I know I look at weird words.  I have been thinking heaps about the word “mercy” of late.  The Cambridge dictionary defines mercy as “kindness that makes you forgive someone, usually someone that you have authority over:”, while vocabulary.com says it is “a disposition to be kind or forgiving.”
I must confess mercy is a word dear to my heart.  I guess that is due to the way I look at the world.  Treating others the way I would want to be treated.
It is also one of the reasons I am not fond of some algorithms.  It seems to me many algorithms do not account for the human condition.  They ask for perfection in an imperfect world among an imperfect people.
I do not condone a lack of consequences for actions, and sometimes punishment it the only way for a lesson to be learned.  Sometimes punishment is an act of mercy.  But in other cases, I really feel that “up front” mercy should be shown.  Ok mistakes may have been made, but the person (and it could be me) who has committed the transgression acknowledges what they have done and commits to doing better. 
This is where I reckon the fruit of action is seen.  It becomes obvious if the wool has been pulled over my eyes, or if the attempt to do and be better is genuine.  As is said “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
Besides, I ask myself who am I to set myself up in some matters?  Good chance I am at a different place on life’s journey than another.  My role is to encourage as I have been encouraged.
I guess the bottom line for me is the answer yes to the question, “do I want mercy?” Time will tell if I use the mercy shown to further my own aims or if it is life changing for the better.  It seems only fair that the measure I judge others by, should be the measure I am judged by. 

This is over post 2,500.  I have written about may different topics but in one sense I feel like a broken record.  I keep on coming back to a theme.  Yet in thinking about it, it is a theme I am happy to come back to again and again.
I was reminded of this by the email from James Clear.  In it he said, "The way to help someone is not to critique what makes them smaller, but to encourage what makes them larger."
I often say what I concentrate on grows bigger.  So if I give prolonged thought to negative and destructive things they will dominate my thinking.  By the same token if I give prolonged thought to ways to love, helping, being patient despite the immediately adverse, I will tend to act in a way that builds up rather than pulls down another.  Which is good for everyone including me really.
To be honest I am seeing a lot of concentrating on bad stuff right now.  I really only need to play some video games or look at movies to see that evil is being promoted without bounds.  Sure good wins in the end in most cases.  But in games that is not a given, and in movies the way of evil knows no bounds.
At work my computer was set up along with everyone else’s to play a shoot em up video game.  When after a while I did not move, I realized I was dead.  Yet lo and behold I came back to life.
I cannot deny that I am seeing a lack of thought for the consequences of actions at the moment.  For many the evil on display in games and movies is just dismissed as a game.  For others role play goes into real life and suddenly, but often too late, consequences are seen and lived.  Lives are changed.  It seems to me we are getting to the stage where the unexpected is expected and fear and violence is the norm.
To me that is traced back to “what I think about grows larger.”  That is why I want to concentrate on the good and I shut my eyes deliberately if there is murder abroad in movies.  I do not want those images in my mind.
I am human and there are things in my mind I do not want there.  I ask for help and work on replacement.  I deliberately replace the bad with the good.  Sometimes the transformation is immediate, but often it is gradual. 
What matters to me is not how it happens, but that it happens.  I need to see my mind renewed and evil intent replaced with good intent.  They say “revenge is sweet.”  Yet I do not see that as in my hands to do.  What is in my hands to do is to attempt to bring out the good in another.
I may succeed in doing that or I may fail.  Yet either way I have succeeded as I have not become like my adversary.  Evil never stops of its own accord.  It needs to be stopped and I want to play my part.

I read an article that stated that in the time period covered, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 elderly were abandoned at hospitals.  That is, they were taken there and left at the doorstep and it was up to the nurses and staff to figure out who the person was.
That to me is a really sad story.  I had my dad with me before he passed away at 97.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing but looking back I can see his decline.  It seemed there was less and less time between the periods of unwellness he experienced.
A real estate agent originally from Vietnam had been instrumental in finding me a place that could house me and my dad.  He had said you are much like it is in our society.  We look after our elders and take responsibility for their care.
It seems to me families go through the whole gamut of roles.  When young I am looked after.  When older I strike out on my own.  Then where possible I look after my parents in their twilight years.
I guess the story I read struck a chord with me as it highlights what I see happening more and more these days.  That is the abandonment of a people group.  They may be elderly or a different race or poor.  One thing they all have in common it seems is (and there is that word again) vulnerability to the shifting sands of affluence and influence.
It seems to me everyone deserves dignity.  My role may simply be to listen, or it may involve greater involvement.  No matter how it is manifest everyone needs a sense of self-worth.
There is no doubt from my experience some are harder to love and spend time with than others.  Some have woven a tangled web for a lifetime.  It can seem that spending time is simply marking time.  Others look forward with optimism to when the aches and pains and weathering of age are a thing of the past.
No matter what it seems to me all deserve dignity.  All deserve a voice.  Sometimes their only voice is mine.  What matters to me is that is the way I would like to be treated so that is the way I will treat others.