Vanity Fair

While I was gone my new issue of Vanity Fair came.

I have subscribed to this magazine for years. I look forward to it every month. This month is very special. It was guest edited by Bono and is all about Africa. Or at least mostly about Africa. There is one story about Princess Diana. I have just finished skimming it and want to share something.

There are 20 different covers for this issue. Each cover has someone famous telling another famous person something. My cover has Bishop Desmond Tutu telling Brad Pitt -

"A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships."

The article that goes along with this cover is Brad Pitt interviewing Bishop Tutu and I have read that one. I will read others but this one jumped out at me to read. In it Bishop Tutu tells us about ubuntu, an African word he says is the essence of being human. It says that a person is a person through other persons. You can't be human in isolation. You are human only in relationships.

I had a conversation with my best friend's mother at a birthday party and she told me she was so happy that her son had found the Masons. She said that she had read that you can't be emotionally healthy without belonging to organizations. I believe she mentioned a magic number of six organizations over time. That goes right along with this concept of ubuntu. I had never thought of that idea before that conversation and now this article is bringing it all back to me.

One of the things about the Masons is that because they understand the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God they help others. The combined giving of Masonic institutions is over 2 million dollars a day. If you google Masonic+giving+charity you will get 198,000 hits in .19 seconds. Most of the time it is done quietly.

Pitt and Tutu have a wide ranging conversation about relationships and I recommend that you get the magazine and read it and the other articles about Africa and what is happening there.

In 1976 I was in Africa. Egypt is actually on the northeast corner of the continent. I will never forget the images of poverty I saw there. Perhaps the most vivid image to remain with me was a little girl in a dirty, torn dress standing in a doorway which wasn't really a doorway, just a hole in a wall with a piece of stained fabric hanging over it. She was just standing there - curly black hair in need of a comb, face in need of a wash with flies swarming around her eyes. I don't imagine that she is still with us but I think of her and wish for her sisters and brothers around the world a better chance than she had.

We are all people together on this planet and to paraphrase the founders of our country we must all live together or we will all die together. The world will survive only if we begin to be less selfish and help others in Africa and here at home. There is enough to do for everyone to help. And every little bit helps the bigger picture.

The interview concludes with Tutu saying:

"We have the capacity to feed everybody on our planet. We have the capacity to ensure that everybody has clean water. We have the capacity to ensure that everybody has affordable health care. We have the capacity to ensure that every child gets the inoculations that they ought to have as children. We can prevent many of the diseases to which our children in poorer parts of the world succumb. For goodness' sake. Why don't we wake up to the fact that you can't have an apartheid security. you can't have an apartheid prosperity. If you are going to have security, it is going to be security for all. If you are going to have prosperity, it is going to be prosperity for all. If you want to be free, you can't have quarantine freedom. It's going to be a freedom for all. And if you want to be human, we aren't going to be able to be human in isolation. It will be that we are human together."

Africa is the home of humanity. It is well to remember that and do all we can to help there.

You are loved. Be happy. Hugs. j