Just Mercy

Allow me to recommend a book to you.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
The book was given to me at Christmas and I finished reading it yesterday afternoon.
Reading it, there were moments I was so angry and upset I had to put the book down and go for a walk. And, there were moments when I turned the pages with tears rolling down my checks. I read the last several chapters more convinced than ever that each of us needs to do what we can to make the communities in which we live better not just for the rich and affluent and privileged, but for the forgotten and abused and overlooked.

The book is half story and half commentary.
I usually mark up books like this with notes in the margins, but if I had done that with this book I would have never have finished reading it. But, here are two brief passages I did underline.
Today, over 50 percent of prison and jail inmates in the United States have a diagnosed mental illness, a rate nearly fie times greater than that of the general adult population. Nearly one in five prison and jail inmates has a serious mental illness. (p. 188)
And this…
Mercy is just when it is rooted in hopefulness and freely given. Mercy is most empowering, liberating and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. (p 314)

I finished the book wanting to be known as a stone catcher.
Read the book the find out what that means.