In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

The leaders that the world admires seem almost all to be people who haven't had things quite so smooth or easy in their lives.

We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family.

God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

Forgiveness is something that we are often asked to grant and very few of us ever have the roadmap of how to get from the pain that we have experienced to being able to forgive someone.

We are going to have to be very careful that we give people the hope that freedom is actually better than unfreedom.

Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.