"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 hoest 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 adknowlege 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."
(Excerpted from pp22 "Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning)