Shapes loom out of the darkness, uncertain and unclear: but the hooded stranger on horseback emerging from the mist need not be assumed to be the bearer of ill…

The night is large and full of wonders…*
(Lord Dunsany)

We all are haunted by something deep inside us, and often, a lot of our best work is the result of us trying to come to terms with this.

So what began life as a negative, over time became our greatest creative asset.  If that’s not a primary form of spiritual redemption, I don’t know what is.**
(Hugh Macleod)

Don’t write that person off.  There’s more to them than meets your eye, than meets their own eye.

We all get things wrong, make mistakes, but some of the most valuable things in life can be found among the most difficult experiences, even when we get things horribly wrong:

“The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.”^

Too soon do we give up on others, give up on ourselves.

It’s a grace thing.

Grace isn’t some magical, pixie-dust thing.  Basically it’s a realisation that there’s nothing to stop us from keeping going: the universe and God aren’t going to get in our way.   No matter what has happened, we can begin again, a kindness we make available to ourselves and to others.

There is more.

(*Lord Dunsany, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)
(**From gapingvoid’s blog: Spiritual redemption.)
(^Seneca, quoted in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)