just 27 years of abuse . . . .

Nelson Mandela was a lawyer who did what I would want a good lawyer to do...fight for freedom 

and equality. For this he was sent to prison where he was abused emotionally and physically for

27 years, and he did draw from his soul all the poison accumulated by that unjust punishment.

Political transformation in S. Africa was enabled by his personal capacity to purge any poison

of hatred or revenge from his soul, to rise above bitterness, and cause reconciliation between

opposing forces and achieve freedom and equality for so many.How did he do that?

 

Seamus Heaney wrote . . 

 

"Human beings suffer.

They torture one another.

They get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

Can fully right a wrong

Inflicted and endured.

 

History say, Don't hope

On this side of the grave,

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope an history rhyme.

 

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side fo revenge.

Believe that a farther shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

And cures and healing wells.

 

If there's fire on the mountain

And lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing

The outcry and the birth-cry

Of new life at its term.

 

It means once in a lifetime

That justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme."