Mercy Me

Bernice King once hated white men.?

As the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King, who was assassinated by a white man, this sentiment was understandable, even though she was raised in a family that preach love in the face of hatred. What turned?Ms. King, now the head of the King Center in Atlanta,?was a simple hug. In the middle of an interview she was giving years ago about the loss of her father, a white man asked if he could give her a hug. King said that the man’s hug was so genuine, it broke the sense of hatred she harbored for so long.?

Quoting her father, Ms. King, a minister, said “There’s good in the worst of us, and bad in the best of us.” Recognizing this truism opens the door to mercy.?

Our culture regards mercy as a sign of weakness, and as a result, we end up shoring up the walls around us from which we can lob insults at those with whom we disagree. Social media, so much of it being truly "anti-social," only makes it easier to act viciously and vindictively and so often anonymously.

We need mercy. An attribute of grace, mercy enables us to act with kindness in the face of transgression against us. Mercy opens the door to forgiveness because it is rooted in the understanding that man by nature is flawed—none of us is without fault. Mercy permits us to open our hearts.?

Employing mercy

Mercy is a virtue, and as such, is not something to be conjured by as a recipe. Mercy is a practice of better living for a better us and a better self. Thinking of mercy naturally raises the issue of how to act on it. Here are some suggestions.

Act with respect toward others.?View others with an open heart. Give them the benefit of the doubt before drawing conclusions.

Demonstrate compassion.?Look to act for the good of others rather than the bad. We all make mistakes. Rather than pounce when you find an error, even a big one, is not to shame but to educate them. Better to teach than to ridicule. And the way to educate is by your example.?

Resolve to do better the next time. No matter how well-intended we may be, there will be times when we slip into bad habits, lashing out at others, showing them no mercy. Realizing such a fault means you recognize that you, too, need understanding. Apologize to those you have wronged and move forward.

Mercy to ourselves

The author?Thomas Merton, a Catholic priest, grounded much of his writing on mercy.?“We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.” In other words, we need to show mercy toward others as a means of understanding ourselves.

The excellent news about mercy is that it was good for us, too. Bernice King,?speaking on CNN, iterated this point. Harboring hate is corrosive to the self; it brings us down. Therefore, you cannot truly show mercy to another without exhibiting it toward yourself. Too often, we feel weak and afraid, and rather than admit it, and we recoil from it. Better to admit it. Doing so is an act of mercy toward self.?

As we contemplate our “new normal,” it is appropriate to shape it with mercy. We have all experienced hardship, even loss. Acknowledging what we had serves as a foundation for what we can regain and do better this time. Let's rebuild with a sense of shared experience as a means of affirming what it means to be human.

First posted on Forbes.com 6/18/2021

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