Quote from "Through the Valley of the Kwai"

Our experience of life in death had taught us that the way to life leads through death. To see Jesus was to see in him that love which is the very highest form of life, that love which has sacrifice as the logical end of its action. To see this was to see that the man who hoards up life's powers only to use them for selfish purposes has but one end, that of death--separation from God and others. What we hoard, we lose. What we confine, we kill. To hang on to life, to guard it, to preserve it, is to end up burying it. Each of us must die to the physical life of selfishness, the life controlled by our hates, fears, lusts, and prejudices in order to live in the flesh the life that is of the spirit. This is a basic law which cannot be broken except at great cost.

We were beginning to see in this the purpose that transcends all other purposes and makes them creative and meaningful. We were beginning to understand that as there were no easy ways for God, so there were no easy ways for us. God, we saw, was honoring us by allowing us to share in His labors--aye, in His agony--for the world He loves.

God, in finding us, had enabled us to find our brother.

Ernest Gordon, Through the Valley of the Kwai