I watch the shifting patterns of light on the ceiling, fascinated. I try to trace the source of the brightness, yet I can’t quite fathom its path. Is it moonlight interrupted by passing clouds, or ambient streetlight, or headlights from cars? How exactly is the light reflected and refracted from outside and through the window so that it plays onto the space above me?

I can’t quite fathom the path of God’s mercy either, yet I experience it. In the parents who bring their children forward so young foreheads may be marked by ashes. In the hospice nurse who so very gently tends to the wounds of a fragile ninety-year-old. In the businessman who wonders how he can reach out to support someone he barely knows. How exactly is the Light from Light permeating all of creation, reaching past the violence and depravity of the world and touching my soul with gentleness?

What I know is that I am being deeply called to receive this mercy; and to be mercy in the world.

The little that the righteous has
is better than great riches of the wicked.
For the power of the wicked shall be broken,
but the Lord upholds the righteous.
Psalm 37:17-18