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Morality Part 2: Mercy, Motivation, and Conscience
In Morality Part 1, I explained how morality was about relationship, not rules. Part 2 will begin to explore moral responsibility and the role of conscience. But first, a word about mercy.
Yesterday, when I backed the car out of the driveway, I was too close to the neighbor’s fence and clipped, shattered, and broke off the side-view mirror.
Why? There was no good reason. I wasn’t distracted or stressed. I have no one to blame but myself. I literally hung my head in shame as I showed my husband what I had done. Worse yet, I misread the text message that my friend sent. She hadn’t asked me to pick her up; she had offered to pick me up.
I wasn’t even supposed to be backing out of the driveway. The feeling of stupidity stung.
My husband was more merciful and compassionate to me that I was to myself. “Try not to do that again,” he said as he hugged me. He knew I was sorry.
As I tried to moved beyond self-condemnation to being present to the rest of my day (and of course figuring out the details of getting the car fixed) I thought a lot about my own practice of showing mercy, especially with my kids.
