you
hi I’m Mary Vivian actually my name is
Mary Agnes my parents couldn’t decide
which grandmother to name me after so
they picked up I grew up in a devout
Catholic household we went to Catholic
school and church every Sunday and it
was a joke that when I became a nun I
wouldn’t have to change my name sister
my mother the nurse having compassion my
father a professional Boy Scout that’s a
real job he taught me to serve my
community we would visit the nuns with
the nursing home near a house we had to
get everything on our plate because
there were children starving in China we
gave up the things we loved for 40 days
before Easter
and we couldn’t see any movie that
wasn’t approved by the local Catholic
newspaper
I remember badly wanting to see
interview with the vampire mostly
because of Brad Pitt but I couldn’t
because it was in the radiant worldly
offensive and you know it still haven’t
seen it I was also raised to be a
one-issue voter when I turned 18 just in
time for the 2000 election and although
I felt most aligned with one candidate I
voted for the other because I was taught
that portion was the most important
issue and we should vote on that above
all else then I was very hard on myself
growing up and I never felt like I was
good enough I remember someone telling
me once that French kissing was a sin
and I started to cry and they said oh
honey it’s okay if you did it you can
just confess in a priest I said although
I have it but I was really looking
and impurity was hard for me to live up
to and as a teenager I felt full of
guilt for my desires and although it was
hard on myself for my personal choices I
think of a whole lot of thought to where
I was going in my life how I was just
checking boxes for example I went to the
I studied information technology because
I saw it once on the list of jobs and it
made the most money chest I met a guy
and I got engaged check and then twenty
three we had two incomes two cars and
the house in the suburbs
big check so everything was going pretty
great my parents were happy
I think I’m happy yeah pretty good
but then on December 26 2004 everything
changed for me the tsunami that hit Asia
and claimed the lives of 500,000 people
in the matter of seconds broke my world
apart I believe that we can feel each
other’s energy and the energy generated
by the sadness felt throughout the world
that day affected me deeply I began to
question everything all of my
accomplishments in my life felt
insignificant they could be taken away
at an instant and what would it all
happen for
so I started looking online for ways
that I could help and I found the Red
Cross and Habitat for Humanity which
ultimately led me to building houses in
sri lanka
only problem is that we weren’t skilled
builders so instead of feeling like i
was helping in our 10 days there i felt
like we did more sightseeing and eating
than we did actual building so I kept
looking and I asked my parish priests
for advice and he pointed me to a
program called just faith just faith is
a program through the church that takes
30 weeks to go in-depth and teach and
taught me about social justice it blew
me away justice my whole life up until
this point I’d only known about acts of
charity and I realized that charity is
much easier than addressing justice it
makes us feel good but it’s only a piece
of the puzzle
justice is different justice requires us
to ask the tough questions of why why
did he not buddies exist that create the
need for charity and justice can make us
feel uncomfortable defensive even angry
as we’re forced to question our way of
thinking in our way of life charity
doesn’t really require us to change
anything about ourselves in a way that
we live but justice requires us to think
hard about systems in our choices but
not everyone is ready to acknowledge how
their choices affect others
and I often think that the fundamental
divide in this country is that so many
are unwilling to address and acknowledge
our unjust and ugly past and its direct
relationship to the inequities that
exist today in our country in around the
world and although the u.s. may be one
of the most terrible countries that
charity does nothing to undo the forces
people more I remember thinking I was
doing a good thing by purging my kitchen
cabinets and food that I wasn’t going to
eat like expired jiffy cornbread mix and
dry bean soup mixes and donated them to
the local food cupboard but when I
volunteered hit the food cupboard I saw
what that looks like on the other end
racks that inspired food dented cans
even food that people have already
opened and I realized that giving food
that I wouldn’t eat to the hungry is
one Sunday in church check remember we
were talking about Jesus’s statement
that we should give our possessions to
the poor and follow him and the priest
was pretty quick to say no no Jesus
didn’t mean that
what do you man was to do outs of
charity and so even in our churches we
find it hard to face the injustice
head-on but Jesus was a radical and I
took him at his word and so I started on
a journey of making changes in my own
life trying to find justice and to my
surprise I started to clash with my
family my first attempt to justice was
to have a garage sale where I sold a lot
of my possessions and donated them to a
local charity that was building wells in
Sudan some of my family got mad at me
for selling some of the presents they
had given to me over over the years I
couldn’t understand why they didn’t see
that this was the right thing to do you
know it was still charity this will be
closer to justice so I was making the
connections between the things that I
own and someone across the world that
didn’t have access to clean drinking
water my next step was that I decided to
shop only a goodwill
my thinking was that in our throwaway
society use more resources and throw
more things away and is really fair and
reusing keeps things out of the garbage
a little longer but my father was upset
because I wasn’t supporting our
and I was spending a lot of free time
volunteering and then thought that if I
could make money insert my community at
the same time then I’d be killing two
birds with one stone
and I came across this job announcement
that had qualifications like desire to
help the materially disadvantaged check
flexible management style well I’ve
and so I put my high IT job they went to
work as assistant director at a local
soup kitchen and I’ll admit I went there
with the idea that I was going to save
the poor but when I got there por que my
friends and I realized that my role is
not to save them but it’s to use my
privilege to advocate for them and to
help break down the barriers
understanding the way of their success
to afford my drastic salary cut I sold
my house in the suburbs moved into the
city and my mom especially she was in
love with my house she could not
understand why I would sell my beautiful
contemporary house on a cul-de-sac
overlooking the bay and to some that may
seem like a sacrifice but to me living
in the city has been an amazing
experience it showed me what living in a
community really looks like and the
relationships that I’ve built with my
neighbors have become strong assets we
I also decided to take a trip to
Guatemala to visit a well that our
church had built there and I felt a
strong pull to return help
and so I cashed in my 401k against
everyone’s advice it will say that the
market crashed in 2008 just a few weeks
later so I think I made out there and I
wish my bottom alla City how we take
your children while their parents
salvaged in the dangerous garbage shop
and there I learned the role of global
politics the disrupting lives
destructing culture and deepening
poverty and all of these experiences
have shaped me and formed me into an
active member of my community speaking
at and leading march of that something I
never thought I would be able to do and
standing up for justice on a local
national level now you may look at me
and see me as a privileged white woman
who can afford to make the changes that
I did and you’re absolutely right but
those of us here today are also
privileged at least in some way and I
challenge you to look justice in the
for me the first step was opening my
eyes and then I didn’t see the things
that were in my life that were holding
me back and how I can bring justice into
my everyday life and how I can use my
privilege to change the systems that
exist in our world and make that more
just [Applause]