The starting point

The starting point for my day, pretty much everyday, spoken or unspoken is Lord have mercy. Sometimes my prayers for the day may not move much beyond Dear Lord please have mercy. We live in a world that cries out for mercy, certainly it may not be with a loud voice in many cases, but definitively the cry though it may be silent, unspoken or whispered is for mercy. When i worked at the train station in Kolkata bringing the sick and dying from that place to the safest place I knew, the Missionaries of Charity Home for the Dying, i encountered alot of suffering, alot of blatant injustice and alot of death. Much of the death felt unjust, it felt needless and hostile. Once as i knelt to help a man who lay dying on the train platform, thousands of people walking by, a man stopped. He did not stop offer his help only his theological assessment of the situation. He said, this man deserves this, he deserves to die alone on the train platform. He is paying for his sins. I was indignant with rage. Yes rage. He said we should leave another human being alone to die in the midst of a teeming humanity that somehow, according to this man's theology, deserved not to die in this manner because they were going about their day and this man had end up here alone to die. The thought for that day was yes, maybe he is right, maybe he, the dying man, is sinner receiving just repayment but if that is case then this is what we all deserve. And Lord help us if we all get what we deserve or if we deserve everything we get in this lifetime on this broken planet, in this world of darkness. So the starting point for my day everyday, is Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy on me. Lord have mercy on the dying man and on the one who accuses him. Lord have mercy on us. I do not want to see the day that i get what i deserve in repayment for my sins. A little mercy can go long way in the healing of the world. Lord have mercy on us.