Mercy is the bloom that still can offend though its intention is to attract more beauty. Thank you for this beautiful reflection, Beth! I can’t live without knowing mercy exists in the world.
Beautiful as always, Beth. Thanks for the reminder that we have to maintain sharp senses to discern mercy and recognize opportunities to pass it out like candy. Now, more than ever, the vital work you and Sarah do every day feeds the response of this community we all love to the conditions around us.
I love this so much, Beth! I forwarded the newsletter to my son that collects carniverous and exotic plants, and to my PhD biologist husband. It was such a thoughtfully written piece! And as a Baptist turned Episcopalian, I was so grateful for Bishop Budde's voice. Mercy is a foundation of our faith. I'm sad that she's gotten so much criticism from other Christians.
I remember in my youthful naivete that I thought I might be called on at some point to take some kind of courageous stand, & when it happened it would be so clear that I was choosing the good & right & true against that which was clearly evil. (Did I mention naivete?) Yes, Beth, mercy against the backdrop of pain & ugliness. Maybe a kindness is mistrusted & rejected. Maybe grace is depicted as no accountability. Even love can be twisted & used to bring harm. No doubt the Bishop has had an overabundance of hate mail since Tuesday because she advocated for mercy. So messy. And yet... I still choose mercy and kindness and grace and love. Even now. Especially now.
Beth, your writing style really speaks to my heart. I absolutely adore how you open your MTS and letters with a beautiful story about something seemingly unrelated. It reminds me of poetry in a way.
During Covid, my friend had one of his plants he had for like 30+ years bloom and he was so sad because when it does this, the plant will die after. There's no way to stop the bloom or stop the plant from dying. So daily he would go out and measure the bloom stalk - it was one of those that you could almost literally see it growing as it would grow inches per day. Before it bloomed it got to something like 30' tall. It was a mix of awe and sadness watching him with this plant he had doing something amazing but also knowing it would be no more once it was done. He would post a photo daily of how much it grew seemingly overnight, at one point having to climb on his roof to measure it. The beautiful part of it all in the end was when it does this, it scatters hundreds of seeds so he collected a whole bunch and now has multiples of this plant growing in his backyard now. It feels like mercy talked about here. You only see the one sad thing and the mercy in the one sad thing but hundreds of seeds could be being scattered and that mercy multiplied within the people shown mercy. Beth, this was absolutely beautiful. Thank you
Mercy is the bloom that still can offend though its intention is to attract more beauty. Thank you for this beautiful reflection, Beth! I can’t live without knowing mercy exists in the world.
Thank you, Beth.
Beautiful as always, Beth. Thanks for the reminder that we have to maintain sharp senses to discern mercy and recognize opportunities to pass it out like candy. Now, more than ever, the vital work you and Sarah do every day feeds the response of this community we all love to the conditions around us.
I love this so much, Beth! I forwarded the newsletter to my son that collects carniverous and exotic plants, and to my PhD biologist husband. It was such a thoughtfully written piece! And as a Baptist turned Episcopalian, I was so grateful for Bishop Budde's voice. Mercy is a foundation of our faith. I'm sad that she's gotten so much criticism from other Christians.
I remember in my youthful naivete that I thought I might be called on at some point to take some kind of courageous stand, & when it happened it would be so clear that I was choosing the good & right & true against that which was clearly evil. (Did I mention naivete?) Yes, Beth, mercy against the backdrop of pain & ugliness. Maybe a kindness is mistrusted & rejected. Maybe grace is depicted as no accountability. Even love can be twisted & used to bring harm. No doubt the Bishop has had an overabundance of hate mail since Tuesday because she advocated for mercy. So messy. And yet... I still choose mercy and kindness and grace and love. Even now. Especially now.
Mary Gauthier has a great song named Mercy Now
Beth, your writing style really speaks to my heart. I absolutely adore how you open your MTS and letters with a beautiful story about something seemingly unrelated. It reminds me of poetry in a way.
Yay!!! The happy Senator Booker face made my week 💗
During Covid, my friend had one of his plants he had for like 30+ years bloom and he was so sad because when it does this, the plant will die after. There's no way to stop the bloom or stop the plant from dying. So daily he would go out and measure the bloom stalk - it was one of those that you could almost literally see it growing as it would grow inches per day. Before it bloomed it got to something like 30' tall. It was a mix of awe and sadness watching him with this plant he had doing something amazing but also knowing it would be no more once it was done. He would post a photo daily of how much it grew seemingly overnight, at one point having to climb on his roof to measure it. The beautiful part of it all in the end was when it does this, it scatters hundreds of seeds so he collected a whole bunch and now has multiples of this plant growing in his backyard now. It feels like mercy talked about here. You only see the one sad thing and the mercy in the one sad thing but hundreds of seeds could be being scattered and that mercy multiplied within the people shown mercy. Beth, this was absolutely beautiful. Thank you
Senator Booker's face radiates his joy when he smiles. Thank you for sharing this video clip!
This is so powerful and so beautiful. Thank you so very much for this. (I’ll also plug The Bitter Southerner’s new “Have Mercy” t-shirts.)
We have a corpse flower blooming here right now.
Thank you, Beth.
This is precisely what I needed; a beautiful reminder and balm for my soul.
This is so beautiful. I need an Uncle Jesse meme though.
🤣 really a missed opportunity there
❤️❤️
Thank you so much Beth. I will carry this with me.