“I’m really thankful to have gotten this far,” says Chris, “and I really do enjoy learning all these things. Because it gives me a much better understanding of what we want to be in and what we don’t want to be in, and how it gets done. And this has convinced me that this is the model today at this time I still want to continue to build with, where we are managing real estate. Because again, it causes us to go much deeper than anything we’ve done.”

That depth may be the realization that you can’t necessarily scale human virtue like this, or, rather, the process of virtue formation – virtue honed specifically in the friction between people with pasts. You can provide the space, and some guiding principles for relating to those unlike you, to those who have deep ownership in places of pain and neglect. But beyond that, Life Remodeled’s goal of human transformation is like any other: it’s personalist. Each human ultimately gets humbled and changed by relating to another infinitely unique human being – however encased in structural histories and demographic realities they may be. Each person has to have a reckoning. Garland with Chris, Dwan with his accusers. With each one’s limitations. With one’s pride. With one’s blind spots. With one’s desire for control.

The question is, can catalysts prompt covenants? Can an ecosystem create a new narrative for those needing to atone for and forgive old ones?