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DROPS FROM HEAVEN
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore…
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.-William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I
A few years ago, when my father was briefly living with my brother and I, I asked him a question that I trusted him to answer with some clarity. I was taking my first steps into a protracted crisis of faith that would last years; I had ten thousand questions and was lurching my way through life in a fog of confusion, anger, and doubt. It has often been difficult to share these trials with other Christians who generally have little to struggle with in terms of faith; they have no doubts to begin with or their quandaries have been solved and were never quite severe. On the other hand, I have been met with other difficulties in unburdening myself to my secular friends. They do their best, counseling in good faith and sympathy, but they have not had that encounter with the Divine that makes the whole religious enterprise possible and have a confounding time relating to what I’m going through.
Yet although Pop is not a Christian, he has spiritual sensibilities. He has great criticism against organized religion, and yet also has enormous respect for many a religious precept and figure. He calls himself an “ecumenical agnostic.” To him, the two greatest human beings ever to live are Jesus and Buddha, and he believes our species would be much better off for following their direction. I held him to be able to bridge that gulf between the Christian and the… well, non-Christian.
So I put to him the following: “According to classical Western conceptions of God, God has necessary attributes, right? Omnipotence, omnipresence, justice, perfect goodness, etc. Without these attributes, God would not exist. At least goes this train of thought.” He nodded. “Well, let me ask you, is God necessarily merciful? Is He required, in order to exist, to have mercy?” He paused for a few moments, and then answered. “Well, if He isn’t, I don’t know how He could interact with the human race.”
The poignancy and wisdom of this statement stopped me in my tracks. It solidified the nebulous and various doubts I was having on the subject for some time. If there is a God – which I continue to believe there is – mercy must cascade from Him like a waterfall for us to even be aware of His existence, much less for Him to be so involved in the lives of multitudes of our churlish primate species. If God were not necessarily merciful, He would have engendered our extinction long ago, and with capacious justification.
But my father’s pithy insight has had me thinking off and on about matters closer to earth; specifically, as to what mercy is, its nature and necessity. How does this lauded but under-practiced virtue relate to human relations? That question might be somewhat answered by examining contexts where it is absent: those bereft of the receipt of mercy and those who habitually chose not to bestow it. For the former sort, think of those who freeze from being deprived of the gift of human warmth – the friendless and lonely, the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the ignorant, the forgotten sick, and the prisoner abandoned to an earthly hell. In addition to their awful plights, they languish in inescapable misery without human contact and support. No one makes their way in the world without others helping them along the way, and certainly not the most disadvantaged amongst us. We are social creatures, created to realize ourselves in community; outside of the love of others, we wither and die. Consider the latter sort mentioned above: those who show no mercy. They are cold, proud, insensitive, bitter people. They laugh only to scorn, they speak only to demean, they act only to advance themselves and walk over others. They too eventually become lonely and cut off from humanity, and are to be pitied most of all, as their souls are in danger in this life and the next.
We might also regard those who lives are full of mercy, both in the giving and the receiving. Those who freely give often have an air of tranquility, and when even that is lacking, a palpable contentment. Their lives are ordered and their sense of purpose is clear, as they know that the goal of life is to serve others, and in doing so, they draw from great reservoirs of happiness and are indifferent to luxuries and extravagances, which are the remarkable result of living virtuously. Those who benefit from this by receiving such mercy are, no matter how downtrodden, consistently uplifted from their unfortunate circumstances or past mistakes so as to, in time, more fully realize themselves. Their necessities are met, their wounds are healed, their pursuits are accomplished, their happiness is attained; and all this being catalyzed by the helping hand of another. Let us not waste time with any talk of “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” (as it happens, that idiom first originated to satirize the concept of imaginary self-sufficiency); we humans were made to support each other and be supported. It is altruism, not selfishness, that should govern our nature, and mercy is one of the most vital manifestations of that principle.
