It was one of those Sundays.

You know the kind I mean – the ones that feel like a cosmic apology for every Monday morning you’ve ever endured. As a minister who’s also a parent, a true Sunday morning off is a rarer bird than a dodo sighting, so I was soaking it in. There I was, cruising along the South Mountain, my shaggy co-pilot “doing a happy” with his head out the window, ears flapping, sporting a grin that could only be described as gloriously stupid.

The sky?

So ridiculously blue it looked like a CGI backdrop. Cotton candy clouds just floated, daring you to believe they weren’t edible. The spring greens of the trees and fields were practically vibrating, electric with a color that felt brand new. Windows down, cool air, the scent of possibility – and Carrie Newcomer in the speakers.

Peak bliss, right?

I was singing along at the top of my lungs when her song “A Great Wild Mercy” came on.

And then, bam.

Halfway through, out of absolutely nowhere, my throat seized. No profound existential thoughts were mid-stream, no sudden tragic memories. I was just… singing. And then, not singing, because I was too choked up. Tears, actual tears, started streaming down my face, much to the confusion of my poor dog.

It wasn’t until I replayed the moment, and the lyrics, that my subconscious spirit, apparently taking its own scenic drive through my soul, revealed what had ambushed me on the side of that mountain.

It was the chorus:

“There’s a big wide sky filled with stars. Feels so close, but feels so far. Tired of all the rage. Tired of all the worry. Looking for some peace. Trying not to hurry. Leaning into something absolutely sturdy. I’m ready for a great wild mercy.”

Yup. There it was.

A direct hit.

That chorus wasn’t just a collection of pretty words; it was a mirror reflecting exactly what my soul has been muttering, sometimes screaming, for months.

That exhaustion from the constant barrage of rage, the simmering worry that’s become our default background noise. That yearning for a peace that glimmers, so tantalizingly close, yet always seems just beyond our grasp, like trying to catch smoke. The desperate wish for the world, the news cycle, something, to just slow down to a pace our souls can actually keep up with.

And that line – “Leaning into something absolutely sturdy” – in this era of what often feels like intentionally cruel upheaval, who isn’t craving that?

It’s all too much, too fast, all the time.

My soul, and I suspect many of yours, is deeply, profoundly ready for a “great wild mercy.”

As Carrie’s voice continued, washing over me like the mountain air, another line landed:

“Some of us are just born restless. Dazzled by the hard and soft things. Seeking an ever-present goodness still circling on wings.”

And with that, a wave of affirmation.

Permission, almost.

It’s not weird to be perpetually seeking beauty – whether it’s in the halls of an art museum or in the defiant, untamed grace of grasses waving on a freeway exit ramp. It’s okay to be “dazzled” by the impossible blue of a Sunday sky while simultaneously feeling your heart get absolutely gutted by the “hard things” – the relentless, stomach-churning news of a fertility clinic bombed, the ongoing genocides in Gaza and Sudan that scream for our attention, the continued, chipping erosion of democratic foundations we once thought unshakable.

I needed that reminder.

That it’s not only okay, but perhaps essential to hold both the dazzling and the devastating.

Call it God, call it the Spirit of Life, call it the Universe, call it your own deepest intuition – whatever your language for it, I felt that “ever-present goodness” she sings of, circling like the hawk I’d seen soaring effortlessly over the mountain ridge just moments before.

Maybe that’s the path to the mercy we seek.

We need a return, a collective leaning in, to being “dazzled by the hard and soft things” – all of them.

I don’t ever want my soul to become callused, to develop a protective layer so thick that it dulls my ability to perceive beauty or to ache with the world’s pain.

To stay open, to allow ourselves to be pierced by both the light and the shadow, to keep seeking that sturdy place and that ever-present goodness – perhaps that is the great wild mercy. Maybe it’s not just something we wait for, but something we cultivate, something we allow ourselves to feel, even when it brings us to tears on the side of a sun-drenched mountain.

And perhaps, in that shared, open-hearted seeking, we find it together.