Words of Mercy Week 1 : God s Favourite Hue If love is the essence and measure of God mercy must be God s favourite hue, a subtle shade which tells of need and blessing of pain and waiting of love greater than grief of simple joys and tenderness, of sharing the colours of life. Mary Wickham RSM Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: Where in your ministry have you experienced the sense of pain and waiting or love greater than grief or simple joys and tenderness? Where do you see the colours of life alive in your work in Mercy? 4
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Words of Mercy Week 2 : Three Gratitudes Every night before I go to sleep I say out loud Three things that I m grateful for, All the significant, insignificant Extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life. It s a small practice and humble, And yet, I find I sleep better Holding what lightens and softens my life Ever so briefly at the end of the day. And after three things, More often than not, I get on a roll and I just keep on going, I keep naming and listing, Until I lie grinning, Blankets pulled up to my chin, Awash with wonder At the sweetness of it all. By Carrie Newcomer Sunlight, and blueberries, Good dogs and wool socks, A fine rain, A good friend, Fresh basil and wild phlox, My father s good health, My daughter s new job, The song that always makes me cry, Always at the same part, No matter how many times I hear it. Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: In her writings Catherine McAuley often acknowledges gratitude as the source of her merciful action. Decent coffee at the airport, And your quiet breathing, The stories you told me, The frost patterns on the windows, English horns and banjos, Wood thrush and June bugs, The smooth glassy calm of the morning pond, An old coat, A new poem, My library card, And that my car keeps running Despite all the miles. What three things are you grateful for today? How might this gratitude be the source of your self gift to others? 6
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Words of Mercy Week 3 : The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. By Jellaludin Rumi Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: Hospitality is one of the core expressions of Mercy. How does this poem speak to you about hospitality? How might this inspire in you new ways of offering hospitality in your life and work? 8
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Words of Mercy Week 4 : Kindness Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. As people of mercy we are reminded that kindness was a virtue much valued by Catherine McAuley as close to the heart of mercy. There is a saying attributed to her in which she tells her early companions that they should be particularly kind - the kindest people on earth, with the tenderest pity and compassion for the poor." (from the Familiar Instructions of Catherine McAuley). How does this poem challenge you about the concept of kindness? What action might it inspire you to? Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. By Naomi Shihab Nye 10
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Words of Mercy Week 5 : The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-determined to save the only life you could save. Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: Mary Oliver s poem captures the struggle to stop listening to the multiple voices and busyness that clamours around us like a howling storm and listen deeply to the voice within. What practice assists you to be in touch with the voice within? What does the voice within / your heart s desire call you to? Mary Oliver 12
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Words of Mercy Week 6 : Letting Go It is time to go. I can smell it. Breathe it Touch it. And something in me Trembles. I will not cry. Only sit bewildered. Brave and helpless That it is time. Time to go. Time to step out Of the world I shaped and watched Become. Time to let go Of the status and The admiration. Time to go. To turn my back On a life that throbs With my vigor And a spirit That soared Through my tears. Time to go From all I am To all I have Not yet become. Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: What might we have to let go of to experience Mercy more fully? With the Callaghan inheritance, Catherine became a woman of wealth, who could very easily have simply given her money to the causes she believed in. Instead gave her life to those causes, as a true Sister of Mercy. What might we need to let go of in order to be Mercy to others? From Edwina Gateley, There Was No Path So I Trod One 14
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Words of Mercy Week 7 : Keeping Quiet Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth, let s not speak in any language; let s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fisherman in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would not look at his hurt hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death. If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive. Now I ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go. Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: Mary Sullivan RSM in her 2016 article Our Call to Weep and Act Mercifully noted that in the face of injustice, as people of Mercy we might be invited as a first response to pause and grieve rather than to step in and act. How might this poem by Pablo Naruda similarly challenge us as people of Mercy? In this case how might keeping quiet be a merciful response? by Pablo Neruda 16
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Words of Mercy Week 8 : Working Together We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again. Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. The visible and the invisible What does the poem evoke in you? working together in common cause, For Reflection: to produce the miraculous. I am thinking of the way the intangible air travelled at speed round a shaped wing easily holds our weight. How does the concept of working together as David Whyte describes it, inspire or challenge you in your approach to working in Mercy? Where have you experienced the visible and invisible working together to produce the miraculous? So may we, in this life trust to those elements we have yet to see or imagine, and look for the true shape of our own self, by forming it well to the great intangibles about us. by David Whyte 18
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Words of Mercy Week 9 : The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Take a moment to sit with the words and images in this poem. What does the poem evoke in you? For Reflection: How does this classic Robert Frost poem speak to you about your experiences of working in Mercy? Where in your life and work are you now being invited to take the road not taken? 20
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Words of Mercy Conclusion We hope that you have enjoyed journeying through the Words of Mercy over the past ten weeks and that they have evoked in you new inspirations and challenges for your life and work in mercy. We leave this series with a short poetic blessing by Michael Leunig for your continued work: God help us to change. To change ourselves and to change our world. To know the need for it. To deal with the pain of it. To feel the joy of it. To undertake the journey without understanding the destination. The art of gentle revolution. Amen. We hope that the Words of Mercy have inspired in you your own gentle revolution. Best wishes, The Mercy Ethos Office 22
Acknowledgements: God s Favourite Hue By Mary Wickham http://marywickhamrsm.org.au/poem/gods-favourite-hue/ Three Gratitudes By Carrie Newcomer http://gratefulness.org/resource/three-gratitudes/ The Guest House By Jellaludin Rumi http://www.sagemindfulness.com/blog/rumi-s-poem-the-guest-house Kindness By Naomi Shihab Nye https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/kindness The Journey By Mary Oliver http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/maryoliver.html Letting Go By Edwina Gateley https://www.journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers Edwina_Gateley_Letting_Go.shtml Keeping Quiet By Pablo Neruda http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/2008/11/poem-keeping-quietworking Together By David Whyte https://onbeing.org/blog/working-together/ The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken Images used in this book can be found at: https://unsplash.com/ These images are free for public use. Permission must be granted for redistribution or commercial use.