Unique way of handling those who hurt you
By Julia Fernandes
May 3, 2013
Came across this today on a spiritual networking site. In a particular African tribe, when someone does something hurtful and wrong, they take the person to the center of town, and the entire tribe comes and surrounds him. For two days they’ll tell the man every good thing he has ever done.
The tribe believes that every human being comes into the world as good, each of us desiring safety, love, peace and happiness. But sometimes in the pursuit of those things people make mistakes. The community sees misdeeds as a cry for help.
They band together for the sake of their fellow man to hold him up, to reconnect him with his true nature, to remind him who he really is, until he fully remembers the truth from which he'd temporarily been disconnected that, ‘I am good’.
What a beautiful way of gently bringing back a man to his inner fold. Normally, when someone does wrong, we pinpoint the person’s faults. In order to cope with our own feelings of being hurt, we make sure the one who has wronged us realizes his mistake.
But this particular African tribe does just the opposite. They drill in him all the good things he has done. The Bible very beautifully reveals that whoever hurts you will be hurt by their own actions and will no idea why. So, if the ones who hurt you are already going to be hurt, what point does it make for us to hurt them more?
Like this tribe that believes that wrongs are nothing but a cry for help. When people do wrong it means they have lost their inner balance and more than being punished they need our support and understanding to regain their balance.
The next time someone hurts me, I shall remember this African tribe and their unique wisdom-filled approach.