Through My African Eyes: We Need Each Other So Let us Keep Each Other
03-30-2022
By Stephen Apollo
In my work as a Youth Director in my church in Nairobi, every Friday I used to go for a pastoral program in a public school of about 1,500 students not far from the church. The students in this school loved to sing Bill Withers’ song “Lean on me,” Michael Bolton’s rendition. I particularly enjoyed when they were singing the line that says, Lean on me. When you are not strong, I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on, for it won't be long till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on… Splendidly, by a seeming reflex the students would reach out for each other’s shoulders and they would sway from side to side in a beautiful uniformity. How I loved to behold this assurance of solidarity and support dramatized in a beautiful song!
That all of us are beneficiaries of help. Think of people whose daily work is to give help like first responders, medics, rehabilitation specialists, counselors, human rights advocates, security officers and the list continues. Think of the great work they do in our communities to make them safe, health, and habitable and yet they too, need help at some point. This clearly tells us no one is self-sufficient and that we all need each other and the great African philosophy of Ubuntu, “I am because we are and because we are I am” loudly echoes this spirit.
Some of us are not where we are because of our patience but because some people have been patient with us. Some of us have what we have not because of our hard work, but because of the hard work of others. Some of us are who we are today not because our own making but because others have made us to become who are. As the world continues to diligently keep us away from each other through the high walls of hatred, indifference, and individualism, we need to acknowledge that we are hewn from the same quarry of humanity, our races, ethnicities, economic classes, social standing, and political affiliations notwithstanding. As distances between people continue to widen, let us know that humanity is all about being there for each other. As people move away from others and draw closer to things; cars, houses, money, businesses, careers and so on, let us know that it is meaningful relationships that make the world a beautiful place. Some people are critically suffering from the sickness of individualism, that it has proved very difficult for them to ask for help. Withers has some advice for such people, “Please swallow your pride If I have things you need to borrow, for no one can fill those of your needs that you won't let show.”
Let us seek us offer ourselves for others to lean on and our shoulders for others to cry on, knowing very well that because we need each other, let us keep each other, our differences notwithstanding
Photo by Annie Spratt from Unsplash
