Mercy - Small acts of mercy

In his novel, All Hallows’ Eve, Charles Williams has a scene in which a pompous and demanding woman is putting her daughter on the train.

Lady Wallingsford said, “Get in, Betty. You ride first class as far as Laughton, you know.” She added to a porter, “This part is for York?” The porter, having just called out, “Grantham, Doncaster, York,” exercised a glorious self-restraint, and said, Yes, lady.” He spoke perhaps from habit, but here habit was full of all its past and all its patience and its patience was the thunder of the passage of a god dominant, miraculous and yet recurrent. Golden-thighed Endurance, sun-shrouded Justice, were in him and his face was the deep confluence of the City [the New Jerusalem]. He said again, “Yes, lady,” and his voice was echoed in the recesses of the station and thrown out beyond it. It was held in the air and dropped, and some other phrase caught up and held. There was no smallest point in all the place that was not redeemed into beauty and good–except Lady Wallingsford’s eyes . . .

It is a bit overwrought perhaps, but I think he is onto something. If at the heart of everything is an All-merciful Love this might be what we should expect. If we are created to reflect and participate in that Love, every act of affection or mercy, however insignificant it might seem, reverberates with an awesome and eternal significance. In this case the porter’s seemingly small act of patience when he might have responded with some expression of exasperation. But, that small act of patience reverberated spiritually throughout the train station with beauty and goodness.

There are times when the grand gesture is called for – violence, injustice, falsehood to be resisted. But, everyday acts of mercy – patience, gentleness, kindness, peace-making, endurance, courage, forgiveness, forbearance, self-control, the sharp word or gesture withheld, speaking up on behalf of another – these are more important than we might think. Maybe, whether anyone else recognizes it or whether the one doing is even completely aware they have done it, every small act of mercy is celebrated in heaven.

As Gandalf says in The Hobbit Movie

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.

In a world where rancor ricochets all around, maybe part of the Christian vocation is to be “shock-absorbers” practiced in defusing and deescalating. In a world grown callous and snarky, a world where the witty put-down is celebrated, the Christian vocation is to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), with gentleness and revernce (1 Peter 3:15). This is what it means to “walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). We are to be the fragranc of that sacrificial love..

As we have seen before in this series, this sounds nice, but is not easy. Dorothy Day reflected that being patient in little things takes a heroic virtue. In his book on forgiveness, Williams compares a life of patient endurance with the singular act of self-sacrificial martyrdom and suggests the former might actually be harder.

We are told the porter’s heroic act of patience and glorious restraint might have come from habit. By practice, with the Holy Spirit working in us, we can hope that day by day, moment by moment, we might develop the habit of doing our small part to keep the darkness at bay and see the world redeemed into beauty and good.

Here are some others who have said something similar:

Becoming a People of God's Mercy and Delight, Part 1

Becoming a People of God's Mercy and Delight, Part 2

More Mercy and Delight

Bearing with One Another - 8. Only What is Said Kindly is True

Karl Barth

Here are some evocative observations from Karl Barth (1886-1968) in a letter to a man in Switzerland shortly before Barth’s death:

Basel, 26 November 1968

You very kindly sent me your writing along with an accompanying letter. I thank you for this but also have to admit quite openly that I took no pleasure in reading it.

As opposed to what you learned from the other side, I have to say that precisely “in essentials” I am not at one with you and that I do not expect this publication of yours to have any salutary effect.

Why not? Because I do not detect in your work the slightest trace of what is called in holy scripture the peace of God that passes all understanding.

You say many correct things. But what is correct is not always true. Only what is said kindly is true. You do not speak kindly in a single line.

You utter a powerful No on all sides. It is indeed necessary to say No too. But the right No can only be one which derives from and is upheld by an even more powerful Yes. I hear you say only No.

You accuse. That, too, has to be done. But, again, if this is Christian accusation, it has to be enclosed in the promise, in the glad tidings of God’s grace. In you it is naked accusation.

You demand that others repent. Sometimes one must dare to do this. But only he may do so who himself repents and lives in repentance. You preach down from your high horse, righteous among the unrighteous, pure among the impure.

Dear Mr. N. N., I am in my eighty-third year, I am ahead of you by many years along with their experience of life, and I can only say: It cannot be done as you are trying to do it in your book. A Christian should not speak as you do either to his fellow-Christians or to his fellow-men nor should the church speak to the world.

. . . I concede you mean well. But in my serious opinion you must mean well in a better way.

(Karl Barth Letters, 1963-1968, p. 328-329)

This has me wondering (and I do not have the philosophical or theological background to do more than wonder). I wonder: If God is love (1 John 4:8)  and love is kind (1 Corinthians 13:4), might we say with Barth that mere facts, however correct, do not fully participate in the Truth unless they are expressed with kindness and toward loving ends? And unless we are able to do so, can we claim to know what we are talking about? How might the answers to these questions inform our speech to and about one another and, for that matter, the rest of creation?

Sometimes hard truths need to be spoken and correction given. The discipline of doing so kindly will enable us to "mean well in a better way". When we disagree with one another or seek to correct one another, however significant or insignificant the issue, how might we enclose what we say in the promise, in the glad tidings of God’s grace? If we know that promise and have experienced that grace, we are free to offer our perspective – and receive that of the other – with kindness. We will then participate more fully in the Truth.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16)

Next: On Not Bearing False Witness

Previous:

Bearing with One Another When We Disagree

1. Broken Love

2. A Life Worthy of the Calling

3. Grace First and Last

4. Three Movements of Mercy

5. Gathered Together at the Foot of the Cross

6. Free to be Wrong

7. Free to be Vulnerable in Love