The quality of mercy is not strained

The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

–Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

In late grammar school, we played a game called “mercy.” This involved two children, the combatants. The combatants would join hands: left-to-left, right-to-right. When they said, “go,” the goal was to twist and turn and torture the other to the point where he (and at times, she), said mercy. I was good at this game, not because of any superior strength,–of which I had none–but because I learned that the greatest pain could be inflicted in the smallest, immediate parts: the fingers and hands.

I enjoyed a brief period of lower-school triumph, as I stood up to giants like Ty Passa-Robles, and could extract a “mercy,” after a short, sinister manipulation of the hands. Soon, my trick was discovered, and it simply took another kid, Royal, to clench my hands and throw me around: “MERCY!” and I was done.

And it felt good. Being known for a superior, if subtle, potential to harm others brought a feeling of potency I’d never known outside my home (I was the eldest and mouthiest of three boys, so there was also some childish power-play there). But when you are a small, scrawny blonde kid who’s claim-to-fame is based on a tenuous ability to destroy the fingers of your fellows…it’s kind of like a puppet dynasty. When someone says the “jig’s up,” it’s up, and there’s little you can do about it.

You find yourself, in the end, in need of mercy. I play a few more games, pleaded “mercy” quickly, and was no longer asked to play. My brief tyranny was gone, and I was finally at peace in the obscurity of the handball courts.

Mercy, I’ve learned, is a word with a wide lexical range; this means it is can mean a lot of different things, and depends largely in the context with it was spoken.

• When the mouse before the housecat says “have mercy,” it means: I know you can kill me–in fact it’s nature’s pattern–but I ask that you refrain, for me.
• To the artisan of old, her “mercies” were her goods and ware. Living currency. The latin “merxi” were the merchandise, “the goods,” as it were, of craftspeople.
• The liturgical “give us mercy,” implies that humankind “done wrong,” corporately, and calls upon her creator to refrain from divine justice. This is the mercy of corporate religions including (but not limited to) Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
• And then there’s the mercy of of the everyday. This is the one we forget in America: When you’ve wronged no one and no one has wronged you, you can still be merciful. The best translation, “have mercy,” or as the oracle of Micah puts it, “love mercy,” is simply to be kind. Henry James said there are three things important to human life:

1. be kind

2. be kind

3. be kind

“Lexical range,” can often mean a word is inexact or ill-fitting, or vague, or good for political speeches (read: the people of Libya are ‘in our prayers’). But to invoke real mercy in a time unpressed by family strife, public scrutiny, or the need for unmerited forgiveness. In other words, simple “kindness” is a disruption, especially in modern America. There is a quality of mercy that is not strained: this cuts both ways. It should be freely given; it should also be given when the “time is free.” To be merciful without being asked is to live in a higher economy of grace and peace.

The cat that frees the mouse is merciful; the cat that watches the mice thrive is merciful and blessed. He knows he has a high and holy kibble and needs not torture the mice.

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In the Huffington Post, ethicist Joseph Appel writes, “One of the glaring — yet too often overlooked — failings of contemporary America is that we have become a nation obsessed with justice and retribution” (posted plenty on my lovers’ quarrel with the term “justice.” Appel adds,

We have come to believe, in the most pernicious way, that people should get what they deserve. What a sea change it might be in our public discourse and our civic life if we focused instead upon mercy and forgiveness. A merciful and forgiving culture might find itself with less anger, less social disruption, and even less crime.

I just learned that student debt is over 829 billion dollars; it has just surpassed revolving credit debt (826 billion dollars)². That’s nearing a thousand-billion. There are stories of the rich uncle who pays the loan of his nephew so he can “get on his feet.” I wonder what would happen in North America, if there was mass “mercy.” “Mass clemency,” as Appel puts it, implies that sometimes people don’t necessarily get what they deserve, and that we all are, are part of a story of a higher, better, reformed economy.

All I want for Christmas, like Appel, is mass clemency. Think about the resounding freedom of the youth, and the subsequent psychological weight of debt. Think about the “sweetness and lightness” of a culture where students were free to pursue labor that contributes to cultural renewal and social justice–think about the freedom of “more than just okay.” I can’t even imagine an “America of more than just okay,” but I can dream it. And the dream alone prompts the living giddiness that a new social order, could be, may-be, possible.

As a student who has, with the help of the government and family, paid six figures for his education, this makes no difference. My “no fair” is a thing of American bad karma that prohibits radical growth. I had the chance to pay, and I have had windfalls of mercy–across the lexical spectrum–that silence any faults with loan forgiveness. Forgive them their loans, just as we’ve been forgiven.

Please forgive us, and start with the students.

Deliver us from evil, Mr Obama and all beneath,–we’ll call it a merci beaucoup d’etat.

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For more on the economy of mercy, read Chase Night’s  Nine Truths and One Lie.

Oh, and  ing is caring.