What do people do for you?

From this week’s volunteer listserv:

Fifteen years ago, I met some good friends through my graduate program. They visited me this weekend from their home in Raleigh, where they tutor a little boy, improve energy efficiency in old buildings, and wrangle and dote on their three lively grandchildren. Over breakfast we discussed the big questions of life, including, “how do you feel most connected to something bigger than you are alone?” For each of us, our first answer was the same – through other people.

I encourage you to take the idea of Ubuntu seriously. (That is, understanding that people are people through other people, in the words of Desmond Tutu.) How do the people around you make you more human, by their implicit requests to be heard and seen? How do the people you avoid make you more human, by calling you to humility and reflection? How do the people you haven’t met yet make you more human, by their proleptic promises to changing your life one day?

This week, I invite you to hear, see, be humble, reflect and eagerly await the ways so many people will transform you.