I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi. For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.
Interpretation
Suffering is an inevitable part of life, meant to teach us resilience and endurance.
In this quote, Alan Paton reflects on the nature of suffering as an integral aspect of the human experience, suggesting that even Christ himself endured suffering not merely to alleviate our pain, but to guide us in learning to cope with it. The message emphasizes that suffering is a universal reality and to live a full life, one must learn the art of bearing it gracefully, as it shapes our character and understanding of existence.
In practice
A speaker at a conference on resilience could reference this quote to highlight the importance of learning to cope with life's challenges.
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that's the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he gives too much.
Ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.
One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored.
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?
It is not permissible to add to one's possesions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.
It is day by day that we go forward; today we are as we were yesterday and tomorrow we shall be like ourselves today. So we go on without being aware of it, and this is one of the miracles of Providence that I so love.
The attempt to remove evil from the world by killing a thousand evil - doers, only adds to the evil in the world.
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
And the end of the fight is tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear, "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."
All that happens is that the destruction of human beings - unless they're Americans - is called collateral damage.
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