Mercy toward the unmerciful

I have a neighbor I've shown mercy on several occasions over the past 3 years. Actually, I should say "we", because it's a family effort.

Her forms of brokenness don't take very long to discover when you talk to her. I could give you the labels, but I think it's enough to tell you she has some long standing problems that have caused some destruction in her life and others.

So very often the compassion we feel toward her makes it easy to extend mercy, even when she destroyed some of property of ours. Other neighbours have been equally or even more kind toward her, being generous toward her and expecting nothing in return.

But I find mercy a much bigger struggle when I see this neighbour who has received mercy from lots of us on the street, turn around and fail to be merciful, fail to even be kind to the rest of the neighbourhood. She's the very first to call the police when someone does something she doesn't like. She picks fights. She goes looking for trouble with the very people who have been kind to her.

She's the kind of person that makes Calvinism start to have a kind of resonance with me. Jonathan Edwards' "sinners in the hand of an angry God" has some appeal to me when I'm trying to wrap my head around people's failure to respond to grace and mercy. At some point I want mercy to stop and people to get what I think they deserve. At some point I think people have had their share of mercy and don't seem to be getting it, so maybe a little hellfire and brimstone will get the message through their thick skulls.

It makes me think of that story in Matthew 18, sometimes titled "the unmerciful servant":

23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

I kind of like this little story - I bristle at the unmerciful servant - I have the same feeling of anger for my unmerciful neighbour...and I take a little hope in the idea that God will stop being mister nice guy and bring out the hammer on people like this.

But there's just one little problem. 

My neighbour isn't the only one who fails to show mercy even after being shown mercy herself. Sometimes even people who blog and write many words about mercy end up being shamefully unmerciful in their daily life! I've been given all this inspiration about mercy, and have come to appreciate the experience of it in my own life...but just like her, I so often fail to extend it to others. 

It turns out that the major difference between my neighbour and I, is that her unmerciful behaviour is more visible. That is, because she's openly causing problems in the neighbourhood, her lack of mercy is on display for us all to see. I, on the other hand, am a much more subtle and diplomatic fellow. I keep my failed mercy well covered under the veneer of civility. Sometimes my lack of mercy is only in my heart, hidden from the world.

Which is why the last bit of this Matthew passage stings me a little. Jesus says I have to forgive from my heart - he knows me well enough to apprehend my polished outward appearances and remind me that I'm not off the hook because I'm covert about my lack of mercy. My heart must actually forgive and be merciful - not because she deserves it, but because I've been given it. 

Her offences against the neighborhood are so small compared to depth and breadth of forgiveness and mercy that God has shown me. So when I think about it, I don't actually want God to get frustrated and implement a statute of limitations on mercy...because I will no doubt run out chances, if I haven't already. 

I don't know exactly how to reconcile Jesus' words at the end of the passage with the rest of his words about the endless and boundless quality of his love. I know that literal interpretation of parables is a little problematic. 

But what I learn about myself is that my attraction to the God of judgement, anger, punishment, and people getting what they deserve is always at its highest when I'm feeling self righteous. And my attraction to this kind of iron-fisted deity seems to evaporate pretty quickly when I'm seeing myself more humbly (realistically). 

Maybe there is a point at which God can no longer tolerate people being unmerciful because they are too destructive, too harmful to others. But I pray that I am not there yet. I hope that my heart never becomes so hardened that I fail to recognize the much bigger mercies I've received. I sense the need to constantly fight my self-righteous tendencies. I sense that I am swimming against the tide of culture telling me that I get what I deserve. Because I don't deserve any of the really important things in life - they are all gifts. And so I'm beginning to see how mercy and gratitude are interrelated. Perhaps to be a people of mercy, we must also cultivate gratitude, and allow ourselves to be reminded of our own cancelled debts, and the mysterious depth of mercy we have been given.

Mercy and Humiliation

God, out of his infinite mercy, made himself equal to us in the incarnation by identifying with the human condition. God makes us equal to him by transforming us into his own unconditional love.

-Fr. Thomas Keating 

Somehow I knew I wasn't done with blogging about mercy. It's following me around apparently.

