I don’t think bad things themselves ever fully turn good. But when we approach them with pure intention—when we breathe into them with honesty, care, and purpose—they start to change. They soften. They become something else. Not erased or forgotten, but transformed.
Because this conversation—this question—opens so many doors. Are people born bad? Is evil innate, or does it grow in neglected places, in absence and pain? And if we believe in redemption for prisoners—if we believe someone can be rehabilitated after doing harm—why don’t we extend that same grace elsewhere? Why do we only allow transformation in certain boxes, certain systems, but shame it when it shows up in real life, in messy, unsupervised, human ways?
I think it’s because pure intention scares people. It’s not easy to measure. It’s not always obvious. But it’s there—in the way someone takes accountability, in how they try again, in how they use their wounds to walk differently, to love better.
So no, a bad thing doesn’t just flip and become good. But when met with intention—real, raw, not-for-show intention—it becomes something we can hold. Something we can grow from. Something we don’t have to run from anymore.
That said, not everything is transformable. There are things in this world that are inherently evil—born in darkness, bound to it, and will likely die in it. And no matter how much light we carry, no matter how good or whole or well-intentioned we are, that light alone doesn’t redeem what is rooted in harm. That’s the hard truth. A thing doesn’t turn good just because the person facing it holds more light. Sometimes, light only reveals what was always there in the dark.
And still—
the light stands.
Not to save, but to witness.
Not to fix, but to see.
It stays long enough to name what the dark tried to hide.
It leaves when it must.
And that, too, is sacred.
