God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Desmond Tutu shows each of us how to transform our pain and sorrow into hope and confidence in the future', Nelson Mandela .'I have the highest regard for my good friend Desmond Tutu and admire him for the humane principles he upholds', The Dalai Lama .'God Has a Dream shows us how our personal and global suffering can be transformed into joy and redemption', Jimmy Carter, ex-US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner .'This book is a testimony to the shining spirit and unquenchable faith of Archbishop Tutu. It will inspire your heart', Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart .'Desmond Tutu is full of courage and faith in humanity's capacity for good...always the voice of inspiration', Mo Mowlem, MP --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

I have the highest regard for my good friend Desmond Tutu and admire him for the humane principles he upholds --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

God Has a Dream shows us how our personal and global suffering can be transformed into joy and redemption. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

This book is a testimony to the shining spirit and unquenchable faith of Archbishop Tutu. It will inspire your heart. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Desmond Tutu's bestselling inspirational book for a general audience, now available in paperback --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu share his wise, heartfelt and even humorous words with you in his own captivating voice in this unabridged version of Tutu's 2004 book 'God Has a Dream'. Reaching out to listeners of all religious backgrounds, Desmond Tutu shows us how to transform suffering into joy both in our lives and in our world. He tells us that God dreams of a world where laughter, love, and peace reign, and where we realise that we are all members of one family -- God's family. In this extremely personal and liberating message, Father Tutu helps us "see with the eyes of the heart" and cultivate the qualities of forgiveness, humility, generosity, and courage that we need to realise God's Dream personally and globally. This unabridged version is read by Desmond Tutu. Approximate running time: 270 minutes.

This thoughtful and deeply positive work is the Archbishop’s first inspirational book for a general audience. Born from his own experience of the transforming quality of love, it is his very personal and liberating message of light in dark times.

Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu has long been admired throughout the world for the heroism and grace he displayed while encouraging countless South Africans in their struggle for human rights. In God Has A Dream, his most soul-searching book to date, he shares the spiritual message that guided him through these troubled times. Drawing on personal and historical examples, the Archbishop reaches out to readers of all backgrounds, showing how individual and global suffering is, and can be, transformed into joy and redemption.

Echoing the words of Martin Luther King, Tutu writes, ‘God says to you, I have a dream. Please help me to realise it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, whose war and hostility, greed and harsh competitiveness, alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts.’ And, with his characteristic humour, Tutu shows in practical ways how this can be done: by cultivating in ourselves the qualities of love, forgiveness, humility, generosity and courage that we all need in order to change ourselves and our world.

In God Has A Dream, Tutu underlines how important it is that, even as we face the harsh realities of our individual lives and global conditions, we remember the importance of hope and dreams – for it is on hope and dreams that a better future will be built, and on which God’s dream for us will be fulfilled. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Desmond Tutu, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, retired as Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, in 1996. President Nelson Mandela then named him as Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the organisation charged with bringing to light the atrocities of apartheid in South Africa and achieving reconciliation with former oppressors. He is active as a lecturer throughout the world.

INTRODUCTION
Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness, we all come at times to despair, and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in our world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that this suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now-in our personal lives and in our lives as nations, globally. The most unlikely person, the most improbable situation-these are all "transfigurable"- they can be turned into their glorious opposites. Indeed, God is transforming the world now-through us-because God loves us.

This is not wishful thinking or groundless belief. It is my deep conviction, based on my reading of the Bible and of history. It is borne out not only by my experience in South Africa but also by many other visits to countries suffering oppression or in conflict. Our world is in the grips of a transformation that continues forward and backward in ways that lead to despair at times but ultimately redemption. While I write as a Christian, this transformation can be recognized and experienced by anyone, regardless of your faith and religion, and even if you practice no religion at all.

Some will say that this view is "optimistic," but I am not an optimist. Optimism relies on appearances and very quickly turns into pessimism when the appearances change. I see myself as a realist, and the vision of hope I want to offer you in this book is based on reality-the reality I have seen and lived. It is a reality that may not always seem obvious because many of the things God does are strange, or at least they seem strange to us, with our limited perspectives and our limited understanding. Yes, there is considerable evil in the world, and we mustn't be starry-eyed and pretend that isn't so. But that isn't the last word; that isn't even the most important part of the picture in God's world.

This book is a cumulative expression of my life's work, and many of the ideas and beliefs presented here have been developed and delivered in earlier sermons, speeches, and writings. For those who have followed my work, there will be much that is familiar. This is inevitable since, while my thinking has evolved, my core beliefs have remained the same over the years. With the help of my friend and collaborator Doug Abrams, I have tried to offer my understanding of what I have learned from the marvelous life with which I have been gifted and the extraordinary people I have met along the way. It is their faith and their courage that give me so much hope in the nobility of the human spirit. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.