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Epilogue and Postscript

“Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion. Walter genuinely forgave the people who unfairly accused him, the people who convicted him, and the people who had judged him unworthy of mercy. And in the end, it was just mercy toward others that allowed him to recover a life worth celebrating, a life that rediscovered the love and freedom that all humans desire, a life that overcame death and condemnation until it was time to die on God’s schedule.” Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy, p. 314

And so Walter got to die on God’s schedule. His story of redemption and resurrection, all the stories of the broken and discarded, the long suffering, in this beautifully sad book ring in my ears the imperative to do more. We must in hope go down into the dark places of fear and bigotry, and be as Bryan Stevenson describes, the “stonecatchers” catching the stones of injustice. We must expand our circles of compassion and friendship to include people who don’t look like us. We must care less for our comfort, the appeasement of our righteousness, and allow the cries of the poor and undeserving to break and convict us. We must condemn less and listen more.

After our tiring election and its outcome, an outcome that stripped away the delusion that white America, my America can’t be that racist, I needed a listening place. I traveled back to my home in the hills of West Virginia with three parishioners to participate in adult week at Nazareth Farm. We did our chores, put on roofs, built ramps, and painted walls but mostly we listened. We stood in a circle in an empty kitchen before any work was done and listened to a man talk of suffering and love. He talked of the pain that prevented him from bending and the love of his wife willing to wipe his bottom and his pride that prevented him from accepting. He talked of fixing up this house so he could bring his adult son home to him, a son going blind and dying of a degenerative disease. In the end, we broke our circle and I thanked him for sharing. I told him it sounded like he had been walking a hard road for a long time. He told me of a terrible darkness so deep that he was ready to kill himself, a shotgun on his lap, and he would have pulled the trigger but for the love of his wife and grandchild catching him and pulling him back- another stone caught.

At the end of the weekend, I walked down to the creek. The sun was shining and I waded into the cold water looking for heart-shaped stones. We will pray with these stones the way God was revealed and I will give them to my sons when we return. A staff member noticed me there but did not recognize me. He shouted, “Bill, is that you?” and I cry, “Yes, it is me.”

Though there will still be suffering and darkness ahead, the sun is shining, there is hope, and I am standing in the water catching stones, the only place I need to be.

Bill Alt 

Chapter Fifteen: Broke ain’t bad

“There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.” Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy, p. 289

My heart ached amidst Mr. Stevenson’s despair, anguish, zeal, and weariness as he reached his epiphany: we are whole in our human brokenness. Unfortunately, American culture prizes perfection and individualism, and our legal system cultivates “otherness” (designating ourselves as “Leaders and Best” probably doesn’t help owning our brokenness, either).

People end up on the right side of the law or the wrong side. American criminal justice presumes things were right before a crime was committed and a punishment sets things right. Yet, when has our world ever been “right”? Being “right” proffers a veneer over our brokenness. Mr. Stevenson eloquently advocates for us to own our brokenness and thus our shared humanity. This is how we can love each other and God as we are asked to.

Christ came to a broken world, “a fatally broken situation,” and stayed. The Triune God allowed Jesus to be broken, executed, and resurrected for our salvation. Chapter Fifteen made me reflect about everyday humans who inspire me to stay in broken situations, like Christ did.

In February 1996, a high-level UM administrator, Dr. John Matlock, PhD, an African-American, was arrested by University police during a congested campus activity. It was an ugly incident. At the time, I hoped he would take the legal route and win. Months later, both parties brought a peaceable end to this heated dispute. http://ur.umich.edu/9596/Jul23_96/artcl04.htm. Deep inside me, I knew he’d chosen the right path, forgoing possible legal vindication. I was fortunate to meet him as a young staffer at UM.

He did not deny his own experience. But for a variety of reasons, notably the many communities he was a part of and served, Dr. Matlock let go of the lawsuit (the charges against him were simultaneously dropped), forgave, stayed, and engaged yet more deeply with the campus-wide issues of racism his situation had further illuminated. His witness – “losing” for the community’s greater good – continues to inspire me.

Dr. Matlock’s choice, like Mr. Stevenson’s, like Christ’s, inspires us to switch sides, join the “losing” teams, and stay in broken situations together. The graces we need – Compassion, Solidarity, and Mercy are given in our brokenness, not our perfection. No easy task for “Leaders and Best.” Can we become “Shepherds and Broken”? “The Victors” might sound different, too. “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice” (Psalm 51:8). Broke ain’t bad.

Rainey Lamey is a resident-parishioner, works at UM, hails from Montana (way back when), and is pretty sure if God’s Messengers didn’t have wings, they’d use bicycles.

Chapter Fourteen: Cruel and Unusual

“They [children] are the products of an environment over which they have no real control – passengers through narrow pathways in a world they never made.” Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy, p. 270

In Chapter 14, we learn of Bryan Stevenson’s efforts to convince the judicial system to ban the practice of sentencing juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Stevenson implores the courts to recognize that adolescents’ decision making capabilities remain profoundly shaped and constrained by environments over which they have no control.

How often do we fail to give children the benefit of the doubt? Are we too quick to judge a child’s behavior at church, in a store, or on the soccer field? I know I did until my wife Kathy and I found ourselves struggling to understand why our son Matthew often over-reacted to situations that were new or unpredictable. In time, we learned that the basis for Matthew’s behaviors were neurologic; he had difficulty processing sensory information. In the course of helping Matthew navigate these unpredictable environments, my wife Kathy and I learned an important lesson: all kids want to do well . . . they want to succeed . . . they seek affirmation and lack malice. A child or adolescent acting “poorly” needs our support and compassion, not our disapproval; their parents need our understanding and resources, not our judgment.

In reading this chapter, I was struck by the number of environmental factors influencing a child’s behavior over which they have little or no control. Some, like Matthew’s, are primarily neurologic; others are psychiatric, or social, or influenced by race, education, or socioeconomic status; many are combinations of the above. Thankfully, Bryan Stevenson convinced the Supreme Court that the influence of these environmental factors on an adolescent’s decision making capabilities should preclude our harshest of sentencing practices to this age group. The ongoing challenge for our society is to recognize the inherent and fundamental goodness in all children; to create environments that reflect and reveal the very nature of God equally present in each of them. Lastly, Stevenson leads me to believe that our greatest challenge is to apply these principals to all individuals, irrespective of age; perhaps therein lies the true meaning of “Just Mercy.”

John Osterholzer is originally from the Flint area and has been a parishioner at St. Mary’s since arriving on campus as an undergraduate 26 years ago. He’s a faculty member at the Medical School working primarily at the VA hospital. He and his wife Kathy were married at St. Mary’s and the parish remains central to the faith formation of their three children (Matthew, 14; Danny, 12; and Sarah, 10).