The title isn’t an original thought, the original belongs to Jill Carattini who writes for the Ravi Zacharias “Slice of Infinity” newsletter. I’ve been mulling over the nucleous of her September 25th posting since last week and have come to the conclusion that this is the kind of stuff you should share with others.
What I’ve been turning over and under is that mercy, basically is a beautiful thing to see in action; it’s virtuous, noble, pure, it’s great to be a part of. There are other times though when the act of mercy is abhorrent, dastardly, ugly in our eyes. A situation like this can be seen in the “compassionate release” of Lockerbei (Pan Am 103) Bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Magrahi to Libya; I’ll be honest, this is ugly mercy to me. I feel like him escaping a murderers lonely demise in a Scottish cell for a hero’s welcome in Libya, even if only for a few days, makes for ugly justice. But it is mercy none the less and this is what troubles me. Jill Carattini writes, “Mercy is far less beautiful when its recipients mar the pictures.” Often my infrequent acts of mercy are only during phases of controlled benignment, never when the benefactor is, in my eyes, marred; consistency zero, the virtue evades me.
I think of my Lord’s mercy towards me, a murderer in my own right, and the voice that says “judge not lest ye be judged”. I’m silenced, what to think…
