Every week when we would recite the damn prayer, it grooved deeper into my conscience. I was too young to understand the minister's sermons about bonno—the inherent foolishness of human nature.

I didn't realize that the operative word in the prayer was "try." We were being asked to try to be good, in the knowledge that sometimes we fail.

We humans were allowed to be fallible— imperfect and inconsistent. After all, if we were perfect, why would we need God?

From Miss Goody-Good Grows Up