The Master's Ladder, Step Five

The Master's Ladder Step by Step 

Step Five 

Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. 

When I was a state prison chaplain, I met a man who was a former law enforcement officer, a deputy sheriff in a populous Georgia county.  He was convicted of child rape among other crimes, abusing children during Satanic ritual to gain dark powers, making sacrifice of the children's innocence in preparation to darker things.  He had a congenital heart defect that he hid from the police doctors. It wasn't that serious then but had been aggravated by the strain of drug abuse and an untreated sexual disease, was worsened still by beatings he received on the inside in his first years of imprisonment. He had to take a drug to stimulate his heart to make it beat faster than normal to keep from getting fluid on his lungs.  He came to me one day and explained his physical trouble. I had always observed he was pasty white, and looked  strained. He was beginning to have serious side effects from the medicine, a strain on his kidneys that had already sent him to dialysis once, and was facing open heart surgery, if he was lucky.  

We were standing in the open in the prison yard. He said as if asking to borrow a pencil, “I know if you pray for me, you can heal my heart.”  Of course I deferred to the Lord, who is the healer but he pressed, “You know what I mean. I've seen you act in authority.”  I said, “J ___ if you really believe in Satan, why don't you get him to heal your heart.”  He said, “trust me I've tried. He told me who to sacrifice to get the job done. He didn't talk to me like that on the outside."  I said, "If only he were a tit or tat selfish bastard and not the malevolent destroyer he surely is." He was silent for a moment then he told me that he had ask the Wiccan priestess, and still he suffered. He said "that sent me to dialysis."  My back was up, I hated this conversation my personal resentment rising in me, that a Satanist would ask me for a physical healing, without any submission to repentance and conversion. It wasn't a small thing. A friend of my children had been sacrificed by a sister “coven,” murdered in satanic ritual at the age of 17, and buried in a shallow grave.  I would have dug a deeper grave for my dog.  I really did not want to do it. But I learned like Phillip, mentioned in the last step, that when prompted by the Holy Spirit to go talk to the Ethiopian Eunuch who was sitting on his chariot, reading, Phillip didn't question, or dally, he RAN to the chariot.  

The truth is, on a personal level I liked this Satanist.  We had had several conversations so his approaching me to talk was not odd; we were friendly.  So it wasn't any personal hostility, just the self-righteous attitude grating on me that such a cultist would ask a mercy of God's healing without any thought of renouncing Satan! It seemed outrageous to me.  But obeying without hesitation I placed my hand on his chest, never said a word and then backed away.  He asked, “That's it? That's all?”   I could see he did not believe me.  So I warned him, “If I were you I would stop taking the heart medication because it might kill you. Check with the doctor now, don't wait.”  He said, “We can't just walk in there. I have an appointment next week, by then we will know.” I said, "You will know sooner than that."  

Three days later he was life-flighted to a metropolitan hospital in coronary arrest.  The prison doctor rode the life flight with him.  He was revived twice.  They managed to get him stable and run some tests.  The cardiologist was snarky to the prison doctor wondering why he would have a man with a perfectly healthy heart on a powerful heart stimulant.  The prison doctor was pissed.  J____ shared with them that I had touched him, told him he was healed and told him to check with the doctor and stop taking the medicine.  He was fearful to stop and almost killed himself.  

Outside of my wisdom and understand, as it turned out, his healing was a powerful witness to his prideful occultic knowledge, an assault on his superstition and spiritual pride. It happen outside of his wheelhouse, you see. He was expecting the need for pomp and ritual, maybe anointing and prayer, maybe some sacrifice of fast or some other privation, maybe gathering some people in a prayer circle, maybe having to “work up the spirit” but a quick and silent touch did not compute.  I was able to say to him later seriously in a private moment, “J___, it was Jesus standing in my shoes, his hand in my hand that fed your heart, LIFE. And the same hand that healed your heart will stop it one day. You need to reconcile yourself with that fact.  I could see genuine fear in his eyes for the first time since I had met him. Somehow, even though he was in prison and sentenced to 25 years, having served about 8 of it. I still think the satanism was for him in a very silly and foolish way, a game.  It fact previously that is how he had explained it, an experiment that just sort of got out of hand. After that, the air of superiority he held was gone.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”

“ . . .they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD” 
I remember walking out of the yard that day of the healing encounter thinking to myself, how much wiser that Satanist was than more agnostics I had met, and wiser than EVERY atheist I have met.  “At least” I thought “he does not suffer the idiocy that says, “There is no God.” 

