"Have mercy! This thang's killin' me!"
Mr. Barron hollered back, "John!" ... And he kept hollerin', "Oooooh.... shoot this thang. Have Mercy!"
If you do not recognize these lines from Jerry Clower's "Coon Hunt," you owe it to yourself to read it. Better yet, buy the track and listen to it. The story is a virtually guaranteed remedy for depression and the blues told by one of the country's top comedians until his death in 1998.
The cry for mercy, however, is not a laughing matter in the real world. Mercy, compassion for the miserable, is something everyone needs. We all finds ourselves in a place of misery from time to time. You can see it when you look into their eyes.
Look into a person's eyes the next opportunity you have. Staring, blinking, averting, inviting, ignoring, sparkling, entreating eyes speak louder than words.
Do you see eye-to-eye with God? Do you want him to see what is in your thoughts and emotion? Pray to live in such a way as to perceive God's welcome even when others seek to shut us out. Perhaps the one who needs you to look at them most is the one who has been a nonperson when your paths have crossed in the past.
Why settle for merely talking when you can look into another's eyes, the windows to who they really are?
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Dr. Randy Rowlan is pastor of First United Methodist Church. Comments are welcomed at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Religion on 08/24/2016