On Writing, Mercy, and the Discipline of Showing Up

Last updated on: September 15, 2026 at 12:45 pm by Sherry Antonetti

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On Writing, Mercy, and the Discipline of Showing Up 2026-09-15T12:45:56-04:00 Sherry Antonetti

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Reflections

It’s been a hard struggle to get back to writing. I find excuses. I ignore time. My life is blessed and beyond graced, and yet I wrestle with how to pour out what I think and why I think it onto the digital page. Writing used to be like breathing, and now, it seems I am holding my breath until some other time. And some other time becomes almost never.

We're given so many decades and so many mysteries because life is full of decades and infinite mystery.

I wish I could say it pains me, but it’s more wistful than that. I wish I were published, but there’s some sort of intellectual emotional sloth that precludes me from being willing to work through the paragraphs, the words. Even now, I look at the pitiful shortness of this writing and know every word is a challenge against the nothing that otherwise would be.

My niece sent a letter and a friend sent a rosary, and the two of them indicate to me, writing, like prayer, like all of life that is excellent, involves a willed component. I must do the writing whether I want to or not, whether I will or not, until it is because of perspiration rather than inspiration. Reality demands effort, and I have somehow let whole months slip by like water.

So where am I spiritually? Yesterday, at Mass, I heard the story of the steward forgiven a great debt they could not possibly pay, and I know I’ve been given it. So I must be generous going forward with all I encounter. “Forgive them all.” was the words I heard engraved on my heart from the homily, from the Eucharist. Christ on the cross was telling me what he really asked of us, which was not to demand an apology but to offer mercy.

And I sat there thinking, who would I deny mercy to and why? These were the souls I owed forgiveness to, not because they asked, but because they needed it, and what’s more, I needed to give it. Imagining holding the rosary, and on each bead, offering forgiveness for some wrong, for every wrong, for all the wrongs ever done to me, and again, repeating the process, asking mercy for all the injuries I’d given, and then thanks to God for His abundant mercy; this was the purpose of the Divine Mercy chaplet. Surrendering the held grudges and even the held pain, the held memories that allowed hurt to persist long after its expiration date.

Image by Philip Walenga from Pixabay

How much had I clutched, practically nailing to my soul? How much had I refused to release? How many times had I troubled the Lord’s servants by not imitating His generosity in my own life with those I encountered. “Pay back what you owe!” felt like a deep reminder, that we each owe more than we could ever repay, and that the only thing our Lord asks of us, is to be as generous with mercy as He is, was, and always has been, with us. It was time, to surrender any and all claims to anything but trust in God’s mercy in all things, because my debt in all things, has already been paid.

So today, I sat at my computer until 500 new words showed up, and tomorrow, I’ll begin again.

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