The prison doctor who had a very checkered past, was shaken to his core.  He called me in and showed me EKGs going back years clearly showing J___'s condition and the fact that for almost a year he had been on maximum dose of the stimulant, awaiting a slot for open heart surgery.  From that act of mercy, laying aside all religious pretensions, one human being to another human being sharing a second or two of inspired and Holy Mercy, many people were caught in concentric healing circles produced that day, which would take a book to share. 

I knew a man, who held two people in particular disdain. During the course of his work the Holy Spirit impressed on him to take them money, which was repeated over a period of a few months amounting to hundreds of dollars.  Each time he left a check in an envelope, like kids used to leave Valentines, leave it and run, the last thing he wanted was contact with them.  Finally the Holy Spirit said to him, “if you don't have the heart to knock on the door, like you are dealing with humans, at least let them see you and approach you.  After all you would give a stray dog that.”  Only to discover that they were in a very trying spot and the money had arrived in the amounts they needed, when they needed to keep subsistence living together.  They had to say, “We don't understand how this could be, (you see they held him with more disdain than he held them) but every time we prayed here you showed up.”  And on the prompting of the Holy Spirit some old bitter wounds were healed. 

I know an elderly man, who lived next door to a sex offender, a man shunned by everyone, hated simply because he was on the offender's registry and dare live in their neighborhood.  You know it is alright to hate sex offenders, right?  That's the class of people it is officially permitted to HATE.  Hardly.  Aside from me, the sex offender had no other friend on earth. Then the elderly neighbor began to use him to do all kinds of odd jobs.  I said, “W___, how is it when everyone else shuns him, you spend so much time with him?”  W___  stammered with more than a little sudden energy, shocked and I think a little offended at my question and said, “Well, hell, he's a human being ain't he?”  Out of prison twelve years and counting, no re-offending. 

Until you do something healing for someone who you “know” does not deserve it, you have no concept of mercy.  In fact you haven't even “touched” mercy.  Until one shows mercy to someone one hates, I doubt one can understand much depth in the meaning of mercy.  Saint John Chrysostom said to the effect, that if you show outward mercy (an action) toward someone you resent, and resent the action, you've gained nothing. But until you show mercy to those who by human standards do not deserve it, you have not effected the mercy which is better.  It is a difference as great as good and evil, the difference in the mercy we show, and the mercy God shows us. In archaic language our mercy is a “mean” thing, ordinary, and HIS mercy is imbued with Holy Wisdom. That is the reason the Orthodox Christian prays for God's mercy so often. 

It is not until we breakdown our false sense of “just desserts” and overcome our rational resistance, that we may if we are so gifted by God, share in our physical being, in his shoes, mercy that is also imbued with Holy Wisdom.  Our sense of “Justice” is ego driven, straight from our human pride.  “Well, I told him.” “Well, I showed her.” 

Driving down the road a friend dodged a drunk driver and there was little he hated worse than a drunk on the road.  Just after the drunk passed him, his car left the rode and went airborne down a steep hill wedging between a house and a giant oak tree and caught fire.  The friend, rushed to the scene and others quickly arrived as they tried to figure a way to extricate the drunk. The right side next to the house was impossible. The left side, the door was clear of the tree but caved from hitting the tree, crumpled inward, wedged in place. After a couple of attempts, my friend literally grabbed the door with his bare hands and ripped it open, a door that could not be pried open with a tire tool.  The tire tool having bent like rubber against the force of his effort with his adrenalin pumping. Seven hours later he was in horrible pain when the endorphin wore off and his hands were suddenly swollen and in fiery hot, sharp pain. He was still cursing the drunk as he looked at his swollen hands that night.  Only to discover days later, the man was in diabetic shock and not drunk. My friend was cursing him as he saved him, cursing him hours later.  He acted from his own moral pride, no one was going to burn up in his sight, not from any care for the man in trouble.  Pissed that his day was interrupted.  That act of mercy was an act of pride, and like God can use an ass, he used my friend. In that case his physical act of mercy became a needed attitude adjustment.  “We must learn not to judge. We are not as good at it as we like to believe.” 

