Mercy

On the day I was praying over “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall recieve mercy” This thing happened.
Unlike many of my experiences as I’ve recently begun to pray through beattitudes, one verse a day, this one isn’t all warm and fuzzy, touchy-feely. And I guess that’s important. Sometimes, God is tough, hard. Sometimes, God makes us hurt.
The background to this is that it’s been a really tough week with my eldest. I’m wondering if dads are allowed to note that their eleven-year-olds are acting like buttheads. There’s probably some other way I’m supposed to put that; however, butthead is the most accurate term.
And I’ve been firm with him. I don’t think I’ve been unfairly hard on him. But I have reacted in a way that I think he’s gotten exactly what he deserves… which is basically a suspension of every single privilige he has, an expectation that he will write a detailed letter of apology to his mother, and a few discussions where I quite thoroughly explained not only my love for him but also my disapointment in his actions.
He’s taken all this pretty hard. He’s never been in this much trouble before.

Anyway, as I prayer over the verse about mercy, it occured to me that the verse doesn’t say “blessed are the nice, for people shall be nice to them.”
The word is mercy. It implies an act of kindness which is undeserved, something over-the-top; it implies not just being polite but actively sparing someone from pain.
I’m not sure I reacted wrongly to my son’s actions. However, while we were driving home from karate, he started talking. I was excited because he hadn’t been saying much to me recently.
“Our new writing prompt is to write about somebody we admire” He began.
And I began to get my hopes up.
“Lots of kids in my class are writing about their parents” he continued.
And I started to puff up with something… pride, maybe.
“I decided I wanted to be different. I’m going to write about my karate instructors” He finished.

There are several reasons why the word “deflated” does not apply to what I felt. One reason is that deflated implies a gradual process. My experience was quite instaneous. A second reason is that even deflated things have a little something left in them. I didn’t.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall recieve mercy.

Was Jesus only talking about God’s mercy when he said that? Or does it apply to other people too? I wasn’t merciful to my son. And I don’t think I was supposed to be. I think I needed to be firm. But it’s not easy…
Even when we don’t have the luxury of mercy, I guess we have to recognize that we are not merciful, we shouldn’t expect mercy.