God's Politics Blog » Mary Nelson

Health-Care Reform is a Life and Death Issue

Mary Nelson — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:15:23 +0000

We need health-care reform to ensure that others aren’t caught in the web of inconsistent mental health care and the inability to get needed medicine. Here is the experience of my brother and sister-in law (Rev. Jon and Juni Nelson) in…

Push, not Protest, for a Budget with Better Priorities

Mary Nelson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:30:26 +0000

Several years ago over 100 of us were arrested for blocking a Capital building entrance and protesting tax cuts for the 5 percent wealthiest people and program cuts from WIC, food stamps, college assistance, and foster care programs for the poor. That budget,…

Hope and Action in Hard Times

Mary Nelson — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:00:42 +0000

In these times of foreclosures, tight budgets, and shrinking funds, community builders feel like Jesus’ disciples with five loaves and two fishes and thousands to feed. During an earlier time before I retired from Bethel New Life, I reflected on doing more with…

Remembering Millard Fuller

Mary Nelson — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:20:24 +0000

Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, died yesterday. Poor and homeless of the world lose his boundless energy, enthusiasm, love and joy towards ensuring people everywhere had a decent place to live. He made things happen, recruiting rich and…

Lift Every Voice

Mary Nelson — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:45:05 +0000

I was there at the Lincoln Memorial Opening Inaugural Event, the Inauguration … tears of past memories and future hopes slid down my cheeks. Memories of marching with King in Chicago, of the riots and destruction in our west side community, and of…

Chicago Sit-in Victory: ‘Yes We Can’

Mary Nelson — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:30:57 +0000

After concluding a six days sit-in at the Republic Window Company, workers came out of the door shouting “Yes we can, yes we can.” The sit-in at this window manufacturing plant in Chicago by low-wage union workers was triggered by…

Hard Times

Mary Nelson — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:08:16 +0000

Recently, West Side Chicago folks went down to the state Capitol, seeking release of long-overdue reimbursements for services to homebound elderly – $1 million outstanding, enough to cripple a struggling community development corporation. We stood outside the governor’s door, our…

A Different Economic Measure: Quality of Life and an Economic Bill of Rights

Mary Nelson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:51:19 +0000

I’m tired of all the frantic talk about how much or little consumers are spending over this Holiday time. Something’s wrong with an economy based on consumer spending, with kids thinking the measure of parents’ love is the gifts they…

Our Children’s ‘Audacity of Hope’

Mary Nelson — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:00:44 +0000

“I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord…plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Obama talks about the audacity of hope in these challenging times. I am inspired by America’s young children, and their hopes…

Campaign Community Organizers as the Foundation for Future Change

Mary Nelson — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:30:23 +0000

As a volunteer in the Obama campaign, I was constantly amazed at my fellow volunteers of all ages, races, and economic groups. Especially exciting for me as a Boomer Plus was experiencing the next generation of young people with the gleam…

Post-racial? No, Not Yet — So Let’s Get to Work

Mary Nelson — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:15:51 +0000

I shed tears last night as I stood with thousands in Chicago’s Grant Park cheering our new President-elect Obama, contrasting that with crowds’ hatred and bigotry I experiences more than 40 years ago marching in Chicago behind King and Mahalia…

Humpty Dumpty Falls off Wall Street

Mary Nelson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:57:02 +0000

Wall Street is now in shambles, worldwide confidence is eroded, the stock market is in free-fall, and many people are losing homes and jobs. Many had put all their confidence in the freedom-from-regulation marketplace and its self-correcting actions.

We now see…

In Money We Trust

Mary Nelson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:30:49 +0000

The Wall Street debacle reminds me of the fall of Babylon … of the excesses of greed over the common good and the little folks (like the ones in my low-income community) getting the short stick both before, during, and…

New Study on Abortion Reduction

Mary Nelson — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:02:01 +0000

The heated abortion debate has up to this time been focused on legal measures. A new study commissioned by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good concludes that government social spending and economic conditions do more to reduce abortions than legal strategies such as parental consent laws.

Joseph Wright (Penn State University) and Michael Bailey's (Georgetown University) examined the dramatic drop in [...]

Don’t Shoot!

Mary Nelson — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:32:14 +0000

"Don't shoot -- I want to grow up," read the protest sign an 11-year-old boy held in the wake of 30-plus shootings of Chicago schoolchildren this school year. The Supreme Court's recent assertion of the individual's right to own a gun for self-defense stands in sharp contrast to the anguished pleas of the father of one of the schoolchildren to stop the tragic gun deaths in our community, and to get rid of the guns so available on our streets. His pleas reminded me of Jeremiah's [...]

A Better Answer to High Fuel Prices

Mary Nelson — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:10:36 +0000

Recently, both President Bush and an oil company spokesperson, speaking to the rising gas prices, pushed for building more refineries and upping the production of oil here in the States. No mention of exorbitant oil company profits. No mention of our need to drastically reduce use of cars and gasoline, to change lifestyles. No mention of the working poor who are stuck without public transportation to jobs remote from their inner-city or inner-ring suburban homes.

Reducing dependence [...]

Fighting Recidivism with Resurrection

Mary Nelson — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:16:25 +0000

On Easter Sunday sermons about new life and transformation, resurrection and redemption abound. At our church we celebrated the baptism of a young man living in a half way house and doing work-release in our community. The genuine hugs and welcome from the mostly black congregation for this young white man were warm and genuine. One church member sponsors work release, another church member picks up the four to five who come for events and church, and this young man felt touched by God in [...]

The Cost of Killing

Mary Nelson — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:45:35 +0000

In Ramah, a voice is heard, crying and weeping loudly. Rachel mourns for her children and refuses to be comforted, because they are dead. Jeremiah 31:15

Last week a spate of four deaths in our Chicago high schools was blamed on gangs and guns. Last year, the public high [...]

Eye for Eye

Mary Nelson — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:23:17 +0000

We are painfully reminded once again of the cascading violence in the U.S. after the senseless killing of six and wounding of many others at Northern Illinois University. But in my low-income Chicago community, the violence and killing have almost numbed us. I hear gunshots out my window regularly in the summer, and the annual homicide toll from guns in our two-square-mile community is often more than 30. The Children's Defense Fund indicates that almost 3,000 youth die in the U.S. annually [...]

Beyond Super Tuesday

Mary Nelson — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:37:20 +0000

There's something in the air: Super Tuesday. I haven't seen as much interest around a primary election in a long time. Despite the experiences of defeat around issues so important to my low-income community - the fear of recession, the dragged out Iraq war and the billions of dollars diverted for war that we need spent on improving the health and future of our youth - there is an tangible sense of hope and possibilities. As Caroline Kennedy told of her own experience, youth are speaking out [...]