We act in mercy, not according to our judgment of who deserves it and why, but BECAUSE WE CAN. We should never need any greater reason. If mercy is deserved, it is not mercy but reward. 

You may have realize by now, that Steps One, Two, Three, Four, Five, do not in real life happen in neat little stages and step.  That differing layer of each may coincide and overlap. This is because these steps are organic and not mechanical. So suffice it to say, that the quality of mercy is dependent on the state of purification.  As Jesus explained to the pharisee, about the woman who anointed his feet with perfume and dried them with her hair, showing mercy and hospitality the pharisee had not offered,  “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”  

Love and mercy are twins.  As we have demonstrated apparent acts of mercy can be from wrong motivation, making them something other than acts of mercy and all though greatly benefiting the person receiving the action, even to the point of saving life, still NOT benefit the actor. “1Co 13:3  And though I give away all my possessions to feed the poor, and though I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” 

Common sense and mercy are not disconnect and the Holy Father made out a cursory list of the chief spiritual works of mercy and the chief physical works of mercy. 

The Chief Spiritual Works of Mercy
To admonish sinners.
To teach the nascent. 
To instruct the ignorant.
To counsel the doubtful.
To comfort the sorrowful.
To forgive injuries.
To pray for the living and the dead.

The Chief Corporal Works of Mercy
To feed the hungry.
To give drink to the thirsty.
To clothe the naked.
To ransom captives.
To shelter the homeless.
To visit the sick.
To visit the prisoner.
To bury the dead.

Please make note that visiting the sick and the prisoner does not mean a sugarcoated pop-in, or a sentimental drop-by but engaging in what is needed for healing, even if it is a sugarcoated pop-in, or a sentimental drop-by, sometimes that is healing and all we can rightly do. 

When we get to the level of “showing mercy” that is, acting in mercy, we have come to the lesson of Pure Religion.  Christian healing/salvation is NOT religion, even though its most powerful weapon for healing the person from psycho-pathos are the liturgies, hymn, scripture lessons; the worship of the Church, this is “therapeutic” and not religious. Religion in the sense the culture understands, and in the sense history teaches is sickness.  I strive to worship with a clear head, open heart and thoughtfully, but I'm one of the least religious people you have ever met. Except when it comes to REAL religion:  Jas_1:27  Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. - these are acts of love and mercy. 

Steps One, Two, Three and Four require Prayer, Fasting, performance of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.  You see what I mean by overlapping. And in time “works of mercy” include the lesson of Isaiah recorded in the 58th chapter. 

Let us examine those lessons so we don't end up merely “acting” works of mercy and turning them into mere “religion.” 

Isa 58:1  Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and declare unto my people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins. 

Here the Lord is exposing how religious sickness has damaged true works of spiritual and physical mercy. 

Isa 58:2  Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that doeth righteousness, and hath not forsaken the ordinance of their God; they ask of me the ordinances of righteousness, they take delight in approaching to God:

Here he describes them as very religious, seriously religious, enjoying the beauty of the ceremonial religion.  Nothing wrong with enjoying it, until it becomes unstuck from life. He is not saying these things are bad, but he is about to explain how their religion had come unstuck from reality, had become a game, a fantasy, a sickness.  

Isa 58:3  --Wherefore have we fasted, and thou seest not; have afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? 

Here they complain that their “religious work” has been in vain.  And it is true, God agrees with them.  He says in answer, “Behold, in the day of your fast ye find what pleaseth you, and exact all your labours.” that means they put on a show, letting everyone know how hard they were working, and even that they chose the particular work that was their favorite. 

The Lord digs a little deeper past the outward show and exposes the motivations for their “religionism” their religious sickness. “Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: (that is fasting for merit, fasting for religious self-righteous one-ups-man-ship) ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. (fasting from lack of faith.)
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?”
Those are very strong words because this was very customary. It had become part of the spirit of the culture and had become “ceremonial” and not truly “liturgical” that is dead custom and not living healing tradition. After all, King David a man after God's own heart, according to Jesus, fasted exactly as this describes. 

