Desmond Tutu, 1931-2021

I was deeply saddened to awake the day after Christmas to the news of the passing of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa at age 90.  A man of peace and love who dedicated his life to the end of racism, injustice, and poverty at home and around the world, it was the voices of many nations that raised up to praise the long life and sad passing of a truly great man.  A dear friend wrote to me that same morning that she was struck most by Tutu’s joyfulness.  “For all that he stood for, had witnessed, and experienced, or maybe because of those experiences, his sense of wonder and joy shone through . . . I think we are all poorer for his passing.”  He was indeed a wonderful and inspiring individual and a true world citizen and a South African patriot.  Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, called him “a patriot without equal.”  “A man of extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid, he was also tender and vulnerable in his compassion for those who had suffered oppression, injustice and violence under apartheid, and oppressed and downtrodden people around the world."  He was a man of good humor and always willing to offer up words of inspirations, yet he always sought to find the source of the ills affecting those downtrodden for whatever reason. “There comes a point when we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.  We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”  He was loved by all around him.  May he find peace in his rest.