Some of you are old enough to remember the extraordinary songwriting and singing gifts of Marvin Gaye. During his short life, he composed and performed classics like “Dancin' in the Street,” “My PYT,” and “What’s Going On.” Tragically, he was murdered in 1984 by his father at the age of just 44.
Over the last week, it was the lyrics of his classic song, “Mercy, Mercy, Me” that came to my mind. The killing of Renee Good and the vicious divisiveness that has followed it left me pleading for mercy. Our country seems to be at war—or on the verge of it—with Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, and maybe Iran. Mercy! Closer to home, we’re disagreeing about vaccines again, a memorial to a martyred president has been renamed for the current president, and protests are filling American cities.
Mercy Mercy Me.
All this reminded me of an amazing woman, Maud Leal, an elder at my family’s church for many years, St. Martin de Porres in New Haven, Connecticut. “Mrs. Leal,” as everyone called her, was the person at church always ready to help people in tough times. She would take a struggling teenager into her home for a few months, feed a family running low on necessities, or visit a parishioner who was alone at the hospital. She died in 2005 at the age of 104, but her memory lives on. Her greeting to friends and strangers alike was always the same: she’d lower her head, wave it from side to side, raise her right hand and exclaim, “Lord have mercy. Have Mercy. Have Mercy.”
That’s the way I feel right now. I think mercy is a pretty good response to the confusion and fear of this moment. But I don’t mean mercy as “forgiveness” or “sympathy.” I mean mercy as connection at the deepest level of our being. I mean mercy as healing from the inside out. The contemporary mystic, Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, writes, “that's the literal meaning of the word 'mercy.’ It comes from the Old Etruscan root merc—as in ‘commerce’ or ‘mercantile’—meaning ‘exchange.’ Mercy has fundamentally nothing to do with ‘pity’ or ‘clemency,’ with which it is often confused. It is rather the direct experience of unity restored.” (italics added)
That’s what I want: “a direct experience of unity restored.” It’s what Rev. Bourgeault calls “sacred commerce, renewed continuously at the center of our being.” That doesn’t mean mercy is going to magically solve our problems, but it does mean that mercy at the center of our being is worth awakening. That’s the level at which we all have dignity—not dignity we earned, but dignity given to us at birth.
That’s what all of us in the dignity movement are trying to promote: the dignity that is the center of our being. That’s what we’re trying to elevate as a fundamental value in how we treat each other. That’s what we’re offering as a way of preventing violence, easing divisions, and solving problems. It’s not dignity as a way of glossing over our differences. It’s dignity as a way of transforming the pain, fear, and anger that keep us from addressing them.
In the weeks ahead, I won’t just be asking for mercy, I’ll also be working with our team to model it with allies all over the country. Next week we’ll be presenting a workshop to over 30 educators from 8 states who will become “certified” trainers bringing dignity values and practices to thousands of young people.
We’ll also be presenting to the Massachusetts and South Carolina leagues of cities and towns to encourage local leaders across those states to lead with dignity and join other states like Utah, Maryland, and Pennsylvania where local leaders are doing the same.
Our work with the National Governors Association is gaining traction with both Republicans and Democrats who want to promote the ideal of dignity politics. (Yes, that really is possible!). And in places as different as Brown University and Utah Valley University, we’ll be promoting dignity as a strategy for promoting free speech, healthy dialogue, and healing on campus.
This work is our way of trying to help us escape the contempt industrial complex that feeds us a steady diet of outrage, dehumanization, and despair. Partisan news, social media algorithms, and divisive political leadership seem to thrive on contempt. To which I can hear Maud Leal exclaim, “Lord Have Mercy!”
The second line of Marvin Gaye’s song “Mercy Mercy Me,” is “things ain’t what they used to be.” That’s surely just as true today as it was in 1971 when Gaye wrote the song. Change is rapid, scary, and unsettling. The stakes are high and the future is uncertain. It’s easy to get discouraged and overwhelmed. There’s plenty of pain to go around. Things aren’t what they used to be.
But what’s equally true is that we get to choose what side we’re on: the side of dehumanizing contempt or the side of dignity and mercy. I’m trying to choose dignity. I’m looking for mercy for those who are victims of violence, for those who are grieving losses too painful to bear, for those who fear what’s next.
Sometimes, I feel all of that. That’s why I’m looking for mercy for me too. A direct experience of unity. A sense that it’s possible. A faith that it matters.
Mercy mercy me.
Tim