Next Isaiah describes Spiritual works of Mercy: “Is not this the fast which I have chosen: to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, and to send forth free the crushed, and that ye break every yoke?” These things relate to the bondage of the suffering soul – the psycho-pathos. 

“Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring to thy house the needy wanderers; when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” These are physical works of mercy and the last has a double meaning, not to hide from your own humanity, and also not from your kinsmen, your own family. 

Isa 58:8  "Then shall thy light (read shining Divine Love) will break forth as the morning, and thine healing shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rear guard."  
Do you see in this the steps, one, two, three and four.  Breaking the bands of wickedness, first undoing the thongs of the yoke, untying oneself from them, then freeing the virtue that has been crushed under the weight, and finally not just “unloosening” the yokes, but the stomping on them, breaking them to pieces, doing all in your power to keep Satan from simply reattaching the same bondage.  
At this stage, that relationship of patience/physician is clearly established, and experience has created certainty where:
Isa 58:9  Then shalt thou call, and Jehovah will answer; thou shalt cry, and he will say, Here I am.

Now look, we first untie the yoke, then he break the yoke, finally to cast the yoke from our midsts . . . in our language we haul the garbage to the dump and watch it burn. 

But to do this something more is requires.  “If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger and the unjust speech, and thou offer thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul:
Now we are talking about properly showing mercy, abandoning our judgment, and showing mercy BECAUSE WE CAN and now WANT TO. 

More healing comes.  “Then shall thy light (read glowing divinely inspired LOVE) will rise in the darkness, and thine obscurity be as midday;
Remember in the previous steps talking about the degree of darkness, which “covered over everything.”  Darkness that covers over our entire civilization, and we do not escape it, or shun it, but allow our light to rise IN it.  

And while we allow that to happen, “And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”

Now in case you wrongly believe the above was a rejection of “Tradition” he continues.  
“If thou turn back thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of Jehovah, honourable; and thou honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking idle words; then shalt thou delight thyself in Jehovah, and I will cause thee to ride on the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken.”

To put this in the Christian context, this for us is speaking of the Rational Liturgizing on the “Lord's Day” participation in Divine Liturgy and the other worship of the Church. 

When you start these Spiritual and Physical ACTS of mercy and do so prayerfully, there is a prayer that is very useful:

O Jesus, meek and humble of hear, hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed – Deliver me Jesus.
From the desire of being loved – Deliver me Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled – Deliver me Jesus.
From the desire of being honored – Deliver me Jesus.
From the desire of being praised – Deliver me Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others – Deliver me Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted – Deliver me Jesus. 
From the desire of being approved – Deliver me Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated – Deliver me Jesus.
From the fear of being despised – Deliver me Jesus. 
From the fear of suffering rebukes – Deliver me Jesus. 
From the fear of being falsely accused – Deliver me Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten – Deliver me Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed – Deliver me Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged – Deliver me Jesus. 
From the fear of being suspected – Deliver me Jesus.
That others may be love more than I – Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That others my be esteemed more than I – Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase, and I may decrease – Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That other may be chosen and I set aside – Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That other my be preferred to me in everything – Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.
That other may become more whole, more healed than I, provided that I become whole as I should  – Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.  AMEN. 

Without the heart that can pray this as often as needed and mean it, one is left to the temptation to turn our efforts back into “religion” and remove it from the everyday experience of the greatest and most powerful psychotherapy, guided by the Holy Spirit, guarded by angels.

You do realize that we are talking about LIFE here and not about "religious activities."  The dictum to Mercy colors every single relationship, with none excluded.

Now let us dig a little deeper into the concept of Mercy.  Do you realize that by mercy we do not mean, sweetness.  And even if we conflated mercy with Kindness, which is a virtue and tool in the tool box of human interaction we still would not mean, sweetness.  Though to be "sweet" with someone has its moments times and places.  Sweetness is what you experience with a kitten or puppy dog, and sometimes with your children. But even with your children you know that constant sweetness in your relationship would not be kind and certainly not merciful. Even with a puppy you have to use intelligent training to teach the puppy what is can chew and what he cannot chew and where he is to relieve himself.  Not to do so, would be an unkindness to the puppy, limiting the being he had potential to be and turning him into something much less. Sad that so many parents in this dark culture have lost the knowledge of even this level of child rearing!

