Just Mercy

"Just Mercy" by Brayan Stevenson

Oh man, this book will get you to really think and ponder our prison and justice system.  I think this is the second book that I've read like this.  The author is a lawyer in Alabama who runs a non profit that helps the "poor, wrongly condenmed, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system."  He also helps individuals on death row.  The story talks about some of the people that he has helped, one being a man on death row who insisted he did not commit the murder he was charged with.  This book brings to light the injustices in our system and the people that it affects, which is all of us really.  We are all created equal in God's image yet some are treated unfairly when they need it the most.  Our prisons are filled with people who were foster children, people who are poor, people who are minorities, people who were abused, and people who are mentally disabled.  How are we intervening in these peoples lives to bring them help before they are incarcerated?  How are we helping them once they are released?  "We have given up on rehabilitation, education, and services for the imprisoned becasue providing assistance to the incarcerated is apparently too kind and compassionate.  We've institutionalized policies that reduce people to their worst acts and permanently label them 'criminal,' 'murderer,' 'rapist,' 'thief,' drug dealer,' sex offender,' 'felon'-identities they cannot change regardless of the circumstances of their crimes or any improvements they might make in their lives."  No one wants to be labeled for the worst thing that they have done, I certainly don't.  "Each of us is more that the worst thing we've ever done."  There are many points in this book that have made me stop and think.  I don't necessarily agree with it all but it did make me look at what I believe and question if I really believed it.  I appreciate a book that can do this.  "One of the country's least-discussed postwar problems is how frequently combat veterans bring the traumas of war back with them and are incarcerated after returning to their communities."  Again, how are we helping these individuals before they get into trouble?  "I know that some have been through more than others.  But if we don't expect more from each other, hope better for one another, and recover from the hurt we experience, we are surely doomed."  Hurt people, hurt people.  Expect more from those around us, hope for it and they just might rise to the occasion.  "Oh, I think we can always do better.  The bad things that happen to us don't define us.  It's just important sometimes that people understand where we're coming from."  Sometimes knowing what someone has been through brings mercy and a differenct perspective.  "For the first time I fully reckoned with the truth that the conviction, the death sentence, and the heartbreak and devastation of this miscarriage of justice had created permanent injuries."  How do you get back years in prison for a wrongful conviction?  How do you overcome the fear and mistreatment?  "Most people released from prison after being proved innocent recieve no money, no assistance, no counseling-nothing from the state that wrongly imprisoned them."  How can this be?  How do we expect them to be good citizens with no resources?  Do these people not deserve some compensation, some therapy, for what they have suffered at the hands of injustice?  "I do what I do because I'm broken, too.  We are all broken by something.  We have all hurt someone and have been hurt.  We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent.  Our shared brokenness connected us."  We need to let our brokenness connect us, then mercy will abound.  "In fact, there is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and a desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy.  When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise.  You see things you can't otherwise see; you hear things ou can't otherwise hear.  You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us."  This is just like the gospel, Christ showed us mercy when we didn't deserve it and this makes us in turn show mercy to others.  "I understood that even as we are caught in a web of hurt and brokenness, we're also in a web of healing and mercy.  The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving.  It's when mercy is least expected that it's most potent-strong enough to break the cycle of victimization and vicitmhood, retribution and suffering."  The power of mercy really knows no bounds.  The power of mercy can transform even the worst of these.  "...the death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit.  The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?"  "Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving.  The people who haven't earned it, who haven't even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion."           

The Autobiography of an Execution

"The Autobiography of an Execution" by David R. Dow

The author is a lawyer for inmates on death row in Texas.  This book is about why he fights for these inmates.  The author does a good job of geting the reader to think about where they stand regarding the death penalty.  It is easy to think of a person that committed brutal crimes as not human at all but in this book we see that they have families, they are someones father, son, brother.  "Belief is a decision; it doesn't just happen."  We chose to believe, we make efforts to understand what and why we believe something.  "There are beutiful things about her I know about that you don't, because you are too judgmental to see them.  If you have a friend, you have to take them as they are."  Just like a spouse, or a child, good and bad we love them for who God made them to be.  "After you kill the bad guys, you're just as angry as you were before, but there ain't no one left to hate."  So does killing really solve the problem?  "If we are going to execute people in our society becasue we believe that it is an appropriate punishment for people who callously and irresponsibly take another's life, then the people with the power not to execute ought to take responsibility themselves for imposing the punishment, or at least not negating it.  It's easier to kill somebody if it's someone else's decision, and if somebody else does the killing.  Our death-penalty regime depends for its functionality on moral cowardice."  A good book to get one to think about why you believe what you believe.  A good insight to how the system works and what really happens to those sitting on death row.

Things I've Learned from Dying

"Things I've Learned from Dying" by David R. Dow

The author says this is really a book about life.  You learn a lot about how to live life in the face of death.  David is a death row laywer.  In this book he talks about a case he is working on.  While he is working on this case, trying to save an inmates life, his father in law is dying of cancer.  He learns many lessons from his father in law and from the inmate, many of these lessons are about letting go and just being there.  I liked this book and am intruiged to read his previous book.  "I can either spend the rest of my life trying to exted my life, or I can spend the rest of my life living my life."  Sometimes life is extended only to endure more suffering.  Sometimes life is just worth living the rest you have to the fullest.  "No matter how much you change who you are, you cain't change what you done."  Even if we aren't the same person anymore, we still have to pay for our mistakes.  "Sometimes one's imagination sees what it wants to see."  "One thing I've learned is that in the face of tragedy you are powerless to prevent, there's no greater empathy than quiet."  Sometimes all we have to offer someone is our quiet, there are no words to make it better but sitting with someone in their pain is powerful.  "All you can change is yourself and your own small corner of this earth.  That, and you can help other people change theirs."  And change is a powerful thing, it's also contagious.  "The reason it's easier to be bad than good is that being good takes awareness and effort.  You can't just sit there.  But all you have to do to be bad is coast."  I think this is a genius statement and so very true.  Being bad is easy, it comes naturally.  Being good takes effort and a lot of people don't want to take that effort.  "Time does not heal all wounds.  Some pain becomes part of who you are."