She asks me to kill the spider.
Instead, I get the most
peaceful weapons I can find.

I take a cup and a napkin.
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time, just being alive
and not bothering anyone,

I hope I am greeted 
with the same kind
of mercy.
~Rudy Francisco

Mercy. I have been thinking about mercy over the last days. Perhaps it started when I began to notice that the preacher at the church I attend had used the word multiple times in her sermon on a recent Sunday morning. Mercy. It is a word that doesn’t come up in daily conversation much. Those of us who have hung around churches for a good part of our lives have heard it read, maybe even memorized phrases that contain this five letter word that calls for ‘a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion.’ That is, according to Merriam-Webster.  Many of us were encouraged to memorize from the Hebrew scriptures, Psalm 23, which ends with: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Or from what is known as the Beatitudes, some of the most beautiful phrases ever spoken: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” The texts we name as sacred have the word mercy peppered throughout its many pages. 

Yet, we don’t say it very often these days. Oh, I can still remember my Mother’s voice from another room saying, “Mercy me!” It was mostly used as a sigh of exasperation or frustration. Something had not gone quite as planned. So a call for mercy was issued. You probably have to be of a certain generation or from a particular part of the country to hear something like this today. 

Coming across this poem by Rudy Francisco titled simply, ‘Mercy’, I began to feel an even deeper desire for mercy for not only that spider but all the people…men, women, children, especially the children, whose lives may be caught in ‘the wrong place at the wrong time’ these days. And it has become more and more difficult for many to know what those places, what that time is. Every day we see more and more of our fellow humans being taken to places that strike fear and uncertainty, all while they are mostly just ‘being alive, not bothering anyone.’ Mercy. I wonder for them: Where is mercy to be found? I wonder for us all: How can we offer mercy in the face of all this?

In those familiar words of Psalm 23, words often known by people who do not consider themselves ‘church people’, the writer paints a pastoral picture of a shepherd tending a flock of sheep. These sheep rest in a field that is green, a stream of water running through it. Beautiful. Gentle. The writer urges against fear and evil with an image of being held and cared for, fed from a table extended for all. Comfort. Belonging. And then offers that reminder that surely…surely…mercy will follow… Oh, how I pray for this kind of comfort and beauty, this kind of gentleness and compassion for all these people caught in what seems impossible situations.

Most of us cannot imagine that we would ever see the kinds of acts happening in our country, in our world, that we are seeing now on a daily basis.  We had always thought we were better than this. And I truly believe we are. We were born to hold out mercy to one another…blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. We were doused with the blessing of ‘mercy and goodness’ following us all our days. And so we are called to reach for the most peaceful weapons we can find…a cup, a napkin, a kind word, a phone call, a letter written, a sign held in protest, voices raised and feet planted in resistance, prayer upon prayer lifted as we breathe together “Mercy…mercy…mercy…”