How do we pray for healing, for some cleansing of this evil in ourselves? Many spiritual traditons suggest that evil springs most swiftly from a heart that has been hardened. . . . A hardened heart denies the suffering it causes. It will not apprehend the consequences of what it has done. This refusal to acknowledge the fruits of our actions becomes the seed of evil. Therefore, when we pray Deliver us from evil, we must honestly and courageously name the evils we have chosen to nourish in our own lives and our own communities. Only then can we honorably claim to plant seeds of heaven in the soil of the earth.
— Wayne Muller, Learning to Pray