If Nuns Ruled the World Read Online Free Page A

Megan. Even though she is incapable of insulting anyone, when she doesn’t respect a person, she chooses not to answer questions about them at all. She just clams up and minutes later will change the subject.
    Y-12 is the largest employer in this small section of Tennessee, with more than 9,000 workers in the area. Residents hate it when other people, especially Northerners, come to town and cause a scene. “In East Tennessee, the worst sin is to draw attention to yourself,” Ralph Hutchinson told me. “The second worst is to break rules. These people don’t break rules here.”
    Oak Ridge is an insular place, situated between the jagged bends of the Clinch River and five Appalachian ridges and valleys. Just twenty-five miles west of Knoxville, folks in Oak Ridge don’t take to outsiders. It’s a town that once detained Santa Claus because they didn’t like the cut of his beard. There is a famous picture of Jolly Old Saint Nick from 1948, one hand in the air, a toy in the other, being detained and searched by two armed guards as he attempted to get into the first annual Oak Ridge National Laboratory Christmas party.
    I traveled down to Eastern Tennessee at Sister Megan’s invitation, just days before Thanksgiving in 2012, hoping to meet with her and her legal team as they prepared for a pretrial hearing for the Y-12 break-in.
    â€œWe can drive back together and you can stay with me,” Sister Megan told me in her soft and measured voice that rarely rises above a whisper, over the phone from Rosemont, Philadelphia, where she lived with her order.
    When an eighty-two-year-old nun facing federal prison for the rest of her life asks you to go on a road trip with her, you don’t hesitate. I had been covering the presidential election for nine months straight, and I thought a good old Southern trial might be the perfect antidote to my political languor.
    â€œThere’s this nun down in Knoxville facing life in prison,” I said to my boss, Victor Balta, the managing editor of the website for Current TV. He was skeptical.
    â€œShe is a peace activist, broke into a nuclear weapons facility,” I explained breathlessly. Then, for good measure: “Nuclear disarmament is a big issue with our viewers. Plus . . . she’s eighty-two.” Victor gave me the two days off as long as I paid for my own plane ticket.
    I booked a one-way ticket to Knoxville and flew two legs coach early on a Monday morning, the second of which was filled with sweaty and statuesque members of the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team. Sister Megan, who doesn’t drive, arranged for a member of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) to greet me at the airport. Carol, a United Methodist in her sixties, was wearing a flower-patterned embroidered vest when she met me en route to baggage claim carrying a sign written in black marker that read Namaste . Carol filled me in on the history of Y-12, to which she referred as both the nation’s “nuclear insecurity complex” and the “bomb plant,” always with a girlish giggle, as we drove along the highway past the kinds of motels that advertise $199 for a one-week stay.
    Our destination was the basement of St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Knoxville, where Sister Megan was meeting with her legal team in advance of the hearing. It was the first time we met in person, but Sister Megan greeted me with a hug like we were old friends.
    The temperature was a moderate fifty-five degrees in Knoxville that day, but Sister Megan looked ready for a family ski trip in a soft gray wool sweater, lavender hoodie, fleece vest, and navy sweatpants. “I’m always too cold,” she said with a small shiver. I could feel her shoulder blades through four layers of clothing. She grabbed my rough hand in her small soft one and we walked down the dimly lit hall together. It is hard to describe what Sister Megan’s