,
18 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
We all need to get involved in our communities and act for justice. Here are some thoughts and ideas on getting started with activism:
Activism is like riding a wave in a tiny boat. You can feel this immense power under you. You know you've connected to something powerful.
Be ready. Be poised. You've got to have depth and you've got to be spiritually grounded or you won't last long in this endeavor.
You're going to be engaged with people who are suffering terribly, and the forces arrayed against them will feel unassailable.
Often enough, the outcome is going to break your heart. The suffering and defeat gets inside you and gnaws at you as if it were your own.
It is this experience of compassion in you that will jolt you out of your small ego-absorbed self and stir your heart to try and try again.
We don't have to look far to find an arena for human rights. Just look at what's happening on the streets in #Charlottesville.
What's important is that when we wake up to an injustice, we must immediately act. Take a concrete step right away, no matter how small.
Not to respond to injustice immediately is to risk paralyzing ourselves. Action is a freeing thing.
Find your passion, find the injustice that offends your moral sensibilities to the core, and then take action right away.
Write a letter. Join a protest. Contact your elected officials. Most importantly, make a personal connection with people who are suffering.
My first concrete action after I woke up to injustice was to move into the St. Thomas housing project in New Orleans with some other nuns.
My African American neighbors became my teachers about the "other America" that they experienced. Thank God they were so patient with me!
I went to the emergency room with Black mothers whose children were sick. We had to wait up to ten hours to see a resident doctor.
My ministry in St. Thomas took me to the killing chamber at Angola Prison where I witnessed a man's execution in the electric chair.
And here I am, 30+ years later, still working to end the death penalty. I've witnessed five other executions since that first one.
Martin Luther King said it best: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
I offer you my life experience in hopes that it might help illuminate your path as we press onward together in this struggle for justice.