Keating seems to be suggesting that one way in which God expresses mercy is by making himself equal with us. I suspect some will read that and consider it blasphemy. The idea of God lowering herself to the status of created humans is understandably insulting, and is likely one reason why other religions and sects have rejected this Christian doctrine. But if you think about it, the incarnation is sort of a blasphemous idea if we try to wrap our heads around the idea of Jesus being fully human and fully divine. Even if we consider it a part of our orthodox Christian faith, I think it's still an idea that we resist. 

But if we can tolerate the perceived blasphemy of a God who becomes equal with his own creation, there is perhaps a deeper understanding of mercy to be found. If one way God expresses mercy is by becoming equal with us, perhaps we too must express mercy by becoming equal with others. Maybe one of the biggest barriers we face in extending true mercy (not condescending "help" or pity), is that elevation of our selves above others. Maybe we can distinguish mercy from pity, in recognizing that in mercy we become equals rather than superiors who are nobly refraining from executing our version of justice.

I think I was stumbling around with this idea earlier in blog posts when I was bringing out Father Greg Boyle's idea of embracing kinship. In kinship we are reminding ourselves that not only do we belong to each other, but that we are equals in the human family. 

So mercy requires us to humble ourselves. It requires a certain "humiliation" of our egos if you will. 

Developing this concept, Fr. Keating says:

"The most productive effort is to accept the endless humiliations of the false self. The spiritual journey is not a career, but a succession of “diminutions of self,” as Teilhard de Chardin put it. This has nothing to do with the neurosis of a low self-image. It is simply the fact that we are completely dependent on the love of God. We are always in the arms of the beloved, whatever we may feel or think." (Contemplative Outreach, December 2015)

It seems to me that unlike God we don't become equals, we actually just learn to recognize that we already are equals with the rest of humanity. After our false and elevated selves have been broken down, we recognize ourselves as being just like everyone else - completely dependent on the love of God. 

So today I'm confronted with this profound mystery that God, and the people I look down on, and the people I think are better than me, are all in some respect equal to me through our shared humanity. I'm not suggesting the equality means we are all identical or even the same. I recognize that God maintains a superiority over me in some certain aspects because she is also divine. And just because I'm equal in my dependence on God's love doesn't mean I'm the exact same as ISIS or Desmond Tutu. But in so far as I am equal to all of these, I become more capable of mercy. 

As a person in a helping role this seems rather crucial to me. Professional health care can easily take on a dynamic of the helper being elevated and/or looking down on those seeking help. But as we tap into the flow of mercy we are changed into people who care for others out of equality rather than  responding to weakness from a place of superiority. 

God, help us all to see who we really are. Give us the courage to consent to having our false selves stripped away so we can recognize our equality with you and all humanity. Help us to receive your mercy and be changed by it so that we can extend mercy to others. 

Clinging to fragile things

Life is fragile.

This is both its tragedy and beauty at the same time.

Life seems like a hibiscus flower to me. Unfolding with astonishing beauty for only a day or two before it withers. It's delicate features so easy damaged by a harsh touch or damaging winds. And it happens so quickly that we can easily miss it - preoccupied as we so often are by unimportant things. But the fact that it is so quickly passing is also what makes it so precious. That it lives only briefly, is part of what makes it so beautiful to begin with. The cold and dismal landscape outside as I write this, makes me appreciate all the more the fleeting exquisiteness of June.

Months back I wrote about my obsession with pictures - with my foolhardy attempts to capture the past and keep it from...well, passing. Since then I've been trying to use photos instead as something to help me reorient myself to the present moment. Rather than yearn for what's passed when I look at them, I remind myself of what's still here in this moment.

That 5 year-old with the electric smile, whose picture is on my desktop reminding me of a happy time at San Diego's famed sunset cliffs. Now she's closer to 6, a lover of school, 3 inches taller, and a little more sassy. But her love, her joy, her laughter are still with me tonight. I can revel in them anytime I choose. Pictures have become something that point me towards revelling in the present moment.

