“How can you hope to make the imperfect things perfect, unless you keep before your eyes the vision of God, who is perfection? The prayer that is only against evil destroys itself. If you look at nothing but sorrow and sin, your heart may be at first full of love and pity, but presently anger — righteous perhaps, but still anger — will enter and begin to crowd out love; and then despair will come and deaden pity, and at last will even smother righteous anger. and then there will be silence for the heart that is filled with despair cannot pray.

It is not enough to know that the world is full of evil, we must also know that God is good.”

Florence Converse, The House of Prayer (meditation from the Celtic Book of Daily Prayer)