The document discusses several perspectives on concepts like humanity, belonging, sharing, and faith. It shares quotes and views that humanity is defined through relationships with others, the importance of listening without judgment to help sort out thoughts, and that love and faith in a greater creative power can help overcome fear and hate.

1. Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human . . . You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say "A person is a person through other persons." It is not "I think therefore I am." It says rather "I am human because I belong, I participate, I share." A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are. - Desmond Tutu, from No Future without Forgiveness

2. I brought food to the hungry And people called me a saint I asked why people were hungry And people called me a communist - Dom Helder Camara (advocate of liberation theology)

3. Demanding clarity about thoughts and feelings before sharing them can be a real problem . . . What I need is to share my jumbled up inner dialogue with someone who can hear, and in listening, can help me to hear myself. I am sorting out my thoughts and feelings if someone is not judging me right or wrong, consistent or inconsistent; not diagnosing and attaching labels; not pressing for logic and clarity. I do more than enough judging, labeling and pressing for answers as I listen to myself. When I press too hard and doggedly for total understanding, I get too bottled up and stop up the sounds inside. - Earl Koike, from Listening as a Way of Becoming

4. To me, all the work I do is built on a foundation of loving-kindness. Love illuminates matters. And when I write provocative social and cultural criticism that causes readers to stretch their minds, to think beyond set paradigms, I think of that as love in action. While it may challenge, disturb and at times even frighten or enrage readers, love is always the place where I begin and end . - bell hooks