Nuns on the Bus

What a joy to hear Sister Simone Campbell speak last night at Presser Hall at Illinois Wesleyan University. She is here for 3 days thanks to the Jim and Gwen Pruyne Lectureship, an outreach of New Covenant Community. NCC is a progressive Protestant church, and Sister Simone is part of the progressive Catholic Church, and everyone involved seems to share interfaith values and a commitment to social justice and universal compassion.

Plus, Sister Simone is hilarious in person. She was a guest on The Colbert Report and got the "Colbert bump." Or vice versa, as I'm sure Stephen Colbert would agree! As she explained in her talk last night, she and her fellow "nuns on the bus" probably got the Vatican bump--by annoying the Vatican. And when the Vatican draws attention to your cause, you get noticed.

The nuns on the bus (who vary all along the route) were on a cross-country journey, literally by bus, to share their message about the issues of economic justice, immigration reform, peace, and affordable healthcare.You can read more about these and other causes they support, including ecology, here on the Issues page of the Network website. Network itself is a national Catholic social justice lobby.

Here is Sister Simone speaking to students yesterday at Illinois Wesleyan. You can hear her tomorrow at New Covenant at 10:30, 210 W. Mulberry, Normal, IL, where she will be leading worship and reading a promised poem! Yes, she's a poet!

And for those of you who were wondering--I didn't forget you!--whether blue roses exist in nature, here is your answer at Natural Garden! And that, my friends, is a Random Coinciday in the blog.