Nuns on the Bus in New Mexico: Call to Action and a Listening Session

Whenever Sister Simone Campbell and the sisters and laity that travel with her come to your community, you expect a motivational speech urging us to stand for the poorest among us and to speak truth to power.

To be sure, Sister Simone, founder of the Nuns on the Bus campaign, rallied folks at the Roundhouse at the 10th Annual Witness for the People gathering in Santa Fe on Wednesday and to a couple of hundred people gathered at St. Therese Little Flower Parish later that evening. 

A few of the people gathered at St. Therese

'Minding the Gap'
At St. Therese, Sister Simone spoke about our nation's disparities and the unfair nature of our economy. The disparities are exacerbated by a system of taxation that is overwhelmingly favorable to the wealthiest individuals and detrimental to working families and those at the bottom of the economy.

Our call as people of faith and conscience, she said, was to become aware of the gap and act accordingly. (She alluded to a term used in the subway system in London urging us to "mind the gap)

To illustrate the scope of the problem, Sister Simone asked for seven volunteers to represent people from different income groups, from the poorest of the poor to the One percent. The exercise served to illustrate the gap between the haves and have-nots, as well as the challenges facing each group, including the middle class.

According to Sister Simone, our efforts are important to ensure that the needs of the 100 percent (all members of society) are taken into account. "We have chosen inadvertently or intentionally to support the top One Percent," Sister Simone said in describing our economic policies over the past several decades.

Three Virtues
In discerning our response to the challenge around us, Sister Simone recommended three virtues we must follow: holy curiousity (listen to the stories of people around you), sacred gossip (where you tell about the stories that you've heard and let folks know that there are situations that are unacceptable) and joy (we have to find joy in this in engagement)

Here is a 10-minute video of a small portion of Sister Simone's presentation at St. Therese.

Roundtable discussion at Second Presbyterian Church

Exercising Holy Curiousity
While a visit from Nuns on the bus is often associated with efforts to rally the community and hold politicians accountable, Sister Simone and others involved with NETWORK also come to listen and learn more about the issues affecting the people who live in a given state.

This year, NETWORK has launched a campaign to connect with people in states with high rural populations, and New Mexico was chosen as the first stop.

At a roundtable discussion at Second Presbyterian Church with representatives of several groups with connections to the community. Sister Simone listened and questions. This discussion was held on the Tuesday evening before the rally in Santa Fe.

Many topics were discussed in Albuquerque, including our very inequitable system of taxation and the resulting disparity in income, the legacy of colonialism and exploitation, the existence of food deserts, the challengers for working families in rural and urban areas, environmental racism against Native peoples and poor communities, the legacy of nuclear testing in our state, and much more.

Sister Simone and NETWORK plan to repeat the process in Minnesota, Ohio and Missouri through March, and possibly in Pennsylvania and Indiana in subsequent months.

"Here in New Mexico we have such a diverse heritage that it's really a rich opportunity to witness to the rest of the nation the capacity to have a conversation and engagement among indigenous communities, (people of) Spanish heritage as well as white Anglo folks...that have come from the East mostly as well as the Mexican and Central American family...You all have the opportunity  That is probably one of the biggest needs of our society to know that we are all one..that  we are interdependent."