Sister Helen’s Visit: the Rundown

Katie D.

October 23, 2011 - 9:10 AM

This concludes Sister Helen's 2011 visit to the University of Oregon. During the past week, she has spoken to nearly 2,000 individuals on the UO campus, the Eugene religious communities, to high schoolers, middle schoolers, and groups of Eugene activists. She has met with UO faculty and administration, and has provoked a powerful upswell of enthusiasm for social justice among UO students. She also spoke in Salem and Portland, running the entire spectrum of our state's community groups, from legislators to prison inmates; from activists to administrators.

It has been an amazing week. I have now seen Sister Helen speak more than twenty times, and I have yet to hear the same speech twice. She is such a powerful and impassioned woman, with an enormous drive to speak her truth and share her story. Her compassion leaps out at the audience, drawing them into the moral tensions that exist within issues of crime and punishment in our society. She invites us into that tension and into a dialogue.

And she challenges us to take responsibility for the actions of our country, our government, and our communities.

In addition to her fabulous in-person events, Sister Helen was very much part of our media this week. She appeared in radio interviews, on newspaper front pages, at the prestigious Portland City Club, and on the local TV news. If you were not able to attend her events, I imagine you probably heard about them if you live here in the Willammette Valley. Here is part of Sister Helen's media archive for this week:

In the Register-Guard: http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26975211-41/death-prejean-penalty-percent-speech.html.csp
And on the front page of the Register Guard: http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27037481-57/eugene-occupy-sunday-walk-park.html.csp

On KUGN radio: http://www.kugn.com/pages/11234453.php?contentType=4&contentId=9189509&isPreview=1&noCache=1

In the Statesman Journal: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20111021/NEWS/110210352/-Dead-Man-Walking-author-visits-city?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|News|s

On KLCC: http://klcc.org/Feature.asp?FeatureID=2796

On KVAL: http://www.kval.com/news/local/132062963.html

In the Eugene Weekly: http://www.kval.com/news/local
/132062963.html

In the Oregon Daily Emerald (the campus newspaper): http://dailyemerald.com/2011/10/18/a-matter-of-life-and-death/

Also see this great series of photos from her lecture in the Daily Emerald: http://dailyemerald.com/2011/10/19/photos-sister-helen-prejean-speaks-talks-the-death-penalty-civil-rights/

I am so thrilled that this week went so well, and that we were able to reach out to new communities and new venues. I have this great feeling of a job well done.

Now, of course, is the abrupt return to "real life," or "post-nun life" as I'm choosing to think about it. That means a time of celebration for this week, but it also means that I need to hit the ground running with all the many tasks and activities of my normal weeks and normal academic life.

But it feels great. It feels wonderful to have had this fabulous week, with Sister Helen's powerful message of love and living in pursuit of one's beliefs. I feel so inspired and so called to future action. And I also have this wonderful sense of friendship with this great leader. For a week, I was the official "nun wrangler," and I had many long opportunities to chat and joke with Sister Helen (including a continuation of a long list of nun puns and Cajun jokes). I love this woman, and feel so honored to count her among my friends.

I can't believe my luck! That's what this all comes down to: my unbelievable, overwhelming luck to be in the thick of things, witnessing and working with Sister Helen Prejean.

"Normal life" feels a bit more inspired than it did two weeks ago. I've heard the message this week: we've got work to do!