...till mercy showers down

To you my gaze is lifted,
you sitting among the stars!
As a servant looks to his master,
as a maid looks to her lady,
my eyes search yours,
until mercy showers down.
Mercy, my Own, mercy,
for more contempt is 
more than I can bear.
---Psalm 123:1-3 (para. laca)

There is something about meanness and people. Okay. Not all people, but lots of us. Me. I'm guilty sometimes. Maybe you? I'm mean. Now sometimes it's when I feel I've been backed into a corner, and I am in counterattack mode. And sometimes I'm just mean in my head, and the rest of the world never hears a word of it (ok, straight up, this is where I'm the meanest). Rarely, the mean spills out and burns someone else --- either the target of my mean, or an unlucky innocent bystander. This is not a side of myself that makes me proud, even when it is couched in the dubious humour of sarcasm. And I think mean is epidemic in our culture right now. If it were medical, we'd be marching on Washington for a cure, wearing color-of-the-day ribbons, having thing-a-thons to stamp it out forever. But, since all we have to do to stop it is to, well, stop it, the culture of mean continues to lurk around every corner, waiting to pounce.

In this world rife with contempt, communion with the Author of mercy is precious. My God, can you imagine what mercy would be worth to someone beat down by contempt? Maybe everything? And haven't we all, every one of us, had our fill of contempt? Find your wild place, and sit, and wait...till mercy showers down.