Armed in Mercy

In a prayer, the Prophet Joseph pled for the Saints to be “armed in mercy.” That phrase intrigues me—we don’t generally think of mercy as a weapon, as a source of strength. Yet the Prophet clearly understands the power of compassion and forgiveness—two manifestations of mercy.

This week I’ve read three plays which demonstrate the devastation resulting with the lack of mercy in individuals’ lives. I reread Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read this play since I was an undergraduate at least thirty years ago. At that time I disliked Willy Lohman because I saw him as a demented old man who lived in another world. I was looking at Willy through my eyes of just starting a career with all its possibilities. However, now, I see Willy differently with eyes nearing the end of my career. Yes, I see Willy’s mistakes and failures, but I’m empathetic towards him.

The next day I read another Arthur Miller play—one I had never heard of before: All My Sons. Immediately I’m pulled into the play and into main characters because they are the Keller family in 1947. I like Joe Keller, his wife Kate Keller, and their son Chris Keller. They are likeable, and we feel their continued mourning for their son Larry who died in World War II. We gradually learn the nightmare that Joe Keller knowingly manufactured some faulty airplane parts that caused the unnecessary deaths of American pilots during the war.

And I read Judith Thompson’s recent play Palace of the End. Thompson’s play consists of three separate monologues based on news stories involving the real person named as the speaker in the play. The first monologue My Pyramids is told through Lynndie England, the female American soldier convicted of tortue of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison. The second monologue Harrowdown Hill is based on the publicized life and death of Dr. David Kelly, the British weapons inspector and microbiologist. And the final monologue Instruments of Yearning is based on the true story of Nehrjas Al Saffarh, a well-known member of the Communist party of Iraq, who was tortured by Saddam Hussein’s secret police in the 1970s. She died when her home was bombed by the Americans in the first Gulf War.

Not one of these characters in any of the three plays exhibits or receives mercy. The lack of mercy destroys them as individuals and as families. I know see that mercy, especially the divine gifts of compassion and forgiveness strengthen lives and provide us with hope and peace. So much of our unhappiness, especially in relationships, can find peace through godly and individual mercy.