When jogging indoors to my thematic playlist, including a song titled, Breathe, another one titled, Mercy, and one of my favorites which I belt out in private, Kyrie Eleison, meaning, “Lord have mercy.”
“Kyrie Eleison down the road that I must travel.” God have mercy, and protect me from myself, my choices, my words…. The 1985 song performed by the band, Mr. Mister, includes the words mountainside, highway, road, sea, choose, heart, soul, body, among others, and references growing old.
“Have mercy!” I grew up hearing this exclamation, or was it the extended version, “Good God, Have Mercy!”
Speaking of “the road that I must travel,” the song on my list, called Mercy, sung by Welsh artist, Duffy, is one with special significance to me because I first heard it while resting in a French hotel, at the end of a long day of travel. Duffy articulates the classic, man who done me wrong hook, which thankfully doesn’t speak to me, but the song’s title means something altogether different to my soul.
Have mercy as I go along my path, whether it’s rocky, sandy, through valleys, shadows, swamps, rivers, or mountain passes. I’m reminded of the Scripture from Isaiah 52, “how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news of good things, who publishes peace.” Having received mercy, my end-game is always to publish peace.
But, sometimes even those beautiful mountains pose a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Thusly, we cry out with a prayerful plea along the lines of Kyrie Eleison. Or more colloquially, “give me a break!”
Duffy croons, “You’ve got me beggin you for mercy, why won’t you release me; My morals got me on my knees, won’t you please stop playing games….”. I’m reminded when singing along with this song that one of the King James Bible phrases I recall from growing up is, “I beseech thee O Lord…”.
Having grown up and learned a few things along the way, I’ve discerned that beseech means, to beg. One form of prayer most of us are familiar with, is the begging prayer, beginning with the word please, usually in rapid succession, “please, please, please….” In this prayer our hearts are crying out for mercy.
What is mercy? A victim being tortured cries out for mercy. Duffy begs for mercy from a vicious circle of game-playing and I don’t mean Monopoly, more like a manipulative and sinister game of cat and mouse, not fair-play.
Have you heard the saying, “there but by the grace of God, go I?” This original saying is usually attributed to John Bradford, who said it when seeing criminals being led to their execution in 1553. Ironically, his grace was limited to two years, as he was executed two years later for heresy, being a Protestant in Roman Catholic England.
Grace, meaning unmerited favor; and mercy being compassionate or kindly forbearance toward someone under a powerful other, points to the kind of begging prayer mentioned above, “Could the ‘powers that be,’ kindly give me a freaking break?!”
I had a vision of Scarlett O’Hara or some such southern belle gasping quietly in the summer heat, whispering, “Lord, have mercy,” as she fans her lightly perspiring face. In my northern bluntness, I’m more likely to speak to the heat, while wiping my sweating face, “would you please cut me some slack, dude!”
Even more popular than the begging prayer of desperation is the Lord’s Prayer, the pastoral poem of faith, Psalm 23, wherein we expect that “surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life.” The prophetic book of Micah suggests something even more socially equitable: that we refrain from staying angry forever, but delight to show mercy to others, having received mercy ourselves.
We all have our way of begging for mercy.