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When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means. As Thomas Merton put it, "A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God."
- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

(photo from a hazy day in Aquiles. They were burning trash over at the dump and I could see the heavy smoke over the neighborhood several miles before I even crossed the border. And even so, again this day we experienced the goodness of God.)