Yet humane impulses live beside complications. When spiritual ideals set the bar, those who faltered could feel excluded. “Better” risked becoming a quiet hierarchy: the visibly devout admired, the quietly struggling judged. The danger lay not in the phrase itself but in how it was wielded — whether it became a bridge or a barricade. Compassion required that the community remember mercy as a corollary to moral aspiration: to hold people accountable without turning their failures into exile.