Here, we might say, echoing Niebuhr, is the irony of personal history: everything I’m able to dream and hope and chase in the future is because of what has been bequeathed to me by those who have preceded me. There is a mystery of inheritance at work here: I am no doubt an heir to dispositions and habits and even pretensions from ancestors I’ve never met. God’s grace enables me to make friends even with my ghosts.