It's so easy when we are confronted with the fragility of life to want to grasp hold, to cling to things so tightly because we fear losing them. That same 5-year old has a tendency to pick up flowers that have fallen and want to bring them home with her. Often in the process of clinging to her treasure she accidentally ruins them. Her attempt to protect and preserve by holding it tight in her hands, leads to crushed and wilted flowers. It's understandable - I cling to things in my own life - and in my attempts to preserve what is beautiful or precious I end up I clinging too tight just like her.

What strikes me now and again is my human tendency to want to cling to, and even worship the created things of this world instead of the Creator. I want to save the short-lived splendour of a flower, which is of course impossible. But that splendour points to something deeper, something eternal and omnipresent. I cannot keep the flower. I cannot preserve my precious and innocent 5 year-old. (Attempts to keep her a permanent 5 year-old would no doubt destroy her) But beauty and joy are experiences that point to the presence of the divine. And God, woven into the fabric of the universe, is not something I need to grasp or cling to, because God is always there. The same God that brings joy and delight through flowers or the blessing of a daughter, is always around me.

If God is love, than whenever I experience love, I also experience God.

There is no need then to grasp onto love from a particular person or in a particular experience, because love can be found wherever and whenever we have "eyes" for it.

Life is fragile and passing, but love is eternal. While the finite and temporal qualities of human existence are both tragic and beautiful, they are only passing reflections of the more eternal and omnipresent qualities of the divine. I want to cling less to God's reflection, and delight more in God herself. Maybe this is the "eternal" life Jesus offer us - that we can experience the eternal reality now if we connect with the presence of God in all the various forms it takes in our lives.

I've been looking for ways to preserve my photos to protect them from the passage of time and decay. And while this is a perfectly fine thing to do, what I realize is that attempts to preserve temporary things is no substitute for regularly bringing my heart and mind back to the eternal life I can encounter in the present moment.

May we all have eyes and ears and hearts that experience God's presence in the forms of love, joy, mercy, grace, beauty....and all the other ways we can experience him.

First World Problems

Over Christmas I was grumbling to myself about not having enough space in my fridge for all the food we had. As I honed my Tetris skills trying to find places for all of it to go and still be able to shut the door without food falling out, I realized I needed a much bigger fridge. Ironically, I have also complained at times that the fridge is too big - we are prone to losing things in it and finding them months later having evolved into life forms too awful to talk about.

Sometimes it's helpful to say these things out loud, so you can hear how ridiculous you're being.

"my fridge is too big" or "I have too much food".

Try saying these things out loud while watching a news report about people fleeing their country and living in refugee camps.

When I'm actually paying attention to the absurdity of my complaints, I'm convicted by how ungrateful I am and how entitled I seem about my life.

Sometimes we use the label "first-world problems" to describe the kinds of ridiculous things many of us get upset about.

Rohinton Mistry, in his astounding tale of life and suffering in India entitled, A Fine Balance, captures it well in this little dialogue:

“I've done lots of jobs. Right now, I'm a hair collector."
"That's good", said Ishvar tentatively. "What do you have to do as a hair-collector?"
"Collect hair."
"And there is money in that?"
"Oh very big business. There is a great demand for hair in foreign countries."
"What do they do with it? Asked Om skeptical." 
"Many different things. Mostly they wear it. Sometimes they paint it in different colors - red, yellow, brown, blue. Foreign women enjoy wearing other people's hair. Men also, especially if they are bald.  
In foreign countries they fear baldness. They are so rich in foreign countries, they can afford to fear all kinds of silly things.” 

Fearing baldness - a "first-world problem" indeed.

It's rare that a line I read in a book sticks with me for years, but that idea about us being so rich we can afford to fear silly things has stayed with me, perhaps one could even say haunted me.

So let me continue to own this (although I know I'm not alone): at times I complain about things of insignificance and even believe I am truly suffering over them.

I close my eyes to the images in the news, and block out my memories of what I saw in the developing world so that I can ignore the kinds of suffering that go on for two-thirds of the world's inhabitants. To be perfectly honest, sometimes I don't really want perspective on my problems - I'd rather complain and feel justified in doing it. I don't think many of us want to perceive ourselves as privileged or even unfairly blessed.

