I’m sure I haven’t seen a video of Boy George performing, or a news clip or even a picture of him, in many years. But there he was on the second day of Lent when I clicked the link at the end of an online Lenten devotional from the Northumbria community that I’ve been reading most mornings since Ash Wednesday. He wore a flashy red hat, a black shirt, and generous swipes of gray eyeshadow and black eyeliner. Welcome to my morning, Boy George. Sing me a song.
“Mercy, Now” is the song he sang. I’d never heard the song before. The first stanza is about a father who is having a hard time. He’s lived his life and death is near. “I love my father, and he could use some mercy now.” In the second stanza, a brother is struggling and in pain. Mercy, now. The song turns its attention to church and country, to every living thing, to each of us, all of us. “Every single one of us could use some mercy now.”
The song kept playing in my head, along with the image of Boy George, singing and smiling and dancing on stage. A couple weeks later, on day 16 of Lent, another entry in a second Lenten series I’ve been reading, this one by Tamara Hill Murphy, again included a link to another version of “Mercy, Now.” This time it opened to the song sung by Mary Gauthier and in a slower, more somber style. I later read that Gauthier wrote the song, both the words and music. In her book, Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, Gauthier wrote of visiting her father as he was dying and in the days that followed she wrote the song. She has sung it at every concert since. (Here’s a link to the lyrics.)
“People sometimes cry when they hear it, but if tears come, I think they are tears of resonance; the words provide listeners a witness to their struggle. ‘Mercy Now’ started out as a personal song, then it deepened. It became universal.”
Then the next day, Lent day 17, the Northumbria series presented yet another link to “Mercy, Now,” this version by Alana Levandoski from her album, Hymns From the Icons.
“Mercy, Now,” three times in my inbox. I’m grateful.
~~~
[Photo: These aren’t the palms from a Palm Sunday morning but from a trip to Florida several years ago. How lovely today, after getting 14 inches of snow Friday night, is the remembrance of them, reflected in the pool.]