Category Archives: Nuns on the Bus 2016

Reflection on Day Three: We Are All Hungry for Justice

Reflection: We Are All Hungry for Justice

Sr. Larretta Rivera-Williams

Thursday, July 14, 2016

We can’t all sleep on a bed of clouds. Some people in our town have to sleep on stone or concrete streets.
-Layla age 12
Quote on display in Jefferson City at Central Missouri Community Action Agency Family Resource Center

So young and so astute to the world around her. I have never met Layla, but thousands can relate to stone pillows and the cold concrete.

I’ve never lived in public housing; never feared the drug dealer residing next door. I have never had to use public transportation nor worry about what I would have to eat. I have been hugged, however, by those who have.

The people greeting us along the way are so grateful that we have chosen to visit with them. Men, women, and youth thrilled that Nuns on the Bus has made a stop in their city. What a humbling experience this has been!

When we step off the bus people cheer and rush forward to shake our hands. Some people with tears in their eyes want to hug us; telling us how much it means to have us with them. Sr. Susan is keeping count of the number of times Sr. Simone is introduced as a “rock star.”

People are hungry for justice! People are filled with questions of “why” and “what can we do?” People are searching for answers in a country of uncertainty. People want to be listened to without being threatened, judged, or silenced.

Nuns on the Bus is scheduled to travel to 13 states and 23 cities. We have already been to three states and four cities. I know that we have given people a sense of hope and a start to finding the answers.

We begin our day with prayer. Grateful for the people we have met; emotionally moved and strengthened by their sacred stories. We continue forward with their blessings and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The bus is moving and bouncing us along east 64 to St. Louis. Before we lay our heads upon “a bed of clouds” tonight, I wonder how many people will we have met who are afraid of the drug dealer next door, need transportation to a second job that still only allows them to live from pay check to pay check? How many will we have met today who are in need of food and a place to call home; in need of health care to receive proper medical attention for an elderly parent, a sick child, or to seek proper care for themselves?

How many will we have met who are simply hungry for justice?

Slideshow: Jefferson City Caucus

Travel Log: Jefferson City, Missouri

Sister Larretta Rivera-Williams, RSM

July 13, 2016

From state capital to state capital: we spent several hours traveling from Springfield, IL to Jefferson City MO, surrounded by beautiful farmland. Water was like a background theme. A couple of strong thunderstorms accompanied the rally in Springfield, IL and our drive to Jefferson City, MO; we crossed the majestic Mississippi river and the Missouri river; we joined our tears to those of the people sharing the pain for their underserved and marginalized community.

In Jefferson City, we visited the Central Missouri Community Action Agency Family Resource Center. This Center is dedicated to eradicate the causes and conditions of poverty empowering people and families to achieve self-reliance. Sarah Nichols, a community organizer for CMCA, explained that despite the unemployment rate is 4%, the rate of poverty is 16%, since most of the jobs are part time and/or low pay, and families need second and third jobs to make ends meet.

Another issue which impacts the poverty rate is the limited public transportation, which runs only during weekdays until 5 pm. People walk and share rides, but often this is not enough if you have a night shift at work. To help people to get out of the spiral of the day pay loans, the Center recently started a loan program that pays out its clients debts and offers them financial education. We met some clients of the Center. Angela lives in public housing and is a strong advocate for her community. She is worried about children having free meals during summer and promotes dialogue with the local police in a drug-infested area. “I am in a journey to save somebody, because somebody saved me and my children,” she says.

Public transportation is a big issue in this capital city: it runs only until 5pm in weekdays, unnecessary complicating the life of people with multiple low paid jobs. (Later that night at the caucus, a man told us that he needs to take a taxi to get home when the shift of his second job ends at 11pm.)

We met also Ann. Because she didn’t have access to Medicaid, she postponed too much a doctor visit complicating a medical issue that, otherwise, would have been easy to treat: she had to choose between paying her rent or going to the doctor. “Bad legislation kills people,” she said. The staff of CMCA helped her to overcome the situation, and now Ann is a Board member of the agency. “When I help others, I help myself”, concludes Ann.

The busy day of interacting with people of different faiths, ages, and cultures in Jefferson City was topped off with an evening of Italian cuisine and vibrant conversations.

The citizens of Jeff City greeted us at the caucus with joy and enthusiasm. Our tired bodies were refreshed and our minds ready to engage in at least two more hours of visionary conversation.

As always, Sister Simone, with her warm, humorous and inviting personality, cast a wave of serenity upon the integrated audience. The majority of the 100 plus residents who participated had never met, but their concerns and hopes were the same.

In every place, thus far, we have listened to God’s people. The main problems seen as causing gaps within cities are: lack of affordable housing, unaffordable health care, a lack of public transportation, unjust taxes, and unjust wages.

Before the tour of Nuns on the Bus ends we will have heard similar concerns from different faces, but the same goal. We must come together! Listen! Vote! Envision a new tomorrow!

