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broken heart, disdain, his mercy endures forever, Joan Chittister, justice, legalism, merciful, mercy, openness, pity, psalm 136, rejection, show mercy, The Monastic Way, The Sign of Jonas, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, understanding
This morning as I read Psalm 136, I recalled that I used to find it tedious in its repetition (every other line!) of the refrain, God’s mercy endures forever. In speaking of God’s action for the Israelites, it can become a singsong recording of their history: God led them through the wilderness, for his mercy endures forever; and made their land a heritage, for his mercy endures forever…and freed us from our foes, for his mercy endures forever… It was easy in our communal prayer to lose consciousness of the meaning of what we were saying (sometimes not really praying). It was when I first heard the definition of mercy as “fierce bonding love” rather than God’s willingness to “take pity on us” that my sense of what was happening in that psalm began to take on the deeper meaning of a real and lasting relationship with a beloved people.
That reminder was enhanced by a serendipitous discovery of the January 2008 issue of The Monastic Way that I found stuck in a book next to my chair this morning. I hadn’t intended to talk about mercy this morning – desiring something that would match the intensity of feeling in our country in the wake of the hateful demonstrations of the week. When I saw Joan Chittister’s monthly reflection pamphlet, however, I knew it was the perfect theme. If we are to become a mirror of God’s work in the world, we cannot ignore the quality of mercy. Some of Sister Chittister’s daily thoughts were the following:
- We pray for mercy; we expect mercy. What we find difficult to do is to be merciful to those in need of it. Or as George Eliot says, “We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.”
- The great spiritual question is not whether or not this person, this situation deserves mercy. It’s about whether or not we ourselves are capable of showing it.
- The major holy-making moment in our own lives may be when we receive the mercy we know we do not deserve. Then, we may never again substitute disdain for understanding, rejection for openness, legalism for justice. “I think perhaps it is a better world,” Helen Waddell writes, “if one has a broken heart. Then one is quick to recognize it, elsewhere.”
These “words” deserve some attention, I believe – perhaps even a little soul-searching. In summary, I offer the stated theme of this valuable reflection pamphlet printed on the cover page. It comes from Thomas Merton’s book, The Sign of Jonas, and offers what Joan Chittister calls a definition of God.
I have always overshadowed you with my mercy…Have you had sight of Me, My child? Mercy within mercy within mercy.
Although I know that Sunday is considered the first day of the week, it is Monday that usually calls me to take stock and ready myself for the work that this week will see done or undone when next Sunday rolls around. Today, after two weeks of many full and fruitful days, I am grateful for the opportunity to have this day not only to make a measured plan but also to begin to plod mindfully along, hoping for some level of achievement by the end of the week. I am not naïve enough to think that all will go as planned – that is not the nature of “real life” in my “neck of the woods” – but just making the plan is a good enough start for me right now. Thomas Merton gives me impetus to put my mind and heart into that task this morning with the following reflection.
My mind feels this morning like oil on a frying pan that has heated enough to be jumping around like the Mexican jumping beans of my childhood. The thoughts are going as fast as the ticker tape headlines across the bottom of a television screen and, because of their speed, are gone before I can latch onto their meaning at all! So I open Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours for Thursday and find this description of me:
This morning I found a quote in Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours that I hope to remember as the day progresses. It is in his Wednesday reflections at dusk, so I thought that if I kept it in my heart and consciousness all day, maybe I could say the same as life unfolds and I arrive at evening. It’s a new way to pay attention to the events of the day, a “holy expectation” perhaps – at least worth a try. Here is what he says:
I return to this reflective task from an extraordinary outpouring of care that included not only family solidarity but also the prayer and compassion of two faith communities – one Roman Catholic and one Presbyterian – who embraced us because of their experience of my cousin, Paul, and his wife, Janice. Celebrating Paul’s earthly existence and his entry into new life in God, I was not surprised by welcome in two Christian denominations; I presumed hospitality at such an event. There was something deeper there, however. It seemed, rather than two, we were experiencing one seamless worship service because of the respect, compassion and real love that was palpable throughout the day.
The first time I came out of sleep this morning into a still-dark world where ice crystals were bouncing off my window panes I was reminded of my dentist appointment three days ago. When he greeted me and asked me how I was upon entering the room, I just answered “transient sensitivity.” The hygienist who had just cleaned my teeth (read: picked and prodded) looked quizzical but the doc nodded and said, “Ahh, your sinuses…”
As we prepare to end the extraordinary experience that has been our Visionary Seeing Wisdom School at noon today, I am grateful for the level of participation and the quality of the silence that has guided us through these days. The sharing has been deep and meaningful, allowing us to go beneath our words and actions in ways that give new insight and enthusiasm for our spiritual lives. What it feels like to me seems akin to what Thomas Merton offered me this morning when I read the following:
Although I have never birthed a child I have, in my years of teaching and then ministering in a parish, come to understand the joys and sorrows of motherhood. I have watched mothers love their children through celebratory days in church and school and family life. I have listened to mothers lament behaviors that they did not understand in the lives and loves of their adult children and on occasion I have suffered with them because I loved their children too. Love has a way of breaking us open both in joy and sorrow, taking us out of ourselves to a greater capacity than we could ever imagine in ourselves.