Mercy by Day
One of my favorite phrases that appears in hymns and songs is “mercy by day and safety at night” (from Family Bible, page 165 in The Sacred Harp). My two others are “joyful doom”, which appears in a lot of things including a verse of Idumea not included in The Sacred Harp, and “God pants”, which was completely taken out of context by a singer I met in New York a few months ago and sounds kind of funny. This post is kind of about the first one.
The way I see it, the job of a boarding school teacher is to, in some limited very not-Godlike manner, provide mercy by day and safety at night. That’s what kids need in an educational and living environment. They need someone to forgive and encourage them during the working day and someone to fend off the marauding bears, wild moose, hungry vampires, angry drunks and other unsavory creatures of the night. These are the bare necessities of a successful boarding school life.
Now that the school year is almost over the limited aspect of this is hitting me harder and harder. I find that I am running out of mercy and forgiveness. On the one hand, maybe this is a sign that I should figure out some way to regain that for myself. On the other, if kids are still screwing up now after a whole year of warning and forgiveness, maybe it’s time to bring out the Old Testament version of mercy. After all, even Jesus is only your friend if you do what he says. (”You are my friends if you do what I command.” John 15:14. Of course, I shouldn’t quote the Bible out of context. The command here is “love each other”. The point still stands, because the easiest way for a kid to screw up is if she does not love and respect another; or herself.)
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Jun 1, 2008 - 12:06:24Ah, yes. This is difficult, and even as an experienced teacher it is easy to lose perspective as the end of the semester/year is nigh. The thing is that even though it seems like some kids aren’t learning from warning/forgiveness, they may actually be—and you just don’t get the benefit of your hard work on the issue, but some other future teacher might. Also (not that I have any mercy or forgiveness in me), I found that I was able to make it further through the semester each year before feeling like I was running low on the energy that drives one to love one’s classes.
In any case, the rest you get during the summer should basically refill your mercy and forgiveness reserves.