Mercy

Over the weekend, my husband's youngest brother came to visit. This is the third week in just over a month that out-of-town company has come to warm up on the sunny Southern California coast. This evening my mother arrives, and ten days later, my father will show up to admire his newest granddaughter.  Of course, they aren't coming for the sunshine, but to meet the baby. And since all these guests are family, I don't feel any pressure to make the house sparkle, more than the usual cleaning, or to cook to impress, other than the usual cooking, or to plan site-seeing outings, other than the usual haunts.

It's wonderful to live close enough to have family visit. My in-laws are talking about coming in May. Another cousin may show up for spring break. And we'll head back to the Midwest in the summer to see all the cousins.

Since my brother-in-law stayed at my other brother-in-law's house ten minutes away, we weren't really the hosts, although we hosted dinner one night and lunch another day at our house. Our kids love their uncle, who is young and fun-loving.  There was golf, surfing, music. It was a great, albeit short, visit.

It gives me a lot of joy that my kids know their extended family and love them, even though this is the first time we've lived in the same town with family since we were married.  We've always tried to make an effort to spend time with family or call or send birthday cards. My husband and I both feel like our best friends growing up were our siblings and cousins, and as I've mentioned before, we want our kids to feel that rooted connection to family that we had, even though we're transients.

In some ways, though, it's easier to live far away and only have idealistic thoughts about the relationships with siblings and parents. What living closer to family and having family visit reminds me is that when you are close to someone or spend much time together, you inevitably are going to rub each other wrongly every once in awhile. There were a couple moments during his brother's visit when my husband and I found ourselves bickering about "the plan" or lack thereof.  We were trying to coordinate the activities of our kids with the desires of my brothers-in-law. There were a couple times when their ideas about what to do next changed suddenly. And there was some uncertainty about the times our older boys were going to finish up what they were doing or where they were going.  In the end, everything worked out, but I fretted about trying to be three places at once, so needless to say, I got a little irritable.

I feel badly now that I griped to my husband needlessly.  I made him feel guilty. Perhaps I was more irritable than usual because I'm pregnant, but also because I had to sacrifice what I wanted to do. Once everything fell into place, I could see how I was being inflexible, and I apologized to my husband, but not before my edginess had rubbed off on him, making him grouse at the kids. Ruffled feathers have a way of reproducing.

The fact that irritability is contagious is one of the reasons why "I'm sorry" is one of those three important phrases mentioned by Pope Francis that I'm trying to use more often during Lent: "Please, thank you, I'm sorry."   "I'm sorry" is perhaps the most important of the three statements, and perhaps the most difficult to say.  How many times do we let anger or fear or passion cloud our judgement so that we make poor decisions, or say hurtful things, or seethe in silence that is intended to wound those around us?  Is there a day that passes that doesn't call for some kind of apology?

This minor little incident during a weekend that was supposed to be all sunshine and smiles reminded me yet again that family relationships - and friendships - aren't guaranteed to be free of conflict. In fact, they shouldn't be. We shouldn't hope to be in conflict-free relationships, but in relationships in which conflict is endured, discussed, forgiven.  We work out our salvation in marriages and families in order to cultivate the humility of apologizing, the generosity of forgiving, the peace of forgetting.

When we were kids, we fought with our siblings all the time, just like our own kids do. We hurt each other's feelings, we blamed each other, we hoarded stuff, we punched and pinched, to the point that I'm sure that our parents wondered, like we do, whether what is being cultivated in family life is selfishness and insensitivity. We used to play that game "Mercy" where you tried to bend each other's fingers back until the pain made you cry for mercy. "Winning" was both enduring or causing the pain.

But thankfully, at some point in life, with the help of grace, we realized that winning is about giving and receiving mercy, not inflicting pain.  I almost like the word "mercy" better than "forgiveness." How close is the linguistic relationship between the French "merci" - thanks - to mercy? (Wikipedia answer: both from the Latin for "wages paid" or the root of "merchandise." Something given, accepted. Benevolence, kindness, forgiveness. Mercy is a "work.")  As our siblings and we have aged, we have been able to move beyond that state of self-centeredness to more adult relationships of really enjoying each other's company, caring about what happens to each other and our families, and to loving in-laws and cousins because they belong to the clan. We learned to recognize that people have bad days, or weeks, that we all still have selfish sides that want our own way, that we are still learning how to be understanding adults. Those lapses happen and then pass.  The better self reemerges. We learn to forgive each other for giving in to the childish self and to give each other space to grow and change. Mercy is practiced.  Love is just as contagious as irritability. And it does mean having to say sorry, despite claims made in sentimental movies.

At one of his Angelus addresses, the Pope said:
The joy of God is the joy of forgiveness. It is the joy of the shepherd who finds his lost sheep; the joy of the woman who finds her lost coin; the joy of the father who welcomes home his lost son,” the Pope said.
“This is all the Gospel, here; this is Christianity! But this is not sentimentalism or bland 'do-goodism'; on the contrary, mercy is the true force that can save man and the world from the 'cancer' of sin, from moral and spiritual malaise. Only love can fill the gaps, the negative abysses that evil opens up in our hearts and in history. Only love can do this, and this is the joy of God.

Thankful for siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who bring so much joy and opportunities to practice forgiveness and to experience being forgiven.

The Pope is even celebrating a "Celebration of Forgiveness" around the world, from Dallas to Scotland to Mumbai this Friday.  Time to hit the confessional.



Benefit of the work of giving/receiving of mercy: beach life: