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 A mercy continued

Simon Smart

There is a great need for mercy that is in short supply at a time and place where only the very strong and ruthless survive. Yet significant acts of kindness and self-sacrifice form vital turning points. The book title, importantly, is not ‘Mercy’—suggesting large-scale compassion, pity, grace or as Morrison says, “religious versions of God’s mercy, but a human gesture—just [A] Mercy.” This mercy is human not divine and therefore frail and full of unforseen consequences. It’s mercy, but in Morrison’s construction, only the most severe kind with limited redemption that leaves the characters profoundly scarred, and along with the reader, longing for something more. There is no cheap grace here, but brutal honesty, and while there are glimpses of transcendence (if you look hard enough) they occur within narratives that are painfully and heart-wrenchingly hard-edged—the human experience in all its cruelty and searing beauty. But you won’t find any romantic portraits here.
  Mercy in Morrison's construction [is] only the most severe kind
  
 

Morrison taps into notions of essential humanity that strongly correspond to the biblical understanding of people being made in the image of God. It is when humans view others, or indeed themselves, as less than created beings of immense and immeasurable value, that trouble starts.

Of course there can be few more absurd violations of ‘image of God’ status than the hateful American slavery that is about to take off in the 18th Century. The vulnerable Florens, who ‘munches any kindness shown her “like a rabbit,”’ is a slave in every sense. Her lack of regard for herself is painfully evident in her obsession with the blacksmith who has become her lover. “You are my shaper and my world as well,” she says of him. A free man, he is repelled by her devotion and lack of personal identity. He tells her he has seen slaves freer than free men. “You alone own me”, she says but is met with the stinging retort “Own yourself woman.” Florens has some hard lessons to learn about what it is to be a whole person.

This longing for wholeness is a driving force of Morrison’s writing. All around is brokenness and fragility. Even the most admirable characters are full of flaws. The church—the place that should offer restoration and a healing balm—comes in for some rough treatment. It is clear the author knows all too well what occurs when the devoted fail to reflect their gospel roots. The dour and paranoid Protestants; the cruel and carnal Catholics. But as is frequently the case in her work, Morrison reserves a place of honour to a believer who is worthy of our admiration. Paradise (1998) includes a passage of soaring praise for the unceasing, sacrificial work of church ministers in negro history, that must be up there with the most glowing descriptions of Christians in all of literature. In A Mercy it is a Catholic Priest who risks his life to teach Florens and her mother to read. This is a grand mercy and a lasting gift that nobly reflects his professed faith and is perhaps Florens’ saving grace.  
  longing for wholeness is a driving force of Morrison's writing
  

Clear in this construction is Morrison’s comment on the need for community to deal with life’s struggles—something that is as important today as ever. The characters represent the earliest versions of American individuality, and self-sufficiency. Morrison says she wanted to show the dangers of that—to illustrate a modern-day tension of how to be an individual yet also still belong and be connected. The characters in the story are particularly vulnerable because ‘there’s no outside thing that holds them together,’ says Morrison.

  Pride alone made them think they needed only themselves, could shape life that way, like Adam and Eve, like Gods from nowhere beholden to nothing except their own creations.’ ‘As long as Sir was alive it was easy to veil the truth: that they were not a family – not even a like-minded group. They were orphans each and all.’ (56-57)   

For Morrison this ‘outside thing’ might just as well be a sporting club or military unit, as a church or religion. What is needed is belonging to something larger than ourselves. Those of us who have sat in churches for many years will know of the sometimes frustrating and eccentric experience it can be. The gathering of God’s flock has always been a rather ramshackle affair. In truth, it’s a bunch of broken souls who would be at home in any of Morrison’s stories.

But unique to the Christian community, when it is working well, is its ability to bring such a diversity of people together in common cause of belief and service. As they meet together, Christians urge each other on and encourage those around them, despite the world they face, to believe that big story that claims to absorb and enfold within itself all other stories. To live out the life of forgiveness and restoration that they believe is coming, and in a small and incomplete sense is available in that community now.

That Christian story is a vision of completeness and renewal—where the world will finally be put to right. Where there will be no more sorrow or pain or crying or small pox or slavery or the need to leave your daughter in the hands of a stranger. It’s a message that anyone willing to face the world with the type of honesty we see in Toni Morrison will find deeply appealing.

Simon Smart is Head of Research and Communications at CPX

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