For a guy like me and apparently a woman like Mary also, mercy and forgiveness are vital parts of living. If there is no mercy, we are condemned by our past, (and at least in my case, some of the present as well), and might be better off dead. Mary points out that not only we as individuals, but also our church and our country, even the whole otherwise damned world in which we reside is in dire need of this blessed sacrament.Mary pleads on our behalf.A couple of things about mercy and forgiveness: Those that have the most to regret tend to be the most grateful with they find it. And finding it usually requires an honest evaluation of where you are in life. This is rarely easily done. Mary shows the way in her songs, peering into dark recesses without flinching, and describing what she finds there. Mary’s experience provided plenty of dark recesses to peer into, not only her own but also in the lives of others she encountered and tried to love along the way. Some of Mary’s hardships resulted from her own actions. But other problems awaited her arrival into the world and were therefore beyond her control. Here (http://www.marygauthier.com/press.html#bio) is a bio that provides more detail to that story, better than anything I can come up with. For those that won’t go there, a brief summation: Mary was adopted at the age of one by a couple in Louisiana. The family that took her in became dysfunctional—her father, an alcoholic, her mother, a victim of cancer and depression. Mary rebelled in her teens. She used drugs and booze. By fifteen she stole the family car and ran away. She spent her 18th birthday incarcerated. She failed to master the skills needed to break her habits in one stint after another at various rehab clinics. Early adulthood proved equally difficult.Mary didn’t take a drink of life on the dark side of town; she guzzled it to the brink of killing herself. After thirty-five years of living through and then searching for a way out of her own private hell, Mary found at least a few answers or at least better understood the questions. She kicked the drugs, the booze and other self-destructive habits. Mary worked for a time as a restaurateur while dabbling with song writing. She took the leap into working full time as a musician and a performer late in life and against all odds is now one of the best in the business. If the list of publications that recognized her album as one of the best in ’05 is any indication, I am not the only one that thinks so. Check out recent news on her homepage .After buying Mercy Now I went back and bought a couple of her older albums. I’m not saying they aren’t good, because they are, but Mercy Now is far and away the best work she has done. Unlike artists that hit a lick and then fade, Mary is getting better and better with time. What was once her greatest weakness is now her greatest strength—she’s a truth-teller, even when it hurts.Here’s her page at Lonestarmusic.com. -------------------- About the Author - Don Henry Ford, Jr. When Don's not writing books he lends out his talent to Americana Roots to put together great articles like this. If you've enjoyed what you read, then pick up Don's latest book Contrabando: Confessions of a Drug Smuggling Cowboy at your local bookstore or online at Cinco Puntos Press.