Respect Our Umoja

 Great Umoja:

We have entered the week of Ujima, and it is time to look at the principles and the world through its eyes. Ujima is the principle that we describe as Umoja in motion, or action. We also in Gye-Nyame connect Ujima with the principle of respect. This comes to us through our M-7 system that we developed to work with young people. Collective work and responsibility was hard to get the students to grasp, but respect was already in their vocabulary, and we could use it as a "lure to mastery".

"unity begins within ourselves and then manifests elsewhere in our lives once we start practicing it"

This brings us back to the principle of the day, Umoja which means unity. All of those that have been dealing with GNJ know that all the principles start internally and then they manifest in the world. We have to understand and be practicing Unity internally before we can ever see it outside of ourselves. This means that I have to be working on the Unity between the five parts of my being, my family, and my tribe long before I will ever be able to see Umoja in my community, my village, my city, etc... The fact that I don't see Unity does not mean that it is not operating, it means that I may not be able to see it because I am not moving in it.

"Unity is operating even if we don't see it"

We also have to understand that we are living in a time where people have been programmed through media, tv, movies and even our school systems to believe that there is a lack of Unity. The more you begin to practice unity within yourself and with your family the more you will begin to attract people who exemplify this same energy. Also the easier it will become for you to see Umoja moving in the world. Most people who are screaming about a lack of unity are looking for uniformity, and not Umoja. They are looking for robots that dress alike, talk alike, and act alike. This is not healthy nor will it bring victory. The universe gives us many examples of unity within systems that thrive because of the differences between them.

"The more you begin to practice unity within yourself and with your family the more you will begin to attract people who exemplify this same energy"

Ujima once again is linked directly to the principle of respect, and for those in GNJ respect has a special meaning. I titled this piece "respect my Umoja' for the way we are taught to look at it in Gye-Nyame. Respect in the way we use it in Gye-Nyame is about first what the word says, not what this @#$% world taught us it was. The word respect is built from combining (re) which simply means again, and the word (spect) which means to see. In fact the word spect is the root word for spectacles, and spectator. Combine and you get how we train ourselves to understand respect. For us when we say respect our Umoja, what we are saying is "take another look", or "look again" at Umoja. Take a second look. The fact is that the lack of unity you may see is an illusion that you have been taught to see. Maybe the disunity in your life, family life, and tribe life has hijacked your ability to see unity (Umoja) around you. So take a step back and take another look. Start with you, and move out into the world. Let, me help:

"Take a step back and take another look"

Self

Family

Tribe

Village

Community

City

County

State

Country (Nation)

World

Solar system

etc.....

We have a long way to go, and we are too small to try to magnify our problems and make them Universal. If we start backwards from the list that I shared (Which is the order in which we should build) all of the larger systems operate in Umoja. in them is chaos and order, night and day, sorrow and pain, and etc... what makes us believe we are any different or can have it differently without us blowing the whole damn thang up. Stop what you are doing and start allowing Umoja to enter you. allow it to bring the five parts of your being into harmony:

"We are to small to try to magnify our problems and make them universal"

Intuition

Mind (mental)

Emotional

Spiritual

Physical

Start the personal work so that you can see the true beauty of Umoja.