About the Book
"The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday is a self-help book that explores the teachings of Stoicism to help individuals overcome obstacles and challenges in life. The author argues that obstacles are opportunities for growth and provides practical advice on how to develop resilience, adaptability, and a positive mindset to tackle adversity effectively. Through real-life examples and historical anecdotes, Holiday demonstrates how embracing obstacles can lead to personal transformation and success.
Hannah More
Beyond any doubt, Hannah More was the most influential female member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. She was educated at Bristol, an important slave-trading town, and began to publish her writing in the 1760s, while she was still a teenager. Her first play, The Inflexible Captive, was staged at Bath in 1775. Later in the 1770s, and for much of the 1780s, she spent time in London and made the acquaintance of many important political and society figures, including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Elizabeth Montagu. Her play Percy was produced by David Garrick in 1777, and Fatal Falsehood was staged in 1779, but she came to regard the theatre as morally wrong, especially after the death of her mentors; Garrick and Johnson. She turned to religious writing, beginning with her Sacred Dramas in 1782. In 1784-5, she 'discovered' Ann Yearsley, the so-called 'poetical milkmaid of Bristol', whose poems More helped to publish, although the two later fell out.
In the 1780s, More widened her circle to include religious and philanthropic figures, including John Newton, Beilby Porteus and William Wilberforce. In the summer of 1786, she spent time with Sir Charles and Lady Margaret Middleton at the their home in Teston in Kent. Among their guests were the local vicar James Ramsay and a young Thomas Clarkson, both of whom were central to the early abolition campaign. More and Clarkson met again in Bristol in 1787, while he was on his fact-finding mission to the city, but they did not become close. However, in the same year More met Wilberforce, and their friendship was to become a deep and lasting one. More contributed much to the running of the newly-founded Abolition Society including, in February 1788, her publication of Slavery, a Poem which has been recognised as one of the more important slavery poems of the abolition period. Her relationship with members of the society, especially Wilberforce, was close. For example, she spent the summer of 1789 holidaying with Wilberforce in the Peak District - planning for the abolition campaign, at that time at its height, formed a great deal of their conversation.
By the mid-1790s, More had become closely involved with the 'Clapham Sect' of evangelical Christians, many of whom were involved in the abolition campaign. The group centred on Henry Thornton's home in Clapham and included Wilberforce, James Stephen, and Zachary Macaulay, among others. Throughout the 1790s, she wrote a number of religious tracts, known as the Cheap Repository Tracts, that eventually led to the formation of the Religious Tracts Society. Several of the Tracts oppose slavery and the slave trade, in particular, the poem The Sorrows of Yamba; or, The Negro Woman's Lamentation, which appeared in November 1795 and which was co-authored with Eaglesfield Smith. However, the tracts have also been noted for their encouragement of social quietism in an age of revolution. She continued to oppose slavery throughout her life, but at the time of the Abolition Bill of 1807, her health did not permit her to take as active a role in the movement as she had done in the late 1780s, although she maintained a correspondence with Wilberforce and others. In her later life, she dedicated much time to religious writing. Nevertheless, her most popular work was a novel, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, which appeared in two volumes in 1809 (and which ran to nine editions in 1809 alone). In the 1820s she grew gradually less well, and decreased - but did not entirely halt - the amount of writing she produced. On her death in 1833, she left more than ĂÂŁ30,000 to charities and religious societies (equivalent to about ĂÂŁ2,000,000 or $3,000,000 in 2004).
© Brycchan Carey 2004
âobedience will make you miserableâ - the tired lie satan loves to tell
There are at least two ways to please the devil when it comes to the pursuit of holiness. The first way, of course, is to run from holiness altogether â to flee, with the prodigal, to the far country of this world, away from the Fatherâs home (Luke 15:11â13). The second way, perhaps even more dangerous than the first, is to pursue holiness (or what we imagine holiness to be), and yet not be happy about it. We may call this second way older-brother Christianity. Like the elder son in Jesusâs parable, such people follow the Fatherâs rules with a sigh (Luke 15:29). Their holiness is all pursed lips and sober glances. âSuch is the cost of righteousness,â they remind themselves. âWe must relinquish pleasure on the path to heaven, you know. Holiness, not happiness, is the true good.â âWhat virtue!â some may exclaim. âWhat uprightness! What self-denial!â What a sham.  