Archbishop Desmond Tutu
October 7, 1931 – December 26, 2021
|
|
My dear Brothers and Sisters, we are ONE human family. . .
We can be human only together.
~ Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
|
|
We pray for the peace of the soul of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who passed away on the day after Christmas. Our sincere and deepest condolences and prayers go to Leah Tutu, Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth, and the whole Tutu family, as well as our many South African friends, and all those around the world who love him so dearly.
In the spirit of carrying on his legacy of truth and reconciliation, we offer our prayers and share a few memories of the blessing he has been in our lives and work.
|
|
Through our friends and colleagues Dr. Dorothea Hendricks and Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth, we had the immense privilege and joy of meeting with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu several times, and receiving his blessing and endorsement for our Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI) program, and for our Dawn of Interspirituality program.
On August 20, 2013, Archbishop Desmond Tutu announced [see top photo] a new partnership between our organization GERI and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and Stellenbosch University. The partnership was inaugurated in a media launch at the Stellenbosch University Tygerberg campus in Cape Town, South Africa.
|
|
The purpose of this partnership was to implement GERI programs for qualified university students, and an important follow-up from this partnership was a unique research project on the GERI methodology carried out at the University of the Free State and Stellenbosch University by Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and Dr. Samantha van Schalkwyk. “Our hope is that eventually we will be in all of the universities in South Africa,” said Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth. |
|
“We are inaugurating and announcing this collaboration with an outstanding group [Gender Equity and Reconciliation International] that has done wonders in helping to recover the humanity of women,” said Archbishop Tutu.
The media launch was covered by national television news in South Africa, several leading newspapers, and a syndicated article from Reuters that was published widely.
|
|
Headline reads: “Partnership Seeks to Reconcile Genders” |
|
The Gender Equity and Reconciliation International program was inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, led by Archbishop Tutu. The entire human family lives under the tyranny of a veritable ‘gender apartheid’—a structural oppression that afflicts women and men and people of all gender identities, irrespective of sexual orientation. “We have undermined our humanity by the treatment that we have meted out to women,” said Archbishop Tutu, “just as much as racists undermine their humanity by treating others as less than human.” |
|
“Gender Reconciliation is the logical next step for our country,” said Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth, former Executive Director of the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, and daughter of the Tutus. The GERI program applies principles of truth and reconciliation to transform gender injustice, cultivate equal rights and mutual respect, and foster healing and mutual reverence between the genders. “The work of racial reconciliation will never be complete without the work of gender reconciliation,” she said.
|
|
The blessings of Archbishop and Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth help keep the flame of reconciliation and transformation ablaze within our hearts. “We are made for loving,” says Tutu, affectionately called the Arch. “If we don’t love, we will be like plants without water.”
“Archbishop Desmond Tutu was called to be an Arch, a bridge above and across worldly chasms” that divide the human family (tutu.org.za). He is the People’s Arch, and he taught the profound African principle of ubuntu: “A person is a person through other persons. Ubuntu speaks of the very essence of being human. It is to say, ‘My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.’ You can’t be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.”
|
|
The Arch beamed as he was introduced to the community of GERI Facilitators. |
|
GERI facilitators at the media launch.
From left to right: Laurie Gaum, Biata Walsh, Mthunzi Funo, Judy Bekker, Sarah Ping Nie Jones, Thuli Mbete, Emma Oliver, Will Keepin, Cynthia Brix, Shamiema McLeod, Jenny Bresick, Lucille Lückhoff
Front Row: Lesley Thomas, Jeremy Routledge
|
|
The GERI work continues to grow and expand today in South Africa under the leadership of Desireé English, GERI Director of Training in Africa, and the non-profit organization GenderWorks with its dedicated Board of Directors, including Emma Oliver, Desireé English, Tristan Johannes, Xolile Pro Zulani, Rev. Laurie Gaum, and Kenna Cormie. |
|
“My dear Brothers and Sisters, we are ONE human family,” said the Arch in his blessing for our Dawn of Interspirituality conferences, convened to bridge the major religions. “As we approach the transcendent One, we all find Home.”
The Arch was deeply committed to interfaith harmony and collaboration across the world religions, as beautifully exemplified by his close personal and spiritual friendship with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. As he proclaimed in the startling title of one his books, God is not a Christian. “All of God’s children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God. No faith contains the whole truth about God. All of us belong to God.”
The Arch concluded his blessing with this prayer: “The God that I worship—which you worship in different kinds of ways—is smiling upon you,” and upon all who endeavor in earnest to unite the human family as one.
|
|
May we always remember the remarkable life and legacy of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. Few people in history have served humanity so profoundly and courageously as the Arch has done. He didn’t just speak spiritual truth to worldly power, he lived it. The Arch was instrumental in freeing an entire nation from one of the most tyrannical governments in modern history. And he didn’t stop there; he then led one of the most remarkable processes of reconciliation and forgiveness ever carried out on a national scale between the perpetrators and victims of the systematic violence of Apartheid.
How did one man accomplish so much? What was the Arch’s secret? It wasn’t actually him who did all these things; it was a higher divine power that worked through him. And we too are called onto this same path. There is no greater way to honor and celebrate the life of Archbishop Tutu, than for us, each in our own way, to follow the currents of Love and Truth that burn in our own hearts. And always to remember, as Thomas Merton put it, “All the good that you will do will come, not from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used by God’s love. Think of this more and gradually you will be free from the need to prove yourself, and you can be more open to the power that will work through you without your knowing it.”
|
|
We are all on a learning curve! Mercifully God does not get impatient. He/She has all of eternity. We really can’t conceive a timeless existence, we are so spatio-temporally conditioned. Ah well, it is a relief that God is God, however far short our conception of God is.
~ Archbishop Tutu
|
|
|
|
May the Arch continue to serve as our spiritual inspiration, guide, teacher, and friend, as we each do our part—however seemingly small or unnoticed in the public arena—to heal the divisions in the human family, and transform ourselves and our societies into a new Heaven and new Earth.
Dear Beloved Arch,
We thank you for showing us the true way of love and spiritual service. Help us to carry on your legacy, as we strive to live for Truth and Love.
The God that we worship in different ways is smiling upon You—as you now approach the transcendent One. We will miss you, and we pray for you on your journey Home . . .
With all our love,
Cynthia, Will, and the global GERI community
|
|
Photo and video credit of Desmond Tutu to Sarah Ping Nie Jones, Biata Walsh, Satyana Institute, and SABC.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
