Madison, Milwaukee, and Ruminations on Notre Dame…

From a trans presentation in a fraternity house, to a Black Church Week of Prayer to Heal AIDS service, to a beautiful welcoming reception, to a Women’s History Month film festival, our west bus family has made the most of every minute in Madison and Milwaukee. Special thanks to State Representative Mark Pocan and Senator Tim Carpenter, both of whom served as keynote speakers at events held in our honor, and to State Representative Tammy Baldwin for her letter of encouragement. Thanks, also, to Perfect Harmony Men’s Chorus and the phenomenal female acapella team Tangled Up in Blue – your gift of music rejuvenated our spirits as we prepare to reach out to Wisconsin Lutheran College. And lastly, thanks to my beloved bus-mate, Justin Hager, for planning this stop and rocking Wisconsin for all it’s worth. We go forward empowered by the unconditional love and support of your family, friends, and community.

For me personally, these two days in Madison and Milwaukee have served as a period of both rejuvenation and reflection. I recall the apathy we encountered at Notre Dame and ask myself whether prejudice is better served by hostility or by passivity – by a physical or verbal attack, for example, or by invisibility and silence. Can inaction be violent? After Notre Dame, I believe that it can – indeed, that the choice NOT to act, speak, welcome, listen, hear, think, reflect, question – is often the most violent and damaging choice of all. The absence of space is a psychological barbed wire fence, as limiting to the human spirit as any prison.

Given the apathy and the absence of space, did we do something - anything - important at Notre Dame? I think of the myriad of students who expressed shock that their school would take such drastic measures to avoid a conversation about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality. For these students, and for the friends with whom they share their surprise, a bit of the apathy has chipped away. LGBT equality is no longer perceived to be a non-issue at Notre Dame.

May questions and conversations like these multiply across and beyond the campus. May the students who spoke out so courageously call on that transformative sense of self as they use their bodies and voices to create space where none is granted. I feel honored to have walked beside them, if only for a moment, in their journey toward full equality, and I carry them in my heart as we go forward.

While physically I am already tired (perhaps because it is 2:15 a.m., and I am still working!), mentally, emotionally, and spiritually I could not be more ready to move.

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