But as I recognize my kinship with all of humanity I'm forced to consider the fact that I might be like Cinderella's older step-sisters - complaining about my dress to wear to the ball while someone else in my family is doing hard labour.

A friend of mine forbids her kids to use the phrase "I'm starving" because she feels it disrespects the suffering of people who are actually starving around the world. It's probably the least we can do.

But here's the other side of the coin with "first world problems"....

...sometimes they do represent true suffering, and we are foolish to quickly dismiss them merely because they do not appear to have the gravity of physical deprivation that much of the world suffers.  I would even argue that when we ignore those true instances of suffering by labeling them as insignificant first world problems, we do a harm not only to ourselves, but to those in developing countries.

Is baldness truly a form of suffering? Obviously not. But it's not just about hair is it? Many people fear baldness because they fear being isolated, rejected, even being unloveable. Our vanity in wealthy nations is so often a product of deeper fears: symbolic, rather than literal dangers. As Mistry points out in this passage, wealth means we can afford to be afraid of silly things.

However, our wealth also creates some of the conditions that make us vulnerable to these symbolic fears in the first place.

We fear abandonment and isolation based on loss of sex appeal because social bonds are weak in countries like ours where individualism has become a dominant ideology. Where families and tribes are no longer the chief organizing principle of social arrangements, connection is now based on the ability to attract social bonds, rather than on the basis of birth into a particular group.

I have no interest in defending my absurd complaints about having too much food in my house. But my contradictory complaints (fridge too small and too big) are a symptom of bigger problems - problems that shouldn't be ignored but rather magnified and addressed. And when we minimize the cultural sickness of living in North American society, we overlook the brokenness of our cultures and remain wounded in ways that I think actually perpetuates our mistreatment of the developing world. If we constantly de-legitimize the problems of loneliness, consumerism, individualism, and lives controlled by technology, because they don't seem as devastating as human-trafficking or lack of access to clean water, we run the risk of missing how wealth and overabundance create their own forms of suffering and brokenness.

I appreciate that we must be careful not to enter into pity for ourselves and equate our suffering with many of those in the developing world. The truth is, suffering cannot be compared. But to write off the problems associated with over-abundance entirely because they're not devastating to human life in the same ways, is also a problem. I think it's a mistake to focus exclusively on the starvation of some in our human family, while ignoring the spiritual illness of our own gluttony.

I do think it's high time we looked carefully at how our overabundance is shaping us and harming us. Not so that we can ignore the problems of those in poverty or make ourselves feel less guilty about our participation in their repression, but so that we can pursue our own healing and restoration for the good of the world. Sometimes we have to fix what's broken in ourselves before we can offer help to others. But before we can fix it, we have to acknowledge that the values and systems we participate in that cause such inequality, are also harming ourselves.

Daily Christmas Pageants

Is there anything more hilarious than a child's Christmas pageant?

The nose picking, the mistakes, the forgotten lines, the improvised props, the enthusiastic children singing off-key at the top of their lungs while having no self-consciousness, the desperate adults trying to stage manage a heard of cats, the children with the dear-in-headlights...

Years ago I went to a church that had a live donkey in their pageant....which was fine, until the orchestra and choirs started in with their anthem, at which point it seems having a trained handler to manage the understandably terrified donkey would have been a wiser decision. I'm sure if I polled my readers you would have equally amusing recollections of well intended but epic failures at these kinds of events.

And who can forget that scene from the movie Love Actually, where the pageant includes children dressed up in lobster costumes arriving at the manger. Which at first seems a bizarre historical inaccuracy, but at second glance reminds us that all of creation would likely have come to this event given the chance.

But beyond their sheer entertainment value - and there is plenty of that no doubt - why do we drag our children into these things?

I think it might have to do with the fact that deep down we know that there is a need for each of us to participate in this story of Christmas. That it's not enough just to read about it, or contemplate it from afar. Really good stories need to be lived.

There's the story of the headstrong child who wanders off to pursue what seems will make them happy, only to find themselves returning to their family having learned the hard way. It may be one of Jesus' great stories he tells, but for most of us at some point we live out this story in our lives.

