Mary Ann McGivern

NCR Today: Walls don't bring peace or solve problems. Robert Frost was being ironic indeed when he said, "Good fences make good neighbors." Fences create lasting enmity.

NCR Today: In the midst of this solemn candle lighting we laughed again and again. We were enlisting, in old-fashioned terms, the army of the church triumphant. We were calling on all our family saints to work miracles.

NCR Today: I'm reminded that Pope Paul VI told us that not only do weapons threaten life, but the resources used in their manufacture are a theft against the poor.

NCR Today: Home from nine days in Guatemala, I have prayed in Maya circles with the Holy Family Sisters and now I have prayed as well with Maya spiritual guides.

NCR Today: I'm traveling to Guatemala for nine days to meet with our sister community there, Sagrada Familia (Holy Family). It was at least 30 years ago that a couple of our sisters met the Guatemalans — and at the same time met the Daughters of the Holy Trinity in Ghana.

NCR Today: Our prisons are crowded because of decades of harsh sentences, and to what purpose? We have been very tough on crime, but not very smart. 

NCR Today: I plan to participate in the People's State of the Union, a project of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture that collects participants' experiences within the nation and their own communities.

NCR Today: The protests at the border are more complex than they were at Fort Benning. But they are still a call to change public policy and to take courage together.

NCR Today: I'm just back from a mini-conference with seven other sisters and six millennials to tell our life stories. I suggest you try something simliar.

NCR Today: We all have bad luck and miserable moments. We can offer it all up in a prayer, asking God to spur us on to take steps to ease the suffering people in actual misery.

NCR Today: I am very glad rescued prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl did not get prison time at his court martial Nov. 3. I'm not in favor of anybody going to prison except if they are a risk to public safety. 

NCR Today: Protests against violence have changed over the years, in part because advocating the end of nuclear weapons, which have not killed anyone we know personally, is different than demanding an end to police shootings which have.

NCR Today: I favor getting guns out of the hands of most people most of the time , but I'm trying to listen to others and find points where we can agree — or at least talk together. 

NCR Today: At a local gallery on Sunday, just yesterday as I write, I saw a painting of a hand gun, and image surrounded by the words of the song "Rewind" by Nas, about taking fired bullets back.

NCR Today: Amazon is looking for a second home. I propose my town, St. Louis -- investing $5 billion in a city that's poor and torn by racial strife.

NCR Today: Military spending never is on the chopping block when it comes to balancing out emergency expenses.

NCR Today: A friend of mine was released from prison last week. I'll call him Jack. He committed a murder when he was 14, was certified as an adult, and served 29 years in prison. 

NCR Today: The word "Ferguson" is a flash word. Whenever I speak or write about Ferguson, Missouri, emotions erupt. 

NCR Today: The Ferguson uprising lanced the infection of racism, but didn't heal it. The three years since Michael Brown's death have shown us the work we still have to do.

NCR Today: We have always been in communion, and now, our LCWR President Mary Pellegrino has called us to be experts in communion and witnesses to communion in our broken world. ​