Have Mercy

Swearing is not my primary language.

Or even my second.

If movies are an accurate representation of the world, I am in the minority. The people on screen curse (“cuss,” as I said growing up) about everything, not just when they cut open a finger on a mandolin slicer or shatter a favorite serving dish. (Been there, done that.) No noun, verb, or adjective is safe from modification by an asterisk-laden epithet.

I don’t get it. Never have. Never will.

Oh, I’ve got plenty of flaws, and the older I get the more I find. I won’t start listing them, because I’d like to get this column published before the 4th of July.

Although cursing doesn’t come naturally to me, sometimes only an exclamation will do. That’s when I turn to my late mother for inspiration: “Goodness gracious.” “Merciful fathers.” (Not really sure what that one means, but I like it.)

I’ll also turn loose a “dadgum it,” “shoot,” and, of course, the all-purpose “dang.” (Yes, I realize these are substitutes for the “bad words,” but cut me a little slack here.)

I must have used another favorite when two of our granddaughters visited last weekend, because the older child repeated it at the dinner table.

“Mercy day,” the five-year-old said, shaking her head. She wasn’t eating, so it’s possible she was reacting to the meal set before her. She fixed me with her huge brown eyes and added solemnly, “It’s a mercy day.”

I smiled back at her, but today it hit me.

Every day is a mercy day.

I need it, because the good Lord knows before I awaken that I am going to mess up at some point in my waking hours. Maybe every waking hour.

Then I have to turn around and show it. No excuses, no rationalizations. God doesn’t offer a loophole on this one. Jesus said so: “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” (Luke 6:36, KJV)

As I write this, I recall another of Mama’s exclamations: “Lord, have mercy.”

Yes.

Please.

Christ as depicted in the Resurrection Window at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas