The title alone caught my attention. When I was pregnant with our fourth child the names we had perched to pin to their personhood were culled from a quote in the psalms. It is also the inscription on our wedding rings.
"Mercy and truth have met together. Justice and peace have kissed." Psalm 85
If the baby had been a boy his name would have been Justis Shalom. We were blessed with a daughter whose name is Mercy Emeth. (the Hebrew word for truth)
The movie produced by Bryan Stevenson delves into the life of one black man caught in the quagmire of Southern litigation. As a novice lawyer from Harvard, Bryan's experience is thin, but his determination is not. He tries to untangle a system that resembles an octopus with its squirmy legs of collusion.
Ironically the town is pompously proud of the local museum dedicated to the book by Harper Lee. It begs the question of whether the residents remember that Tom Robinson was falsely accused by an all white jury.
Bryan pushes against the forces that have trapped Walter McMillian for a crime he did not commit. But such details do not seem to matter to the behemoth of racism.
It isn't often that we get to witness regret. Two men who have wasted years of their lives in perpetuating deceit come to a breaking point. Slumped over with the weight of their own shame they finally, barely, almost inaudibly admit the truth.
There are a couplet of moments in the movie that echo in my mind. On an ordinary Sunday Bryan attends church with the black community that has endured oppression their entire lives. And yet they sing with jubilation. Dance with abandon. He doesn't understand why.
There is another black man on death row, a veteran whose PTSD should have afforded him treatment. But he is instead locked away, trapped both by bars and the anxiety of waiting to be electrocuted. There is a room full of spectators to watch the moment of murder, most of whom are as dispassionate as the spectators of a Roman gladiator. When he is asked for his last words this broken man expresses a wish that is decidedly whole.
"I hold no ill will against any of you."
It seems that there are freedoms that cannot be stolen, and shackles that have no keys.
