by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
I took a call from a friend using my cell phone since that doubles as my home phone. It's not worth it to have a land line as well as a cell phone because anyone phoning my home wants me anyway, so the cell phone is it. The only drawback is location — I live in a valley area and sometimes the cell reception is crunchy.
The friend who called had intermittent transmission problems of her own from the sounds of it. She was in the car, I was home, and both our cell phones suffered from intermittent congenital interference. But we were glad to have the connection at long last, so we just continued on with the call.
She lives in a larger city plagued by its share of societal problems, so I wasn't surprised when our conversation drifted to the topic of personal safety. Her work world and social world are both impacted greatly so this matter is on her mind. I thought our conversation was going OK until she said (or I thought she said), "We've got to get the nuns off the street."
Immediately my mind formed a mental image of that and I thought, "What nuns? Who are they and where are they? I can't imagine nuns roaming around on the streets of your city because that's simply not safe. What would they do — whack someone over the head with a rosary?"
"Are you there?" an impatient voice says to bring me back to reality. "Yes, I'm here, but I must have lost you for a moment — remind me what problem you're talking about again?" I request.
"I'm talking about violence. Gun violence. We've got to get guns off the streets and out of the hands of weird people who don't know what they're doing and who have no business brandishing assault weapons in a busy urban area."
Gun violence — now I get it.
"Don't you agree?" she asks.
"Yes, absolutely, I agree. I couldn't agree more. Maybe we need a nun-patrol who could help with that," I offer. "You know, holy vigilantes taking back the streets. Who would dare fight that?"
"For a minute I thought you said nun-patrol, but our connection must have blipped. Yes, I'm for solving this also in a non-patrol, non-violent way, actually."
There you go again: nun violent way. How would nuns be violent? We'd beat you with prayer, good works, and holy examples.
[Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati Ohio.]