as a typical college student could barely manage to rouse herself before noon. The rhythm of life pulsated in all of us, as if stirring us out of a deep slumber, awakening us to our profound connection to Nature and her cycles. In Africa, you feel part of a web that has no weavers, part of the intricate interconnectedness of life. Instinctively you sense where human life began. I was talking to a Kenyan who worked at the camp about the beauty of his country. He said to me, “We have a saying here:‘I am because we are.’”
That phrase has stuck with me ever since. In fact, it is the motto of our company, Harvest Associates. I later discovered there was a term for it–-ubuntu. Desmond Tutu wrote about it in his book No Future without Forgiveness. This is what he wrote.
“Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, ‘Yu, u nobuntu’; ‘Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu.’ Then you are generous, 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.’ It is not, ‘I think therefore I am.’ It says rather: ‘I am human because I belong. I participate. I share.’ 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.”
Iron Butterflies have ubuntu. They recognize how we are all interconnected and how our humanity is inextricably bound to others–if others are diminished so are we. We don’t stand alone nor fall alone. When we can see that we are interdependent and part of a greater whole, then it is in our interest to be generous, cooperative, and caring. When we risk being vulnerable, and there is always a risk, we create a chance to connect to each other through empathy and compassion and care, we care-nect and so evoke ubuntu.
Care is not usually thought of as a power word, but it is a power action.
When our actions are filled with care, it strengthens our connections to others and enriches our relationships. We realize that the security we all long for is found in the strength of our connection to others and our power and control in life is in our ability to care-nect. At a core level we all know our ultimate dependence on each other.
Linda Rusch, VP of Nursing at Hunderton Medical Center in New Jersey told me an instance that illustrates the deep relationships become when we care-nect. The nurses at Hunderton are all very connected to each other, often communicating silently to each other. When go to the medical center, their care and attunement to each other is palpable. The nursing staff on one floor go away together every year. They call it the ‘girl’s soul trip.’ Even though nurses cover for them, Linda felt that the manager and the assistant manager shouldn’t both be gone at the same time because it put too much responsibility on the office if problems cropped up. It turned out that on this particular soul trip they were both planning to go. “I was upset about it when I found out,” Linda told me. The manager seeing that LInda wasn’t too happy said to her, ‘You decide. Tell me what to do.’ Linda refused and told her to make her own decision. “I was telling her she was a grown up. I wasn’t going to demand that she not go. But she knew how I felt.” When Linda came to work on Monday, she discovered that they had both gone. The manager had made her decision.
But while the manager was in Bermuda, something happened. She was splashing away in the water and she realized she wasn’t having fun. Everybody saw her leap out, crying, and no one knew why. She ran back to her room and called the hospital. Linda was pulled out of a meeting and was told the manager sounded horrible and to call her right back. “I thought that something terrible had happened. When I got on the phone, she was crying. She said, ‘I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe I disappointed you. I can’t stand knowing you don’t think highly of me.’”
“For me, that’s all it took. What mattered to me was that she felt bad enough to call me, and cared enough about how I felt. I said, ‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is our relationship. And you know, our relationship has just grown. It’s on another level because you felt and cared about the depth of our connection to each other.’”
Strengthen your relationships, expand your world of connections, live care-fully: be a care-nector.