Two Plowshares Nuns Home from Federal Prison, One to go!

author : Holly Gwinn Graham topic : nuclear weapons | Ploughshares Nuns | torture

by Holly Gwinn Graham

Plowshares Nuns, Sisters Jackie Hudson and Carol Gilbert, wrongfully convicted in 2002 of sabotage and damages to a nuclear missile silo, are out of federal prisons and on parole! Both have been allowed to remain in Washington and Maryland respectively. Sister Ardeth Platte remains in prison in Danbury CT until December.

All chose parole rather than making court-decreed restitution of $3080.04 for damages military Humvees did to fences around the Colorado silo field October 6, 2001. An appeal that would have lifted the restitution failed, although hundreds of thousands of dollars and alternative services were donated in the nuns' names to make up for damages.

As of June, $362,000 plus has been recorded in donations of time and money to donors' places of choice in 8 countries and 17 states as alternate restitution! The court board denied this enlightened alternative. The sisters feel they have more than repaid the government with their work in prison.

Sr Jackie left Victorville, CA Federal Prison on March 4, returning to Bremerton on the 6th to a party with loved ones. Jackie was relieved to be granted parole in Seattle. Original demands from the parole board could have kept her and Carol in halfway houses in Colorado for three years.

On April 6, Ground Zero House in Bangor, for so many years the center for Live without Trident actions, non-violence training and meetings, was completely gutted by fire. Rather than dwell on possible causes for the mysterious blaze, GZ plans to rebuild. Donations are gladly accepted toward this end.

During a recent cleanup work party at GZ House, Jackie broke her left wrist, but is healing well. Her parole officer has threatened Jackie with parole violation since she refuses to make monthly restitution payments. If Jackie has to return to jail, she hopes she's out of her cast first since prison medicine is notoriously lacking.

Write to Sr Jackie Hudson at jackiehudson123@yahoo.com.

Sr Carol Gilbert is home at Jonah House in Baltimore, MD with Phillip Berrigan's widow Liz McAlister and others in the Plowshares community. She reported to the MD Federal Probation office on Wednesday and has two probation officers, one in CO and one in MD. The local officer is part of the Special Offenders Specialist and knew Philip Berrigan and Jonah House very well.

"The first sixty days there is no travel and because I refuse to pay any restitution or have someone pay in my name there will be no travel approval given outside the state of MD. Many times a day the women I left behind come to mind. I hope they will forgive me for taking longer to do the things I promised to do for them but they will get done! I did not crochet the poncho for Martha Stewart. I gave her a royal purple bookmark I made and blessed her with our "witness for peace" blessing.

"A little book, Journeys of Simplicity, tells of forty travelers and the few, ordinary things they carried with them from place to place, day to day, birth to life. In the introduction, Philip Harnden, the Quaker author, suggests we travel through life like a "single leaf." He poses these questions to consider...where do our journeys take us? What do we leave behind? What do we carry with us? How do we find the way? How do we live like a single leaf?

"My best friend Ardeth still has 7 months in prison and I can't visit her. My deepest hope has been to live faithfully so that not one child would ever ask me, 'Where were you? Were you complicit?'

"Each day our task is to love those in our midst. Wherever we find ourselves we are where we need to be at that moment in time -- our eternal now. You are all a deep memory in my heart these days."

Reach Sr Carol in care of http://www.jonahhouse.org .

Sr Ardeth Platte writes from the Federal Prison at Danbury, CT, where she is in good spirits but dealing with a recurring rash brought on by allergic reaction to medication. On April 29th, the three sisters received the Religious Order of Peace and Justice Award.

Ardeth writes, "The Belgian Senate passed a nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation resolution calling for the withdrawal of the 480 U.S. nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, England, Italy, The Netherlands and Turkey. The U.S. is the only country to have nuclear weapons placed on the territory of other countries.

"We continue our hope, prayers and actions for total nuclear disarmament and for nuclear non-proliferation. The sunflower is the international symbol for nuclear abolition. Let's plant sunflowers at all nuclear and governmental sites.

"In the early 1980's Sister Carol spent time with Action for Peace in Nicaragua and then in Honduras and Nicaragua with Witness for Peace. Upon her return home she presented information about the CIA manual that taught violent tactics, torture, assassination, etc. to destabilize and overthrow the Sandinistas by the Contras. So it certainly does not surprise us observing the terrible torture, assassinations and maltreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo in criminal defiance of Geneva Conventions and international law by U.S. government and military officials.

Ardeth included this poem:

Resistance Fantasies

We like to think we would have been

Hans or Sophie Scholl, scattering

anti-Reich leaflets for our lives.

We like to think we would have given

our homes, our future children

for the safety of our neighbors.

We like to think we never could have owned slaves

or better yet, that we were abolitionists.

We never would have paid a factory death wage.

We never would have sat at bulging tables

while the potato famine harvested the villages

or packed people into coffin ships.

We hear of every trail of tears:

'The only good Indian is a dead Indian.'

How could the people come to that -- solution?

And then we close our newspapers, somewhat

aware of what our investments might support,

disturbed to be reminded, in the news or in a poem.

We might quietly recognize ourselves

when we hear that all it takes for evil

to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

And yet we go home to our lives and our Silence,

that true rough beast, hiding in the hole

of our full bellies,

so easily convinced there is nothing we can do.

And each of us continues to dream

of having been willing to give anything.

at that moment in history, of having been,

at the very least, an active resister.

We were all heroes in someone else's war.

Diane Thiel

"In order to be a full participant in this spiritual journey I must put aside any brokenness, fear, hopelessness, and broken relationships. I must die to this old way and identity to become a new creation.

"We are all ordinary people on this journey. There are no heroes or especially courageous travelers among us. We recognize that fasting and prayer strengthen the body and spirit, but it is God who takes the brunt of the burdens and lessens loads on the way so we may seek a renewal, a revolution of the heart, a new creation of peace and justice. We need a new beginning."

Write to Sr Ardeth Platte, OP, #10857-039, FPC Danbury, 33 ½ Pembroke Station, Danbury CT 06811.