Canter Bridge

The writer of the Hebrews has pain in good perspective. He does not counsel the avoidance of pain but rather that strategic embrace of learning’s good pain that produces enduring character.

Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

It is one of life’s most simple truths, its least welcome, and its most productive. ‘No pain, no gain’, the Greeks reminded themselves. This also was near to hand:

to chalepon to kalon

The difficult thing is the good thing.

Rarely does one stumble upon counsel so accessible, if one will endure its short-lived fury. Rarely is the path to wisdom’s orchard so clearly marked out.

Seldom is ‘the peaceful fruit of righteousness’ guarded so effectively by learning’s good pain, a gauntlet few will run.