Huff Post
Is there a glimmer of mercy in the universe?
Dwelling in silence this morning in the ballet studio, I reflected on the 35 years I have called the ballet barre home. As I looked across the room my eye caught the image of one of my fellow classmates who recently moved to the area and is struggling to get her feet settled. A few weeks ago she shared after class some of her frustrations and how without this class to attend she probably would have given up and gone back home. I smiled in resonance with her sentiment. How many times in my life has a dance class been my salvation? Even at my lowest I could step to the barre and somehow the music and the mirror reflected back to me that I belong, I am not alone, there is more to life than this current frustration, this current setback, this current reality. Dance has often provided a glimmer of mercy in the universe when I have needed it most.
As a sophomore in high school I read Camus’ “The Stranger” with rapt attention. Drinking coffee at his mother’s funeral, abetting his neighbor’s brutality, repeatedly shooting a man simply because he is hot, Meursault was and remains a distasteful stranger to me. I could resonant with his longing for meaning in the great vastness of the universe but when he eventually opened his soul to the signs and stars of a benign, indifferent universe, I thought, NO. Even in the broken cruelty of a Flannery O’Connor character, there is always one who glimpses a place of mercy in this often hard and mysterious world. A grandmother witnesses the brutal killing of her family and as she converses with the serial killer who will indifferently execute her as well, she will not allow the cruel brutality of another to snuff out the whisper of mercy in her existence. She could have titled this story the soul-crushing, hopeless: “There are no good men.” But instead a glimmer of mercy is seen in the title of her story: “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” No puppy dogs and rainbows, but a glimmer.
But when I use the word “mercy” I try to do so carefully. When I think of mercy, I think of receiving undeserved or unmerited kindness or treatment. A merciful act is one that reconnects us to humankind — reminds us that we belong, that we are not alone, and that our lives have meaning beyond the current reality. Who among us has not or will not be in need of mercy one day, and I believe that onus for providing a glimmer of mercy in the universe for all those in need of finding one rests on each of us.
Categories: Death, Euthanasia, Human values