Thought for the day - 31 December 2020

I was honoured to present the last Thought for the Day of 2020 on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, guest edited by Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin

Good morning,

Last year, I joined family members from all over the world for my grandmother’s funeral in Nigeria. As is tradition, we took part in three days of mourning – a night vigil in the darkness of the grounds of my family’s ancestral home, a burial service attended by a thousand people joining our family at our time of mourning.

The third day involved a church service where we combined giving thanks for my grandmother’s life with giving thanks for the new life we now had, through the birth of my son, who hadn’t yet turned two. This was the first time the whole family had been together to welcome him, the first grandchild.

And so it was that my husband and I found ourselves dancing up the aisle holding our son aloft with around 50 relatives, plus goats, yams and wads full of cash. I found it incredibly moving - overwhelmed by the love for us as a couple and for our son; in my culture when one of us is blessed, the whole community receives the blessing.

In that moment, I understood something of the African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. Our little boy didn’t just belong to us, he belonged to all of us.

To me, in this strange year, I’ve been reminded of the profound concept of Ubuntu. Our health, our happiness and our flourishing, are infinitely bound up with the flourishing of our communities.

I’ve seen glimpses of it this year, in the strength I’ve found in solidarity with my neighbours, in small acts of kindness, in people staying at home to protect strangers, in the empathy with those who have faced unimaginable loss. Lost livelihoods, and lost lives. Fear, anxiety and heartbreak.

Many of us will be relieved to see the back of 2020. But as we step into 2021, with all the hope and expectation of a new year intensified by the fact that over the past 12 months, we have lived through a kind of collective trauma, my prayer is that we’ll live by the concept of Ubuntu, of togetherness. As a Christian, I believe the thing that binds us together is being made in the image and likeness of God.

Who knows what 2021 will hold? But I’m clinging to hope, whatever happens. Choosing togetherness, and - in the words of St Paul – to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Just like my family gathered in Nigeria to mourn death, and celebrate life.

Former US president Bill Clinton put it well when he said Ubuntu “means that the world is too small, our wisdom too limited, our time here too short, to waste any more of it in winning fleeting victories at other people’s expense. We have to now find a way to triumph together”.