Thursday, September 17, 2009

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy

This week, there has been a significant amount of heartbreak in the larger circle of people where I live. I can't go into details without breaking confidentiality, but some of the heartbreak requires me to be a little bit 'harder-edged' than I am by nature. I watch people I care about fall apart, or lose what they had, or hurt someone, and my own heart yearns for things to be made right. "Fix it, God!" I want to yell. Isn't it justice I yearn for?

Maybe. In dealing with the difficulties, I discovered something hard to swallow. When I am trying hardest to be merciful, sometimes it is experienced as unfair or mean. I offer kindness, and it is received as judgment. I try to help, and it is interpreted in the most negative way. If a wrong throws the scales of justice off balance, then justice is to set them right. But sometimes mercy accomplishes the same balance, the same renewal and restoration.

What if justice and mercy are really the same thing experienced from two different points-of-view? The gavel bangs down and passes sentence on a criminal, and his life is shattered. Maybe it's a mercy to the people who might have been his victims. Perhaps it's even a mercy that he is not free to continue the life he was leading. When someone decides to bear with me instead of holding every mistake against me, that's certainly mercy. But isn't it justice too? If I show mercy, I'm still acknowledging a wrong, trying to re-set the balance that was lost when the wrong was done.

Sometimes when God seems harshest, or hardest-of-hearing - is that mercy but I just can't see it? Is he always offering mercy, even when the judgment seems unfair to me? Like my friend, who receives a merciful offer of healing thinks she is being judged, do I interpret what God sends as harsh judgment, when he is really trying to make me whole?

I do wonder. I believe the world would be better off with more mercy. If the cruel would show more mercy, justice would be done. If the unkind would show more mercy, their victims would be set free. If the perfectionists would show more mercy, they would find their own lives closer to perfection. Balance is restored in either case, isn't it?

I want to think about this some more. In the meantime, I want to be known as merciful, long to live out Micah 6:8. Something to work on, pray for.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Kitty and the Inner Terrier

Go back as far as you can in the genealogy of Dog, and you will find chasing. Ours in particular, mostly terrier with a little bull dog thrown in, has a lot of chasing bred into her DNA. When we walk, if she spies a rabbit or a squirrel, something in her clicks, she connects with her inner terrier, and she pursues. That would be fine, but I want her to walk with me. When she is in 'terrier mode' walking with me is not possible! Sometimes, the prey she spies is that growling behemoth we call a Harley Davidson, and if she went after one of those, she'd be toast.

So when I walk with Kitty, she is on a leash. Her 'yoke of obedience,' I call it. Collar and lead allow me to help Kitty the Dog learn when to listen to the inner hunter. For her, it's pretty much only when the object of her desire is a toy that I've thrown for her. Most of the time, the leash keeps her safe, and it keeps us together. The leash, her 'yoke' is not the point. Being with me and alive is the point. The leash is just the tool I use to accomplish the goal.

I've had other dogs. One in particular, mostly cockapoo, was meek and gentle. He got to the point where he did not even need the leash. Being with me was more important than anything else very quickly in his little life. Kitty, however, is stubborn. She wants to be with me, but she wants to go her own way too. When 'terrier' in charge, she does not even notice me at all. I am there, hand on the leash, ready to pull her in if she does something dangerous. I seriously doubt if there will ever be a time when I can remove the leash completely and trust her to stay with me.

Some would say dogs would be better off in their natural state, if I didn't try to curb her, if I let her 'be herself.' But in this world, that won't work in her favor. She can't tell the difference between a Harley and a hare, and if she learned that lesson, it might well be her last. Besides, most of the time we enjoy eachother's company a lot. So we keep on walking, working, and learning together. Many miles of our walking now, the leash is slack and unnecessary. When my children argue about whose dog Kitty is, I point out to them that dogs always belong to the ones who walk with them.

The Laws God has given us are like a leash, I think. The point of them is to get us to walk with God. Some of us need more of a leash than others. The 'inner terrier' is so strong that we have trouble discerning which desires are worth pursuing and which lead to destruction.

Some of us get to enjoy the Master so much we need less of a 'yoke.' We just walk the way we are meant to walk. It takes time, but we come to belong to the One who walks with us and have no desire at all to leave.

Still in most of us is that 'inner terrier' ready to bolt. When we do run, it's time once again to submit to a little leash time, remind ourselves of the boundaries, feel the tug of the One who loves us and wants to be with us. Leash time for me is an accountability partner. It's 'rules' like 'Kitchen is closed after supper,' and 'do a good turn every day.' It's Law like 'Honor your parents' and 'Remember the Sabbath.' Then, after a while of keeping them, sometimes the leash goes slack and for a while, I'm able just to walk.

But not all the time, not yet. So for now I thank God for his Law and the rule of my life. And I thank God for holding the leash when my inner terrier goes wild after something that might hurt me or someone else. Walking with God is the point. He is the One I belong to.