illuminate network

Extract taken from No future without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu- after discussing the processes of the truth and reconcilliation commission in South Africa, to heal the gash of Apartied.

There may indeed have been moments when God may have regretted creating us. But I am certian There have been many times when God has looked and seen all these wonderful people who have shone in the dark night of evil and torture and abuses and suffering; shone as they have demonstrated their nobility of spirit, their magnaminity as they have been ready to forgive,and so they have dispelled the murkiness and fresh air has blown into the situation to transfigure it. It has filled people with new hope that despair, darkness, anger, and resentment and hatred would not have the last word. There is hope that a new situation could come about when enemies might become friends again, when the dehumanised perpetrator might be helped to recover his lost humanity. This is not a wild irresponsible dream. It has happened and it is happening and there is hope that nightmares will end, hope seemingly intractable problems will find solutions and that God has some tremendous fellow workers, some outstanding partners out there. Each of us have the capacity for great good, and that is what makes God say it was well worth the risk to bring us into existance. Extraordinalily, God the omnipotent One depends on us, puny, fragile, vulnerable as we may be, to accomplish Gods purposes for Good, for justice, for forgiveness and healing and wholeness. God has no one but us. St Augustine of Hippo has said, "God wothout us will not as we without God cannot." A rustic Russian priest was accosted by a prash young physycst who rehearsed all the reasons for atheism and arrogantly went on, "therefore I do not believe in God." The little preist, not put off at all, replied "Oh, it doesnt matter, God believes in you." God believes in Us. God depends on us to help make this world all that God wants it to be.

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