"WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A LITTLE MERCY?" my friend asked. She wasn't asking for mercy but encouraging me to have mercy on myself. I'd just poured out a sob story about my musical disaster that morning while singing a solo in front of a congregation. I'd felt humiliated and foolish, wishing for a button to activate an escape hatch through the floor. So where did mercy fit in? Mercy sounded so old fashioned, so Old Testament, so what people needed a long time ago. Not me, not now.
As a member of a classical choral group, I'd sung hundreds of times the plaintive cry, "Kyrie eleison" (Lord, have mercy), the opening of countless choruses containing the text of the mass. The music was usually fitting for this plea, and to me it often felt like an echo from another era.
"She thinks I need mercy," I told another friend, expecting some understanding that it is indeed a relic. But instead she seconded the need, reciting to me the fifth beatitude: "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." Matt. 5:7. Reluctantly, I thought I should take a fresh look. What was I missing?
