A hostage and a monkey

His name is Alan and he used to drive taxis in Britain. That is, until he went to Syria to use his driving skills to transport medical supplies and food to civilians who need it.

Then last December, when we were all in our separate churches singing advent hymns of peace and hope,  he was separated from his group of aid workers and taken hostage by the most lost, hurt, insecure and unloved-feeling souls in the world. We have been hearing them on the news by the name ISIS. Really, they’re just a tiny army built up by preying on people who are angry for their suffering, desperate to repay the world for their misery. Those are the people that are hiding Alan.  

They have beheaded many before him, and now they say he is next. 

His wife sends out a plea. He was just giving aid to innocent civilians, she says. Can’t you show mercy? Where is mercy? 

Alan. 

Where is he right now, and what must be thinking? Does he feel alone? Belligerent? Terrified? 

Where is mercy? 

***

Mercy showed up in church, of all places. I have come to rarely expect him there. It’s as if saying the word makes him run further from the pews and the robes and the 2 minute passings of peace in which we are supposed to find time and space to reconcile ourselves to one another before entering into worship. 

But he showed up last Sunday morning in Bingo, a monkey hand puppet that travels around with Rocky, a wild-eyed white man from Camden. Bingo stopped and talked in his excited little high pitched voice to elderly women, men in suits, babies, and Father Michael. 

“He wears that puppet all the time,” my housemate, Matt, leaned over and whispered to me. “He’s from Camden. Talked to some pretty rough guys with that thing. Last year he got jumped and his first monkey got torn up. But now he’s back at it with Bingo.”

I watched, curiously, as mercy’s head whirled around, looking for the ones that needed him most.