Welcome to our Sunday Talks, an exclusive series for the patrons of the inspirational living podcast.

Today's talk was edited and adapted from

Happiness Road by Alice Hagen Rice, published in 1942.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break

so that the sea may stand in the sun,

so we must know pain.

But pain is not like joy, an end in itself.

It is often the result of mistakes, conscious or unconscious,

and carries with itself condemnation, regret and remorse.

When a pain is necessary for some desired end,

we can bear it with a degree of resignation.

But the futile pain that deprives us of usefulness, breaks our spirit, and renders us a burden to others, is hard to bear.

Few of us can rise to the heights of St. Paul and glory in our infirmities.

But even to the most sorely afflicted soul, life presents a challenge which can be met triumphantly.

There have always been men and women who have risen above the most terrible handicaps,

and attained a height that could otherwise never have been theirs.

Many of the supreme names in the realm of art alone prove this.

For example, a blind Milton or Handel, a deaf Beethoven.

There are some gurus who claim that right thinking is a guarantee against disease and poverty,

but the absurdity of this is manifest.

Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam offer no immunity from suffering, mental or physical,

nor do their prophets expect us to be free from temptation.

...