Slideshow: Central Missouri Community Action Agency Family Resource Center (Jefferson City, MO)

Slideshow: Springfield (IL) Rally

Travel Log: Springfield, Illinois

Travel Log: Rain Didn’t Stop Us in Springfield, Illinois

Sister Ilaria Buonriposi, CMS

July 13, 2016

We started our second full day on the bus with prayer. In silence, we recalled the people we met yesterday and their stories; together we prayed for the realization of their hopes for their communities. There is so much pain and struggle and -at the same time- there are so many people that with humbleness and tenacity keep weaving a network of inclusiveness!

We had spent the night in Springfield, IL at the headquarters and retirement home of the Dominican Sisters. Before leaving the convent, the sisters of the community gathered around the bus and blessed our journey. It was touching to see the freshness of the committed spirit of those elderly sisters who — despite age and illness — keep ministering through their prayer. While they were praying over us, I felt that our religious communities are complementary to each other; each of us is a small but essential piece of a puzzle to which all people of good will collaborate so that all may have fullness of life.

Looking at them, I thought of the many, many sisters who enthusiastically show up at all our stops: in their daily lives they witness to how economic and social gaps affects the life and the dignity of those they serve. Suddenly, I realized how big is the responsibility of being a nun on the bus: in this moment, we are the visible expression of the loving care and concern that thousands of sisters have for their fellow children of God. Their prayer supports us and reaches the people we meet in this long journey.

For our first stop of the day, we participated in a rally in front of the State Capitol. Despite the disruption of a strong thunderstorm, people listened with attention the stories shared by the speakers.

Gail Hamilton is a health homecare worker. She loves taking care of the disabled and the elderly, accompanying them in a delicate phase of their lives. She takes pride in seeing them thriving in their homes, still connected to their family setting. However, this service is so badly paid that 75% of her colleagues need more than one job to make ends meet.

Shatriya Smith shared about the impact her grandmother had in her black community. She poured her energies into building a better and stronger community, where everyone’s voice could be heard. When she had gone, there was nobody else to whom the community could go, and Shatriya felt compelled to live her legacy. She expressed the concern of being targeted by law enforcement because of the color of her skin and the toll that mass incarceration has on black communities, beyond the person actually in jail. She made a strong call to the development of a relationship with the local police to discuss issues and find solutions: “if the community is united, law and order will be restored,” she said.

View the slideshow from this event on Flickr.

Reflection on Day Two: We the People

We the People

By Susan Rose Francois, CSJP

July 13, 2016

“We the people.”

These words from the preamble to our U.S. Constitution, which by the way I learned to sing as a child from an animated Schoolhouse Rock cartoon on Saturday mornings, were in my head and heart upon waking this morning in a simple convent room at the motherhouse of the Springfield Dominicans.

“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfection union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity…”

As I said, I learned to sing the preamble as a child and these words are indeed music to my ears. During my morning prayer I found myself wondering, just as I often do with the words of the Gospel, what if we actually lived them?

One of the privileges of being a Nun on the Bus is that we are going out to be with the people. Yesterday we met folks in Janesville, Wisconsin and Bloomington-Normal, Illinois who are struggling in this democracy of ours. They are struggling to make ends meet, to literally put a roof over their children’s heads. They are struggling to access life-saving health care so that they can be healthy contributing members of our community. They are struggling to navigate our complex immigration system and fill out the right form at the right time so that they can have access to our democracy and share the responsibilities of citizenship.

Yesterday we also met people who are not necessarily struggling themselves, but whose hearts are moved to act for justice and with compassion to mend the gaps and reweave the fabric of our society. They are advocates, immigration attorneys, volunteers in the local prison, social workers, friends, family members, neighbors and pastors. They are every day good people. Goodness is a word that has already peppered our prayer and conversations on the bus.

We the people. One thing that Sister Simone Campbell has been telling folks on the road is that if we the people created this mess, then we the people can get ourselves out of it. People are struggling because of the policy choices we have made as a people, or that our elected representatives have made on our behalf. What we need are policies which instead begin to mend the gaps and invest in the welfare of all the people.

Last night during our caucus in Bloomington-Normal, I was lucky enough to sit around a table with some of these good people and discuss ways to mend the wealth and income inequality gap through tax justice. Now, I will be the first to admit that taxes are not usually the most exciting conversation topic, and yet last night I was moved and inspired by the passion with which these folks talked about the desperate lack of funding for needed services in their community. As tax payers and neighbors, they shared a common concern for the way our social safety net has been frayed and the future long-term health of our communities ignored in favor of short term profit and gain.

“We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.”

Those words are not from the Constitution, but rather from Pope Francis in Laudato Si.

The folks I met at the caucus were the embodiment of that simple statement. I suspect the folks I meet today on the road in Springfield, Illinois and Jefferson City, Missouri will be further signs of hope for ways we can reweave the fabric of our society.

We the people are in this together.

