Redemption Stories

Redemption can result from reaching out when we have many good reasons not to. It can come from forgiving the unforgivable. Redemption is often the result of opening a closed heart -- no matter how justified we have been in shutting it. Redemptions are the hard mental emotional and spiritual reversals in life. The woman who was in my office when this book was conceived said about the difficulty of redemptive work: It s like making a U-turn with your face pressed up against granite. And although redemptive paths often require great exertion the success of that effort is not always in the hands of the one making the effort. I think redemption straddles the border between the territory of the psyche -- where effort and intention are useful and necessary -- and the mysterious dimensions of spirituality from which grace emerges. -- from the Introduction to Redemption Stories: Unwasted Pain