Thank You, Sister.

Natallie Keiser
Atlanta, GA

Religious Sisters have profoundly impacted my vocation of working for justice.  They have encouraged me at key times, and broadened my world view and my determination.  My primary interactions with Religious Sisters have been as a young adult and now as a middle aged adult. 
 
As a young adult, I lived for a summer at a convent in Kenya, and worked in a school under the direct supervision of a Sister.  She taught me how to combat poverty with an iron backbone, hard work, humor, and prayer.  Driven by her sense of God’s preferential option for the poor, she would go anywhere and do anything for the cause of justice.  But she also taught me how important our communities are in maintaining our ability to do God’s work.  A couple years after my experience in Kenya, I was working with the poor in the neighborhoods and streets of New Orleans.  There are interacted often with a Sister who would go periodically to stay in the homeless shelters, so she would remember in her work what it felt like to live in desperate situations and with humiliation.  Again I saw that iron backbone reflected, as she fought against the death penalty, marched for peace, and fought displacement of families.  And again the humor and prayer and community. Although she did not live with other Sisters, she maintained her community of prayer and church.
 
Now, I pray regularly with a group of Sisters – have been doing so for 13 years.  Their life of prayer, community, simplicity and justice gives them spirits that are able to give and give and give.  They have lived in a constant learning mode as they have worked throughout the City – touching refugees, people with AIDS, people who are dying, children, people on the street.  They walk in respect of each human life – seeing God in everyone – and you feel it and respond.  They are vibrant in their church community, attracting people from all walks of life to them and to the church.  When I am with them I feel embraced, held up, renewed, and ready to go out to my work for justice again with greater wisdom and energy.