Quotes about Transformation

Renewing a relationship is a creative act. We make a new relationship. It is possible to build a new relationship regardless of the realities of the old relationship.

There will be no future unless there is peace. There can be no peace unless there is reconciliation. But there can be no reconciliation before there is forgiveness. And there can be no forgiveness unless people repent.

When we stay stuck in the unhappy story of what we have done we deny ourselves the gift of transformation. Learning from our past is not the same as being held hostage by the things we have done. At some stage we must let go of the past and begin again.

The moment for which I had waited so long came and I folded my ballot paper and cast my vote. Wow! I shouted, 'Yippee!' It was giddy stuff. It was like falling in love. The sky looked blue and more beautiful. I saw the people in a new light. They were beautiful, they were transfigured. I too was transfigured. It was dreamlike.

When we can accept both our humanity and the perpetrator's we can write a new story. One in which we are no longer cast as a victim, but a survivor, even perhaps a hero.

The process we embarked on through the TRC was, as all real growth proves to be, astoundingly painful and profoundly beautiful.

The black person entered the booth one person and emerged on the other side a new, transfigured person.

The white person entered the voting booth burdened by the load of guilt for having enjoyed the fruits of oppression and injustice. He emerged as somebody new. He too cried out, "The burden has been lifted from my shoulders, I am free, transfigured, made into a new person." He walked tall, with head held high and shoulders set square and straight. White people found that freedom.

I became an authentic Christian.

I found peace through God but not until I had driven myself to the edge.

When we invite the Spirit to fill us, the Spirit's power grips our lives with this kind of strength and passion.

Surely Paul's moral and spiritual greatness is all the more evident the more he is studied and analyzed. It is sheer irony and miracle that God would select one of the most aggressive opponents of the early Christian movement and make him into its most outstanding leader.