"I looked well into her face, the cheekbones grown sharp and her hair streaked with wild white hairs. "You are looking at death, my little Gwynn," an… - Kate Horsley

Beauty and perfection do not guarantee grace and fulfillment and are always sacrificed. Life itself seems a ritual of sacrifice, and the world the alter on which plants and animals lay down their own lives for the sustenance of others, and on which we lay our youth, our well-being, our loved ones, and finally our lives. I am an ignorant woman who has sacrificed all of these things but the last, and cannot say for whom or what I perform this unrelenting ritual.

But my unwavering love is now given only to our Lord Jesus Christ, for all those whom I loved that were mortal left me in painful grief. I will also say in the confession of faults that I wanted to box the ears of Sister Aillenn, whose dramas of delicate weakness enrage me, for I was never allowed to be weak though I was small. There is no round light behind my head; God forgive me, I sometimes enjoy rage. Neither do I have the character of the martyr, for I love comfortable places where the rain is not cold and the meals are not meagre.

Self-hatred seems to me an evil thing in itself rather than an antidote to evil. If we practice self-hatred, then the sacrifice we make of ourselves and our lives is not sacred, for it is then a gift of something we hate rather than of something that we have nurtured and loved.