91Èȱ¬

From Father Christopher Jamison, Benedictine Monk:

People tend to think that monks are detached from the real world.  I have had plenty of doses of reality – most notably when I was working as a school teacher. One of the challenges was knowing when to be tough and when to be lenient. One of my colleagues would hand out detentions and lines (yes, this is a long time ago), he would hand them out left right and centre but at the end of the class he would always let everybody off. This struck me as the worst of both worlds, neither tough nor lenient and the pupils laughed it off thinking the teacher was just daft.

It's not just teachers but parents, managers and all those responsible for the welfare of others who face this challenge. How do we balance justice with mercy? On the whole, people want justice for others and mercy for themselves. But how about flipping that round and saying: I'll accept justice for myself and show endless mercy to others. So, I’ll stop making excuses for my own bad behaviour and take responsibility when I get things wrong. For example, I recently was caught doing 36 MPH on a road with a 30 limit; at first I was annoyed at being caught not at speeding but attending a speed awareness course made me realise that even marginal speeding is wrong. Similarly, when other people do something wrong to me I’ll want to make sure that their bad behaviour is contained and, if necessary, dealt with by the law but I’ll try not to be angry and resentful. My showing mercy is good for me because I don’t have gnawing resentment making me unhappy and, once they’ve stopped behaving badly, it’s good for others to have a chance to redeem themselves. Leaving aside criminal cases, in daily life it’s easy get too wound up my small things. There’s a verse in the Bible that asks that mercy and justice should embrace. That’s a great if rather late New Year’s resolution for me.