I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.
TUTU DESMONDI wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.
TUTU DESMONDLanguage is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.
TUTU DESMONDA person is a person through other persons.
TUTU DESMONDWe are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.
TUTU DESMONDThere is nothing more difficult than waking someone who is only pretending to be asleep.
TUTU DESMONDForgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering–remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened.
TUTU DESMONDWe need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.
TUTU DESMONDWhen the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
TUTU DESMONDYou show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.
TUTU DESMONDThere comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream to find out why they’re falling in.
TUTU DESMONDIn the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we’ve done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can’t.
TUTU DESMONDWe are made for loving. If we don’t love, we will be like plants without water.
TUTU DESMONDYou don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
TUTU DESMONDWe are not responsible for what breaks us, but we can be responsible for what puts us back together again. Naming the hurt is how we begin to repair our broken parts.
TUTU DESMONDForgiveness does not relieve someone of responsibility for what they have done. Forgiveness does not erase accountability. It is not about turning a blind eye or even turning the other cheek.
TUTU DESMONDWithin every hopeless situation and every seemingly hopeless person lies the possibility of transformation
TUTU DESMOND