There's the story of the parent who wants so desperately to protect their child who seems to wander and make bad decisions and can only wait for the day when they return to us, when we too will run to meet them and return them to the family. Many have lived this story too.

And what about all of the stories the scriptures give us of redemption, of being lost and found, of having suffering transformed into something beautiful and good?...These are the kinds of stories we all want to live deep at the core of our being.

As I watched my own children this week in their roles as sheep at a manager scene, this struck me: When we participate in pageants that recreate the Christmas story we are celebrating by putting ourselves, especially our children inside the central story of how God relates to humankind.

God relates to us by becoming one of us.

Sometimes in our familiarity with the story we lose sight of how revolutionary this idea about God joining us really is. In the ancient world gods were distant authorities who needed to be appeased. Even ancient stories about gods taking on human form were never about a god doing so because they loved their creation. This idea that the Jewish god Yahweh decides to come be one of us as the highest expression of love marks a monumental turn in the history of human beings.

So how do we enter into this story - beyond the humorous yet heartwarming low-budget theatrical recreations of the gospel accounts of Christ's birth?

What if metaphorically speaking we viewed our lives as a kind of Christmas pageant - a daily recreation of this story in which we participate and show others the mystery of the incarnation? 

How would our days look different if we lived as people whose lives and world are filled with God all around us? A god who is present and loving, not distant or angry?

You probably even have a jack-ass (donkey?) or two hanging around your scene! Although I suspect you are short an orchestra or any applause even when you forget your lines. But remember this: we are not here to impress the world with our excellence in recreating an historical event. Rather we recreate this story because it is the one in which light breaks through darkness. We recreate this story daily because it brings such joy to the world.


P.S. There is no room in this story for complaining about what Starbucks does or does not put on their coffee cups. The light of the world shines so bright that nobody would even notice what their coffee cups look like. Neither does this story care about whether or not it's competing with Santa Claus outside city hall's light display. It's such a revolution of love it has no need to cling to its own interests or preferences. And it certainly doesn't have any time for jamming down other people's throats the "real reason for the season" because it's too busy recreating in daily practical ways the beautiful mystery of incarnation.

Mercy Part 6- God uses Mercy to save the world

“For some time, I have been saying that Muslim immigration into the United States should be stopped until we can properly vet them or until the war with Islam is over. Donald J. Trump has been criticized by some for saying something similar.” 
- Franklin Graham, December 8, on his Facebook page

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/religion/article48805250.html#storylink=cpy

I think I only have one thing left to say about mercy - although I suspect I have started on a lifelong journey with coming to know and live mercy.

A rabbi I heard recently said something like this:

"If you think about life as a journey, even a small change in the direction you're headed can make an enormous difference over a great distance. Changing your heading by 2 degrees might not seem big in a day or a week, but over a lifetime, brings you to an entirely different destination."

Indeed, it is the small changes, accumulating over time that make an enormous difference in where we end up. I might be tempted to think of mercy in the big and dramatic terms like: how should we in western world respond to the recent terrorist attacks? And while these are good questions to wrestle with, those aren't things I have much control over. On the other hand the seemingly smaller day to day interactions I have with my wife, my kids, my friends, my neighbours, and the people in the community I worship in - these are all opportunities to be tapping into the flow of mercy and practicing in my own life, towards myself and others. How would life be different if I engaged in even one deliberate act of mercy every day for the rest of my life?

How might the world be different if mercy was a practice more of us engaged in on a regular basis?

So in a week when the world is trying to make sense of terrorist attacks, and Franklin Graham (yes, the son of Billy) is one-upping Donald Trump in vitriolic rhetoric about Muslims, here's my audacious suggestion to you all:

I think mercy is one of the things God is using to save the world.

Since mercy is an expression or form of love, I dare to believe that mercy is a force so revolutionary it can and will be the way God rescues and restores shalom in the world.

