Students from a Massachusetts school took a trip to Boston recently. Nothing unusual in that. This wasn’t for the Freedom Trail or a museum visit, though. The students were making a short and provocative film about life and violence, about why some deaths seem more bothersome than others, about the response to the 2013 marathon bombing compared to the response to everyday deaths at a local business.
They were accompanied by Catherine Adair, whose daughter was on the trip. For Catherine, this was no ordinary drive into Boston. It was her first time back to the Planned Parenthood facility where she used to work. She came there to lend a voice to the film that no student could provide. Ironically, standing just behind her in the video is a facility “escort,” doing a job with which Catherine was once all too familiar.
“The horror that goes on here takes place behind closed doors. Nobody, except the workers, has to see the carnage….The world is silent, oblivious to what goes on here. But I know from firsthand experience. I used to work in this very building for two years.”
This ten-minute video by the students of Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Still River, Massachusetts makes comparisons that some may find troubling or even infuriating. Don’t let that keep you from watching. These are young women and men of courage, and I find in their work great cause for gratitude.
(Related post: Catherine Adair’s “Dear Clinic Escort,” from 2013.)
Leaven for the Loaf 