But what exactly is mercy, and why should it be necessary? I would first define it as any act or attitude of intentional good-will in response to human wretchedness. When we patiently tolerate the obnoxious behavior of others or forgive those who have wronged us, we are reacting to unpleasantness in a distinct, deliberate way. When our friend is flat broke and we gift them a few hundred bucks so that they can get their bills and groceries paid, we are intervening in a sad reality that we wish to change. When another friend has broken down in tears because of the pain in their soul, we reach out to them in their sorrow to give them comfort and an anchor in stability. When our hearts are moved to help the homeless, we look past their being disheveled, dirty, and malodorous to provide any way we can to get them food, clothing, and shelter. There are manifold forms of wretchedness in our world, some of which excite our pity, others our revulsion, but when we move beyond our inconvenience, disgust, or anger to actively promote the welfare of our fellow creatures, we are doing the acts of mercy.
Let no one think that mercy is simply some expression of naivete; on the contrary, it is as shrewd as a serpent. When our hearts are full of mercy and our hands are full of its deeds, we are approaching the ugliness of life with open eyes. Cynical people see misery in front of them and make every attempt to avoid it without rocking their boat too much. They apprehend our wretched condition only to try to escape it as much as possible. But the merciful cry, “Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!” They charge at the squalid realities of life not because they wear rose-tinted glasses and live in a fairyland, but because they see life as it is and want to change it, make it better, ease suffering, or at least try to find meaning in it.
This leads to the necessity of mercy, as wretchedness is ubiquitous and unavoidable. Rarely can a single day pass that we do not encounter someone in need, someone who insults or injures us, someone we find repugnant. Human frailty exists everywhere in every human context, thus to survive and thrive in such a broken world demands a largeness of spirit that doesn’t always come naturally to us, yet the raw choice to exercise that spirit presses on us constantly. We could have no relationships whatsoever – in our families, friendships, professions, acquaintances, strangers – if we did not regularly show mercy, as well as be shown mercy ourselves. If we think of life as a feast, we can think of mercy as that indispensable aspect to any meal: the beverage. Without a drink our throats grow dry and our food becomes unswallowable, but even plain water can do the trick to get it all down. Far from being futile or optional, mercy is indispensable for all human relationships.
We are all agents in the economics of misfortune, as we are all students in the school of affliction. Any advancement is only possible by practicing and doing the gameplan and homework of mercy, and this must be a communal enterprise, as reciprocity is in the very soul of it. Indeed, we may consult the Source of the whole phenomenon, whose very coming into the world was the supreme act of mercy itself, and one of whose first basic teachings is both command and consolation: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
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REBUKING REGRET
Unholy howling in my blood
That drowns the music in my soul! –
Confounding with nostalgic flood
My poor resolve, in rise and roll.
The fever of my mind thou art,
That immolateth piety;
Thou art the riot in my heart
‘Gainst conscience and authority.
At night’s reposing, thou dost creep
And plunder peace from out my brain,
To grieve my solitude in sleep,
To underline and mock my pain.
At morning’s rising, still thy prey,
Thou feedest on the vacancy
Beside me, and dost haunt my day
Aching for sensuality.
Inspiring a vile contrition
For vice’s absence, virtue’s being,
Thou ventest forth a sad sedition
That chaineth in attempts at freeing.
Too much of yearning for my past
And too much sorrow for today:
Thine obstinate despair doth cast
A pall of rancor when I pray.
The riches that the Lord bestoweth
In character, serenity;
The obligations the soul oweth
This generous Divinity
Thou wouldst have me reject for sludge,
The excrement of venery;
The grace of continence begrudge
And Savior thus for saving me.
Get thee behind me, demon’s breath!
Filling my lungs with suspiration –
Get thee behind me, hymn of death!
Strumming the lyre of my damnation.
Heaven’s inheritance is mine,
A treasure I can spend on earth.
The bulk is saved in vaults divine –
I would not disregard its worth
For hoarding farthings of cheap pleasure
That lose their value in the spending;
A hollowness that grow’th in measure
Unsated with desire unending,
Or else indulge a series of
(Yearly renewed) lovers fleeting
That vainly take the name of Love,
Departing at the new one’s meeting.
Get hence, Regret! Thou sordid knave!