The violence we see in Syria, Iraq, Paris, and San Bernardino is only a mirror to the violence that lives in all of us and between all of us. Maybe I'm not the only one that cringes to hear Jesus say that if we have lusted or been angry then in our hearts we are the same as adulterers and murderers. I'll admit it, when I read Franklin Graham writing like a commentator for Fox News, anger, not mercy is my first response. But these words of Jesus about me being just like a murderer are also an opportunity for hope. For if mercy can change us, murders and adulterers that we are, it can certainly change others. We all know names like Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Desmond Tutu and the like because they are our most renown examples of public mercy. But there is an entire world tapping into the flow of mercy. Partners in marriage who have been wounded by each other. Parents who have lost children to senseless accidents forgiving the perpetrators.  Communities opening their doors to refugees and sharing their resources in spite of their fears.

God give us the strength to engage in the practices of mercy in small ways on a daily basis. Help us to join You in using mercy and love to change our stories, and to change the course of human history.

Mercy Part 5 - What Mercy is not

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as real strength" -St. Francis de Sales

Some of the great feedback I've been getting about this series on mercy has reminded me it's time to talk about what mercy isn't.

In thinking through the practical implications of mercy in my own life, I'm struck by just how easily mercy can be confused with things like avoidance, passivity, turning a blind eye to injustice and unfairness, and even weakness.

I expect that most of our expressions of mercy will be imperfect at best. While we'd like it to be clean and straightforward, it seems that most expressions of love between humans involve complicated and messy dynamics.

So while I wholeheartedly advocate for the practice of receiving and giving mercy, I'm wary of any approach to mercy that implies a simplistic formula for the practice or posture of mercy.

When I suggest mercy is meeting others at the point of their weakness with gentleness and kindness, some of you will wonder what that looks like when applied to dealing with those particularly chronic and difficult situations that come with commitment and love.

What about that alcoholic family member who's been causing all sorts of hurt and destruction with their behaviour. What does mercy look like when they're drunk, out of money, destroying their families, or failing to acknowledge they even have a problem? Do we ignore it? Do we take care of them? Do we talk about it or not talk about it? Where does "tough" love come into the picture?

Tough questions with no easy answers.

But I think the quote at the opening of this post by St. Francis de Sales, a 17th century Jesuit might help us. He writes, "there is nothing so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as true strength". Interestingly this phrase was re-popularized by a famous preacher of the early radio era named Ralph W. Sockman. Their idea might seem peculiar to us, but only because we mistakenly associate gentleness with weakness. Both Sockman and de Sales present this idea drawing from their observations of God. In Jesus we see a gentleness that brings with it the strength to melt even the hardest of hearts, and a strength expressed with gentleness that many of us find disorienting because it hardly matches what we believe about power and authority.

Here are some things I think that mercy is not:

1. Mercy is not the same thing as endorsing the behaviours of other people that are expressions of their weakness and brokenness. In mercy we meet others with gentleness and kindness, but it's not the same thing as supporting them by pretending that their actions are good or welcome. You might have noticed how in popular culture problematic behaviour is not only endorsed but sometimes made into a kind of virtue. We do this with workaholism. We also do this with shaming and personal attacks. Often we hear people's rude and unkind words justified as "just telling it like it is", or "just keepin' it real". We exchange the unfettered cruelty and shaming so common in public speech and turn it into something that becomes admirable in the form of so called "authenticity". Donald Trump is portrayed as being more authentic than his fellow candidates who are life-long politicians because he speaks his bigotry openly. But in mercy - we encounter the brokenness of a person like Donald Trump not by welcoming his bigotry and dressing it up as refreshing honesty - but instead calling it for what it is. Mercy openly challenges the attitudes and behaviours, without condemning the person or seeking his demise.

2. Mercy is not the same as being a door mat and letting others run all over us. It is not an invitation to the world to abuse us, or a spiritual justification for staying in relationship with those who mistreat us.  This really can be complicated.

Do we suffer because the weakness of others impacts us? Yes.
Do we perhaps suffer most from the brokenness of those we love because we are more vulnerable to their failings? Yes again.
Is it likely that entering into loving relationships will automatically bring us into hurt from the other person? I think so.
Do we cut and run whenever their weakness hurts us? No.
Do we stay in the relationship no matter what they do to us, no matter how they harm us  - as an expression of mercy? No.

