Values Keep Families Together
Part 8f reminds us learnderstanding is affected by all information we encounter. If we live amongst worldviews and values that conflict with ours AND our family's values have lost their cohesive and corrective nature, the only possible result is what's happening now - the foolish notion that each individual can pick and choose their own set of values and still achieve family Umoja, Ubuntu and Harmony. This is an impossible task, just as it is impossible for each person, community, county and state to choose their own set of values/laws and a nation remain united. Things must fall apart and be chaotic along the way simply because there is no harmonizing set of values.
Falling Further Apart, Moving Farther Apart
Without communal family values that come from the same worldview, Creator-given potentials and possibilities of individuals and families will be influenced towards altered paths and outcomes. Greatness will be based on human limitation. For individuals and families without a central identity of unifying values, things will fall apart and be chaotic.
Value of Religion
Views on spirituality, creation and religion are significant factors in relationships. Since the powerful influence religion has on decisions and learnderstanding is well known, religion has been and still is being used as servant/tool/weapon.
”The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” - - From Things Fall Apart (1)
A la Carte Value Menu
This is why, “we all can't just get along,” not even in our families. Individuals have their own set of values that have been pieced together from several worldviews. For most individuals who take the scattered path and piece together their worldview from a menu, their list of values usually contains contradictory items. We pick our own poison. Under this scenario, since no two people have the same set of values, the genetic zipper that brings two people together, and allows them to work together for the greater good of themselves and all else, gets stuck and snagged in several places.
To solve this frustrating problem, that same ol' knife of separation offers itself again to cut, once and for all, the ties that bond us communally. The knife wielder's sharpness and swiftness of action slices away the principle thing which is awareness of the sensible thing - the necessity to repair the problem with unifying values, especially the welding iron of wisdom. (The reason this knife works so well to separate people is because it has already weakened the connection within individuals that unifies the four aspects of mind, spirit, body and emotion.) This has been accomplished by interfering with nutritional factors. It has nothing to do with cleverness and everything to do with deceptiveness due to spiritual weakness which then weakens the other three aspects of self.
Finding Lost Nutritional Values
Falling apart can be traced to a lack of many things such as intuition, wisdom, female elders, male elders, remembrance of ancestors, connection to our natural world family, historical context, nutrition, awareness of truth, self-study, good habits and other basics that contribute to knowledge of self. Finding lost values is as easy as replacing what we lack on this list. Finding lost values is as hard as lacking the will to go through the processes.
Just Say “No More” To Mis-Education
If our communal family is not self-determined/governed, we will encounter tons of information from different worldviews that is likely to go against communal values. This information will come from legally required school curricula, churches, media, entertainment, government, social customs, practices, traditions and from anyone who swallows along. We will be forced to cooperate with unhealthy values and abandon healthy values or else be subject to penalties for not drinking the juice that corrodes the insides of communal bodies.
In summary, whatever is not based on our communal values or does not blend harmoniously with them will work against us and work to separate us from our values, our family and ME. This is the mis-education Ancestor Dr. Carter Goodwin Woodson warned us about.
Related Proverbs:
It is unwise to expect unity, yet agree to disagree on core values.
Follow no one's advice unless you also follow their values. Fully consider the advice of anyone who shows love for you by their repeated actions and treats you as family.
Related Quotes:
Illusion expects things to get better without applying resources towards the process to get better.
Read Part 8k - Definition | Mis-Education Discombobulation And So Continues The Meaning Of Life & Existence (Part 8k) Notes: (1) Achebe, Chinua, Things Fall Apart, (Alfred A Knopf, Inc., New York, Toronto 1992), Seventh Printing, p. 152.