Uniting our Struggles

These have been some turbulent days in our nation.  Most particularly, the Trump Administration’s executive order to ban travel from seven Muslim nations has stirred many Americans to hit the streets, insisting that our nation maintain its tradition of welcoming immigrants and refugees.

At a recent Tuesday morning Inspirational meeting (a weekly gathering for residents and staff to share stories and reflect on our mission and values), Project HOME’s co-founder and Executive Director Sister Mary Scullion offered reflections on this situation, saying that the plight of immigrants and refugees connects to the Project HOME vision statement:  “None of us are home until all of us are home.”  She called on us to “remember all those people around the world who are refugees and homeless, struggling to find their way home.”  Given the Project HOME mission, she said, we need to “unite ourselves with them and their struggles” and seek ways to take meaningful action.

You can hear Sister Mary’s full comments here.  Also, check out other videos of our Inspirational Meetings, including residents’ stories, on the Project HOME Youtube channel.

At that same meeting, staff member Karen Orrick quite appropriately closed our time of inspiration and reflection with the beautiful and stirring poem by Emma Lazarus, which is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty – fitting words for us all to recall:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"