But several years, I’m free of thee:
Thou shalt be locked within my grave
When I pass to eternity.
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A Journey Through the Center of the Universe
I am no stranger to the awe of distant, vistaed peaks
When robed in snow or sylvan garb, bejeweled by flowing creeks.
Nor blind to the pelagic tides that strike, then flee the beach
And rush by lunar law to kiss horizons out of reach.
The charms of Sister Nature do reflect our parentage –
The grandeur of Almighty God, our common privilege.
But God hoards not heredity for things evolved, unwilled;
He gives the mind of humankind capacity to build.
I have beheld the summits of that ingenuity
And hacked through labyrinthine jungles of humanity.
I’ve trod the floor of canyons of stupendous architecture
When vantaged from my sojourn through the surging viatecture.
At day, the traffic’s rhythmic riot immolates the notion
Of rest through rites of the religion of incessant motion.
The splendor of diverse immensities that rival sky
Effuse colossal shadows and the denizens belie.
At dusk, the pageantry of commerce burns in banners gleaming
A gospel of exchange of coin unto the masses teeming.
The wares of high and low assault the throngs of passersby:
Appeals to ear, an orgy of bright radiance to eye.
At night, this meta-edifice mirrors the sky it scrapes
In earthbound constellations shining, the lamps of cityscapes.
This pompous ocean of illumination shall gainsay
The darkness of the absent sun and counterfeit the day.
In passing by that idol to the goddess Liberty,
Southwestern-bound upon a bay, I gaze northeasterly
A glimpse — which shatters sense — of forests of futurity;
The earth in stunning miniature and its plurality.
That vision of the capital of all the modern world
Is carved in memory forever: vivid, stark, unswirled;
And bellows through my veins a hymn that endlessly repeats
The wonder of a lifetime when I paced Manhattan’s streets.
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A Gull in the Wind
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. (Eccl. 9:11-12)
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Do you ever watch birds try to fly in a windstorm? These amazing creatures, gifted by evolution with just the right kind of bones, muscles, and limbs, can effortlessly soar hundreds of feet in the air and maintain themselves in skiey grace for miles and miles. But let it get nasty and blustery outside and these poor animals’ efforts quickly come to moot. I’ve seen countless gulls and ravens on a windy day frozen in midair, beating their wings in vain earnest and yet remaining immobile against an invincible wall of unforgiving wind until, exhausted, they’re blown about every which way and are forced to land. Only until the wind dies down can they move about freely the way Nature intended. And it may be quite a long time before the air is still.
I think we human beings can relate to this avian experience in an all too poignant and depressing way. Whether by God or Nature or both or something else, we have tremendous capacities to affect our environments and our own personal destinies through our free will, our curiosity and ability to learn, through our intellects, and through our courage, virtue, and ambition. Our species has accomplished much – a few members of it have altered history; and even the humble most of us, whether learning the multiplication table, or teaching ourselves the guitar, or getting a degree, or donating to charity, or raising a family, have made a sizable impact on the world and on the trajectory of the human race.
And yet…
The frustration of our goals is as familiar to us as the most intimate lover. The slow and grisly death of our dreams tolls a funereal bell whenever our alarm clock rouses us from sleep. We regard our youth as a catalogue of mistakes and waste, exiting it into maturity with little besides disillusionment and regret. We’ve always been told, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” We have – or once had – the will, but we’ve clearly lost the way. What did we do wrong? The glow of our ambitions is rivaled by the enormity of our failure to attain them. We’re stuck, going nowhere, like those poor birds in the windstorm.
The birds fail to fly to their destination, but why? Is it for lack of trying? Is it some innate disability that hinders their flight? Are they just lazy? No! – their environment prevents them from taking off. Circumstances hammer nails into the coffin of their goals. They do their best and fail utterly because of forces beyond their control.
And this state is where most of us dwell, but we pass false judgment upon ourselves because we do not consider the buffeting all around us that prevents us from self-realization. How can any human person be divorced from the social, historical, and biological forces which absolutely exceed our power and that shape us and our destiny? We find ourselves out of the swim of life; but do we control the current? The band is always playing in another street; but do we direct the conductor? The sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust; do we control the weather?