Older brothers, for all their outward purity, are still in the grip of the serpentâs ancient lie. They have been deceived, along with our first parents, to live in a world of the devilâs own making: a world where our Father wears a frown, where heaven has no laughter, and where holiness is ultimately a sacrifice. As long as we live in such a world, we will miss the feast that our Father has prepared (Luke 15:22â28). If we want to rid ourselves of older-brother instincts, and pursue holiness in a way that shames the devil, we would do well to return to the garden and listen again to that first lie. Song of the Morning Stars When the serpent approached Adam and Eve in the garden, he knew that only a lie could put the forbidden fruit into their hands. Only a lie could somehow convince them that they were the slaves of a stingy God. Only a lie could do the trick because reality, as always, was not on Satanâs side. For when God first breathed the oceans into being, and lit the stars like candles, and filled mountain fields with wildflowers, no sigh could be heard in all heaven and earth. Rather, all creation joined to praise their glorious Maker. From heavenâs lofty balconies, the morning stars raised their song, the sons of God shouted for joy, and Wisdom delighted in Godâs handiwork (Job 38:7; Proverbs 8:30â31). From âLet there be lightâ onward, the heavens have declared his glory (Psalm 19:1). And how shall we hear their declaration? As an apathetic exhale? As a monotonous lecture? As a distracted recitation? No, as the very pitch of delight: âYou make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joyâ (Psalm 65:8). Adam and Eve, upon hearing the melody of creation, could not help but join the song. As they gazed across Godâs handiwork, they trusted the goodness of their Father. They admired the beauty of their Creator. They enjoyed the fellowship of their Friend. They obeyed the counsel of their King. They had no higher happiness. Life in the Serpentâs World No, the devil knew Adam and Eve would never eat the fruit as long as they worshiped the glorious God in his marvelous world. So what did he do? He invited the couple to imagine a different world and a different god. He shuttered their eyes to sunsets and tulips, blocked their ears to the chirping of the robins, and calloused their skin to spring breezes. In short, he shrunk creation to the size of an apple, and gave them eyes for Edenâs only âNo.â In the world of the serpent, the morning stars sing a dirge, the hosts of heaven murmur, and creation only groans beneath the dictatorship of the Almighty Ruler. In such a world, Adam and Eve had only two options. They could, like the prodigal, disobey their God and run from their Fatherâs garden. Or they could, like the older brother, sacrifice their pleasure on the noble altar of obedience. âEither rebel and be happy â or obey and be miserable.â This was the serpentâs offer (Genesis 3:4â5). Adam and Eve took the fruit and fled into the far country. Many today do the same. Many others, however, refuse the fruit â but only on the serpentâs terms. Like older brothers, we aim to keep our Fatherâs rules. We do so, however, not because his rules are satisfying, but only because theyâre right; not because holiness is glorious, but only because itâs obedient; not because fellowship with God is happifying (as Jonathan Edwards used to say), but just because he says so. Which brother we become matters little to the devil. As long as we live within his world â a world where the gifts are scarce and the God is stingy â he is happy whether we rebel or âobey.â As long as we cease to hear and sing creationâs song of praise, the serpent is pleased. Deeper Than Self-Denial If humanityâs first sin arose when we believed the serpentâs lie, then our repentance must go deeper than rule-keeping or self-denial. After all, some of this worldâs most marvelous rule-keepers are still tenants in the serpentâs world. No, our repentance requires more: we must break free from his spell altogether, and return to the real God in the real world. We must bend our ears upward once again to hear the heavens sing, âGlory!â We must feel again that heaven and earth, though fallen now, still pulse with Godâs pleasure (Psalm 104:31). We must wade again in this delicious stream called creation, remembering that God himself is the fountain (James 1:17). In other words, we must step past the ancient lie and believe once again that God created us to be happy in him. As soon as we âtaste and see that the Lord is goodâ (Psalm 34:8), and that he himself is our âexceeding joyâ (Psalm 43:4), everything about our pursuit of holiness will change. We will still deny ourselves, practice obedience, and kill our sin, to be sure. But we will not dare for a moment to think that we are exchanging happiness for holiness. We will trade away our sin because we have seen the treasure to be found (Matthew 13:44). We will forsake the lusts of our flesh because, as Jesus promised, âwhoever loses his life for my sake will find itâ (Matthew 16:25). And even when we must sacrifice something precious to follow Christ, we trust that we will âreceive a hundredfold now in this time . . . and in the age to come, eternal lifeâ (Mark 10:30). The Holy Spirit teaches us not only to obey God, but to enjoy him â indeed, to obey him by  enjoying him. He teaches us not only to withstand the devilâs temptations, but as Martin Luther put it, to laugh our adversary to scorn. He teaches us not only to wonder at the mercy of Christ, but to breathe a grand sigh of relief, amazed that joy has been so near at hand all this time. Discipline does not defeat the devil â happiness does. Join the Fatherâs Feast From where we stand now, of course, we can look to more than creation to see the happiness of God, and to nurture our happiness in him. We now have seen wonders that the morning stars could never have imagined. We have seen a God so happy that he could bear up under a world of sorrows without breaking (Isaiah 53:3). A God who recognized the joy set before him so luminously that he could endure the darkest shame (Hebrews 12:2). A God who runs to meet his prodigal children, too delighted to be dignified (Luke 15:20). A God who even now holds out his own joy to every older brother who will come in from the cold and join the celebration (Luke 15:31â32). Come now, older brother, put up your ear to the door. Can you hear the saintsâ laughter? Can you hear the angelsâ praise? Can you hear the Father singing over his children whoâve returned? Whatever we must forsake to walk inside this door, there is always more ahead of us than what we leave behind. So go ahead: Turn again to that serpent in the darkness, and laugh his bruised head to scorn. And then open up the door, and join your Fatherâs feast.
