Tuesday, December 6

AM  Psalm 26, 28    PM  Psalm 36, 39
Amos 7:10-17
Rev. 1:9-16
Matt. 22:34-46

Don't miss this Episcopal News Service story from yesterday:
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2011/12/05/protestors-urge-trinity-to-open-outdoor-property-to-new-encampment/

from the article:
George Packard, retired Episcopal bishop for the armed forces and federal ministries, has been mediating between OWS representatives and Trinity staff.
Packard said he would like to see Trinity make the space available during the winter for the protestors, who say they need to have a space to “occupy” in order to build their community and carry their movement forward.

and more:
Packer’s first contact with OWS was periodically providing jugs of water from Costco for protestors. Late one night, he was wearing his clerical collar and dropping off water for the kitchen “working group” at Zuccotti Park when a police officer detained and nearly arrested him. In that moment, he said, “I was converted from a casual observer to a committed supporter of this movement. I think these young people are onto something. I think there is an anger in all of this for justice, that aches for some justice.”
“Something clicked in me” that night, he said. “These kids aren’t being heard. … This is no unemployed bunch of deadbeats. These are folks who are focused about the lack of fairness and equity and the ache for justice.”
++++++++++++

I think that first part really hit me as I read this:  "they need to have a  space to "occupy" in order to build their community."   I heard a snippet of an interview (and cannot remember where - it was early in the movement) with one of the NYC Occupiers who talked about how he had never taken part in anything like this before.  This was a young adult who claimed that most of his relationships with the world took place online.  He read the news and followed events online.  He communicated with people online.  But then something about this OWS movement seemed so important that it moved him to get out of his apartment and go down and actually see it, in person.  And he stayed.  He talked about how he had never been a part of a community before. His comment that stayed with me was something like "Even if this doesn't change anything about the way government or Wall Street works, it will have changed me forever."

Emmanuel.  God with us.  That's what the promise of Advent is all about.  And "God with us" seems to me to be about forming community with us.  Forming community is at the heart of the work of reconciliation.  The joy of being in community is what God-as-Trinity is all about.  The joy of being in community is what Incarnation and Salvation are all about. Our faith celebrates a community that includes the power of the Almighty, and the powerlessness of the created.   "And the Word became flesh, and pitched a tent with us."  

How do we move from fighting "the 1%" to building community with them?