Between Monster and Saint

It is a harsh world, indescribably cruel.

It is a gentle world, unbelievably beautiful.

It is a world that can make us bitter, hateful, rabid, destroyers of joy.

It is a world that can draw forth tenderness from us, as we lean towards one another over broken gates.

It is a world of monsters and saints, a mutilated world, but it is the only one we have been given.

We should let it shock us not into hatred or anxiety but into unconditional love.

- Richard Holloway: ‘Between the Monster and the Saint’

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