When it comes to dealing with the fallout of others' failings there's a difference between being an unintended victim of stray fire versus being the deliberate target of abuse or harm. Mercy is open to healing and reconciliation with those who hurt us - but reconciliation at some point requires that the person who has hurt us must actually change. To say sorry may facilitate forgiveness. But to truly reconcile, the offender must repent (change direction) and engage in a process in which safety and trust can be restored through demonstrating change.

3. Mercy is not the same thing as being passive. Sometimes in the Christian tradition we've engaged in some mirky thinking about mercy and being a servant to others. We've invoked the image of "laying down one's life" as a kind of spiritual justification for being passive: by which I mean living as if only what others want or need matters, and what we want or need doesn't matter at all. The opposite, which is aggression - living as though only what we want or need matters and giving no consideration to others, is not the only option. Assertiveness, the state of acting and being in which both what I need/want matters and what others need/want matters as well. Assertiveness is the middle ground, and likely where we find our posture of mercy most often. The truth is that letting others have their way all the time, is not an expression of mercy or love, because it's simply not good for them to be allowed to mistrust us or others. If we think that putting up with abuse is merciful, we're fooling ourselves. Sometimes we love (express mercy) by refusing to let others harm their souls by being destructive towards us. Martin Luther King captured this when speaking about the civil rights movement: "The festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well as the Negro. We are struggling to save the soul of America". Mercy cares for the soul of perpetrators not by passivity, but by naming injustice and calling for repentance.

4. Mercy is not the same as tolerance. Putting up with others when we're hurt or bothered by them, is really just avoidance. Tolerance often seems like a civilized or enlightened way to be kind, but so often it masks true feelings or needs to avoid confrontation or conflict. Mercy is not conflict avoidant, because kindness and gentleness are not the same as being pleasant or nice.

Mercy is strong. It can be direct and confront things that are wrong. Because mercy belongs within the bigger concept of love, it wants the best for other people. So being merciful doesn't just let people stay where they're at with their weakness - it invites them to restoration and change.

But mercy isn't intolerance either...at least not in the kinds of aggressive ways we're familiar with. Mercy is different from aggression because our in our engagement with the other person we are not turning to hostility, dismissal, or retribution in our approach. Mercy may be very direct in confronting others about their weakness and failure, but it refrains from blaming, putting the other down, demanding compensation, or using the situation to gain some kind of advantage in the relationship. Ironically, when many of us think we're being merciful by ignoring what others have done to us, we wind up expressing our hurt and frustration in more passive-aggressive ways that aren't merciful at all.

5. Being merciful is not the same as choosing to be a martyr for our own cause. Some of us take on a self-imposed martyr role where we deliberately choose to suffer in order to satisfy the wishes and needs of others. There's nothing wrong with self-sacrifice, but I'm not so sure it's mercy if our primary motivation is to create or maintain an image of ourselves as a sacrificing or even victimized person. Sometimes we do this so that others will see us as the kind of saint who gives everything for everyone. And while it may appear we are meeting others in their place of brokenness with a kind of gentleness and desire to serve, it is not the same as mercy because martyr motivations are ultimately making it about how we will maintain an image of ourselves. Mercy is not a way of trying to earn God's favor or dealing with our own guilty feelings.

6. Mercy is not your point of entry to fix other people. We may incarnate God's love and presence to others in the midst of their broken humanity, but we are never the authors of other people's change. Those of us who grew up thinking we had a superior theology and way of life that others need to be compelled to agree with are particularly prone to allowing condescension to pose as mercy in our lives. We can even rationalize contempt by thinking of ourselves as helping others. On this I am an expert because of my own failure to understand how mercy is not imposing my solutions on other people . It is the tragic flaw of so many of us who teach, write, or engage in helping professions. Greg Boyle a lifelong helper to LA's gang members says, “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” Mercy is that posture of awe rather than judgement. So often we help others as an expression of mercy, but it is a help than comes from awe, an awe we achieve by taking God's view of others, rather than our own human judgement.

Okay. This is one of the hardest posts I've tried to write, at least conceptually. I'm sure it's rather full of short-comings, but hopefully others will write back and help us all get a clearer picture of what mercy is and is not. Today may you experience and express that true strength that comes in gentleness.