If, in examining our lives, we find that we fall short of where our parents were at our age or where some of our peers are today, instead of getting depressed and thinking ourselves failures, we might remember that so far in this century, there have been two global recessions, expensive wars, and a pandemic that have rendered the prospects of prosperity and social mobility considerably more meager. We cannot escape economics. Our looks are fading, our hair is falling out, and our waist size is ballooning; the bloom of youth has withered, but this is merely the unavoidable outcome of getting older. We cannot escape aging. For a great many of us, our ambitions are hindered by the obstacles placed before us on account of our racial and ethnic identities, by our sex, our disabilities, or because our speech and clothes give away that we come from poverty. But we did not set the standards by which those more privileged shall judge and treat those less fortunate, nor do we in any way merit such injustice. We cannot escape society. Our hopes are hindered and our days are fraught with the constant torments of anxiety and depression, the causes of which are ever eluding us, but these afflictions are common to the human mind, often with origins that have nothing to do with anything external but are instead the product of an imperfectly evolved human brain. We cannot escape psychology.
We do not live in a fair world; neither Nature nor human society seems ordered to provide for our happiness. Any study of the subject shows that history is a tragedy. Those who push themselves towards excellence of one kind or another not only often fall on their faces in their pursuits but may never realize success at all in their whole lives. Many of us have been given a raw deal, and neither competence nor determination are by any means a guarantee of a happy, productive life. This is what the author of Ecclesiastes (traditionally thought to be King Solomon) speaks of when he writes of the race not being to the swift nor the battle to the strong, etc. Talent and resolve are most definitely virtues, but there is no promise that we will get want we want or even what we deserve if we apply them. Moreover, we cannot be free of our place in history, nor can we pretend that our or our neighbors’ circumstances are entirely intelligible or the result of free choice. We are caught in the game of life whose inscrutable rules leave us in a fog of confusion and whose odds are rarely in our favor, unable to leave the table until we’re ejected without warning or consent. These sad facts are as inexorable today as they were in the Bronze Age when this poetic observation was first set down by that wise king.
Sad facts, yes, but in pointing them out, I do not mean to be melancholic or despairing, quite the opposite. The hope is that the discovery of this truth will liberate one from the intolerable burdens of invalid guilt and blame. If things are going wrong in our lives, if we feel that we’re not measuring up, if we fail to achieve our goals, then perhaps we are doing our best with what we’re given, but we may be also slamming our heads into the ceilings of history, society, and biology, unable to ascend any further. We are “snared in an evil time” that pulls most of us downward into a lesser status quo, allowing only a few to rise further. If we can develop a better sense of the times we find ourselves in, we will be able to more truly gauge our accomplishments in life and could possibly find different and more effective routes out of our unpleasant circumstances. A lot of people hardly know themselves; given that, just how many of us really know what we’re up against?
We must first disenthrall ourselves from fantastical narratives of human success that have no relation except to a tiny elite. We have not failed to realize ourselves because we are not at the level of Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, John D. Rockefeller, or Julius Caesar or any of the other celebrities, tycoons, conquerors, or world-shifters that history sordidly offers us for our misguided envy. These types, though they have seized the world, are often horrible, deeply insecure, and unhappy people. No treasure chest of fame or wealth can be converted into a grain of contentment. To be at that level of accomplishment is to be ever on your guard, to be never at peace, suspecting everyone. And even all that aside, why should the mightiest success, ever beyond the grasp of the everyman, be a cause of despair or self-reproach for the same? How many of us have encountered the happiest of folks who merely wish to and do in fact live a simple life? How many saints, of every religion, draw their holy ecstasy from a lifetime of service to others?
We must search out what our needs truly are, separate from our sometime exaggerated wants. We must have our own selves figured out, knowing the measurements of both our strengths and limits, but also be cognizant of our environment, a paradigm far more powerful than our talents and will. Only then can we properly size ourselves up and know how far we’ve come or where were going; only then can we begin to find our way in the universe.
The Empowered Loser 