Reflection: Day One on the Bus

Sr. Larretta Rivera-Williams, RSM

July 12, 2016

My journey to Wisconsin began in North Carolina where I left behind security of home and the familiarity of friends. I was somewhat apprehensive of what I might encounter, but a tinge of excitement bubbled within as I anticipated joining the Nuns On The Bus. I had read with awe articles about Sister Simone Campbell and followed her on social media, but never had I anticipated actually being on one of her justice journeys.

I grew up in a very protective environment during the Civil Rights movement. I lived a very comfortable life, was educated by white religious sisters who taught me little or nothing about my culture and the reality of the world around me. However, I listened to adults talk about racial and economic injustices, I became fearfully aware of the riots of 1960’s, questioned militant stories about the Black Panther Party, and felt the sadness seen on faces after the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy. I developed a hunger to know more, but fear of harm gave me little incentive to actively do something about the injustices around me.

Now in one of the most heated and critical times in America, when people are afraid to publicly express their religious and political views, I find myself on a large light blue, green and orange bus — NETWORK Nuns On The Bus — Mending the Gaps. I am gradually being transformed and now speaking before a sea of people about “policies have created the chaos, but policies can create change!”

I listen to the conversations around me as we travel from Wisconsin to Illinois. The tone is light with laughter and solid with excitement of what lies ahead. We will meet supporters and probably those who do not support our efforts. To them wherever we go will be, as Simone says, “a healing presence.”

I have already experienced this healing presence within the voice of the woman who spoke about the death of her younger sister who died of cancer, unable to afford health care. The power of God’s grace filtered throughout the applauding crowd that cheered the accomplishments of a young woman who did not give up after being denied proper mental health care for her bi-polar condition. She shared what it had been like to overcome the struggles of being homeless, jobless, and unable to care for her three young sons.

Tonight as we travel to Springfield, Illinois my heart is full. Although touched by the rawness of humanity my soul delights in the joy of knowing that we, the Nuns On The Bus, have given hope to the hopeless and encouragement to the discouraged as we begin to reweave the fabric of America.

Slideshow: Bloomington Caucus

Travel Log: Janesville and Bloomington

Sr. Julie Ann Krahl, CSA

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

It’s our first full day on the bus and we know our message: There are huge gaps in our society: Gaps in wealth that limit us; Gaps in access that burden us, cause us pain and struggle. We board the bus to promote the goals of the bus: mend the gaps in our society.

Our kick-off rally in Janesville Wis. sent us off with stories of gaps – tragedies of healthcare bungles, frightening homelessness and painful immigration bureaucracy. We saw tears in their eyes. Reverend Hearns prayerfully and emphatically reminded us: “We are God’s children… we are God’s People.” We signed the bus in hopes that gaps would be understood and mended with policies good for all of God’s people.

The bus rolled on into Illinois. The Bloomington YWCA welcomed us. We toured their child care facilities where the blue-dress girl spends her day. We met with people from and impacted by the Immigration Project, the YWCA, and the community clinic. We gathered as a community outside the bus and with stories that brought tears to our eyes and the encouragement to continue on.

At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington-Normal we ‘caucused’ with the crowd gathered inside the church. We discussed the goals and purpose of the bus. We “buzzed” about who it is hard to talk with about the gaps, we heard new, yet familiar stories of the effects of the seven gaps and we also discussed the vision of our society without gaps. We signed the bus in the dark stronger conviction that

We took off for Springfield and tomorrow.

P.S. I also want to share with you this poetic reenactment of an event that happened today:

The blue-dress girl story
by Sr. Julie Ann Krahl, CSA

“SHE CAN’T DRAW!” four girls chorused with 5-yr-old giggles and confidence and pride at their multicolored fire engine masterpieces.
“I can’t draw’ — sighs the blue-dressed girl alone at the end of the table –- close to tears, quiet, head down.
“NO, SHE CAN’T DRAW!!” — the chorus reaffirmed with more emphasis
“Have you tried to help her?”
“BUT SHE CAN’T DRAW!”
“Would you like another color?”
— Slow nod —
The cup of markers passes down to her and she takes a blue marker, draws another frustrated line.
“SHE CAN’T DRAW!!”
— at the end of the table — sad, eyes down, hands off the table again.
“Can you draw a circle?”
“Yes, I can draw a circle”
Slowly, blue marker goes back to table and a small circle appears.
“Yes ! You can draw a circle. Can you draw another one?”
And another small circle appears
“Yes, and can you draw a square?” A small square now hovers over the circles.
“Perfect! You can draw another larger square.” She draws a big square just touching the two circles with the small square inside.
“Wow, you did some good drawing! Looks you drew a fire engine or maybe a bus.”
“Yes, I can draw a bus”

There were gaps: she didn’t have the experience, talent, encouragement, friends.
They could draw anything, and it was her fault she could not draw…they knew it.
They were wealthy, she was not.
There were gaps: she didn’t have access to markers, she needed help, a friend. They had access to markers, controlled the markers, and made it difficult for her to succeed.
They enjoyed. She struggled.
We sign the Bus.