Mercy on Us
In the very act of asking for it, we validate our belief in the life of the spirit beyond the body.
In this season I am reconsidering my understanding of mercy. Originally my knowing of mercy was born restless out of religious context. Now, I think it not only represents a prerequisite for true generosity, but in embodying it as a way to guide us through our grief. What I’ve come to learn in my sessions is behind every shadow, we find grief. To receive someone in their grief without judgement - with selfless generosity, is mercy.
When I go to judge, I abandon my innocence. That innocence, is the gift of seeing the world for the first time without an adulterated experience based on historical pattern. One thing I know about this life, is that every moment there are two things true at once. When I hold innocence in one hand, judgment is outstretched in the other. The opportunity of mercy is in between cradling these two truths; we build awareness of the spirit with equal mind. To live with such vulnerable generosity takes courage, and discernment through mind and body. It is only chosen well after meeting both of the two (judgement and innocence.)
Tura, Cosmè: Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
In human life, our destiny will certainly be marked with wounds to provide the opportunity of experience. I am coming to understand mercy not as a performance of pity by impatient gods, but as the act of recognizing in our ignorance, the price has already been paid. The token of entry is paid in our authentic living, real mercy isn’t a gift to be granted - it is an ability of the soul! In the very act of asking for it, we validate our belief in the life of the spirit beyond the body.
To have mercy is to momentarily dissolve the binding of separation that our judgements and defenses often sew.
To assume beyond the body, we are there.
To suspend judgement and innocence like a valley to walk in between.
Mercy is surrendering our individual grief in order to witness all of another in totality.
Before every session I offer my earthly self momentarily eclipsed so that another can be validated and witnessed. This is an ability I pray to do in discovery that it is possible - yet within the reception god has mercy on me, too.