Here’s a reflection from my latest book Seize the Day, a reprinted version of which is now available. It explores an issue that has taxed the minds of believers across the centuries and troubled many: that of how to reconcile suffering with a God of love. There are most definitely no easy answers to this, but it seems to me that, in a very real sense, the price of joy must necessarily be sorrow, and of pleasure, pain.
If you would gather roses
For every joy there is a price to be paid.
Egyptian proverb
Joy and sorrow sleep in the same bed.
Czech proverb
The bridge between joy and sorrow is not long.
German proverb
If you would gather roses,
remember that you will also encounter thorns,
the one going with the other:
pleasure …
and pain;
beauty …
and ugliness;
joy …
and sorrow.
They are not opposites,
but two facets of the one reality,
there being no laughter without tears,
no happiness without sorrow.
We may wish it were different –
that good times could continue for ever,
no shadow being cast by the sun –
but, if it were so,
they would soon tarnish,
the lustre fade,
familiarity breed contempt.
It is the way things are,
the way they have always been –
the value of a thing being measured by its scarcity,
its transience,
or by the knowledge it may be plucked at any moment from our grasp.
So gather roses,
delight in their fragrance,
exult in their loveliness,
but when the thorn pricks you,
or the flower fades,
do not be downcast,
for that is the price of such moments,
and without loss there would also be no gain.