Having been place in situations where physical force was necessary to prevent further damage and injury, using that force is not violence, but mercy and even kindness.  When we cross those whose psych-pathos has turned violent and abusive, and they become a danger to others and we have to stop them to prevent further damage and injury, such action is merciful to all and especially to them, and is an act of kindness.  When a TRUE criminal acts he damages many people, including himself. To stop him is a kindness in that it stops him from further damaging his own soul and laying up mountains of pain he WILL have to endure.  If he is violent, then whatever injury he endures, up to and including death is a worthy price to pay.

When Saint Paul instructed a congregation under his Canon to remove a member from their ranks, to turn him out, and turn his body to Satan to suffer destruction that his soul might be saved for eternity, he was being Merciful and it was a kind action.  When Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" he was not talking pink teddy bears and roses.

We are not talking some sugar coated reality, some cultic bliss, but engagement in LIFE, inside the culture of almost total darkness, where man has gone blind and stumbling in his blindness he has grown insane. We are IN the world, not OF the world for purpose. That purpose is not realize in the pablum of "The Purpose Driven Life." That purpose cannot begin to be realized until we gain Strength of Character called Meekness, able then to exercise POWER that is Righteousness, having our Judgment restored by suffering the indignities of deep Psycho-therapy at the hand of our Holy Spirit filled Confessor and Mentor, conquering our Psycho-pathos, enduring our poverty of spirit, weeping bitter tear as we have awaken to the damage the darkness has wrought in us, able to know by the Holy Spirit's Wisdom now resting in our Heart/Mind, when to act, and how to act, Mercifully.  And to the point that we realize the "spiritual mercies" of Isaiah 58, the unloosing the yoke, breaking the bonds, smashing the yoke, removing the yoke, and casting the yoke away, also has a Physical reality as well as Spiritual reality. It is the REAL social justice that operates not on a collectivist model, but instead upon the wisdom of individual actions, like the mysterious and complex functions of a single cell, each molecule faithfully executing its proper function to produce LIFE in the whole.

Understanding that our exercise of Mercy might have even what may appear aspects or events that seem harsh, as forms of force are required to keep other's safe from damage, or to try to rescue some from further damage, in actions that are both spiritual and physical, that same Mercy comes back to us empowered by the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

When I lectured officers on the dangers of their work, having talked about the moral use of potentially deadly force, I would caution them using these words;  You must realize that every action you take, must be based in mercy, even if you kill the person in the process. Step outside of mercy, which in every instance is acting for the good no matter what force it may take, and you become a thug, a psychopath, a storm trooper, a jackboot, and damage your own psyche, which will limit and/or destroy every relationship you hold dear. Abuse someone in your custody and KNOW you will take that abuse home to your wife, because it has taken residence in you.  Lie about someone in your custody and watch it destroy the trust between you and those you love. So when you ask me to pray for you, you realize my prayer will always be that you act justly in mercy, and when you do not that God would in his mercy will let you immediately pay the price so that it is not stored up against you, destroying the rest of your life.   Lao Tsu said, "When chopping wood for the Master, we have to be careful not to destroy our own hands."  Prideful and arrogant action, outside the realm of mercy, has the power to not only destroy your hands, but to destroy your soul.

"Gal_6:7  Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Sow in mercy, Reap in mercy.
Sow malevolence, Reap malevolence.
There is nothing mechanical in this in a rational way some would compare it to the law of Karma, but it does function in great Wisdom via the synergistic work of the Holy Spirit, and though our sins be forgiven, our lessons concerning those we have damaged is not paid. It is a debt we own, not to that person, but to God and he will in mercy walk us through all the very deep healing which cannot be written, cannot be spoken, has to be lived, a wonder, a wisdom, a blessing beyond words.  Blessed are the Merciful, for they shall obtain Mercy.