We all need somebody to lean on
WHAT do you do on a slow, hot journey on the London Underground? Go into a dream.
I was leaning against one of those padded shelf-seats (used to make more space for standing) when I realised this was just like a ‘misericord’.
When medieval monks had to stand for hours in their churches or cathedrals, singing or intoning prayers, they could lean on the carved ‘shelf’ beneath the flipped up seat of their choir stalls. Taking the weight off their legs, this hidden feature was called a misericord — from the Latin, misericordia, or mercy. Literally, it means ‘pity of the heart’.
As a schoolgirl I moaned about Latin, but found it fascinating and still do. So there I was enduring Tube ‘misery’ from the Latin miseria: affliction. The word miser means ‘unhappy’, leading us to realise that a person who hoards money must be a miserably wretched sort of human being. And what happens when you ‘commiserate’ with somebody? You feel sorry for their pain.
That beautiful noun ‘compassion’ contains a similar idea: it comes from the Latin com, meaning ‘with’ and patior meaning ‘I suffer’. So if you are so sympathetic that you feel for the suffering of another, you are showing compassion.
This is related to ‘passion’ — meaning what Jesus endured on the Cross, but also the kind of emotion which (more often than not) causes unhappiness in the end. I love these word journeys that reveal much about the human spirit. The ‘pity of the heart’ is essential.
Back to my Tube misericord — I’d like to think of this column as a support, too. That sets Bill Withers singing inside my head: ‘Lean on me, when you’re not strong / And I’ll be your friend / I’ll help you carry on.’
Word histories convey the importance of sharing feelings. Prop somebody up and, who knows, one day the positions may be reversed: ‘For it won’t be long / ’Til I’m gonna need / Somebody to lean on.’
So let’s all be misericords.
Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, london W8 5TT, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.