I keep laughing......just read a quote that I had always heard ...incorrectly, then looked it up:


"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."


I had always heard this as "the quality of mercy is not strange"... .. And thought...huh? Of course it is not strange, though it may be rare...do they mean to normalize mercy? How do these words do that? Isn't this a sing lyric (it is) and doesn't it sound kind'a like....


Yes, it's from The Merchant of Venice, which I last saw/heard as a junior high school kid at a Shakespeare in the Park performance. I totally forgot that the quote came from there! Must have bern besotted with being out late in the city. (And note...there are a few instances of the same mis-hearing on the web.)


How perfect!


This gift was from Marc Ian Barasch's Field Notes on the Compassionate Life .... A delicious book that underscores my gatitude for every mercy!