South Africa, so utterly improbably, is a beacon of hope in a dark and troubled world.

When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal.

It is by standing up for the rights of girls and women that we truly measure up as men.

Forgiveness is the grace by which you enable the other person to get up and get up with dignity, to begin anew.

God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.

But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.