How as the hurt people we all are, are we not to be harmed and harm others in turn? This is an urgent issue for a world increasingly embroiled in more and more conflicts that are regarded, by those who wage them, as battles of good against evil.

In a passionate yet carefully argued book, Ross Thompson explores how negative reactions of blame, shame and denial turn everyday hurt into damaging harm to ourselves and others, generating destructive mythologies of 'evil.' We need a 'wily innocence,' a tragicomic sense of life, a readiness for remorse and forgiveness, a 'global mindfulness,' and a healing approach to justice. Together these might create a world less anxious, cold, critical and wary; more gracious, graceful, generous and warm.

Wounded Wisdom is both an accessible text and a significant contribution to the dialogue between theology and psychology. The academic discussion is clear and wide-ranging , while the author's own poetry, together with the stories he has uncovered, are unafraid to tap into violent emotion. Readers will be intrigued by his synthesis of Buddhism ('a wave-like approach') and Christianity ('a more focused, particle-like' description). This is a fine exemplar of the burgeoning genre of practical theology - well-informed, personally engaged and committed to Love's lessons, wherever they are found.

Charles Hampton - pastoral psychologist