A meeting I don't want to have

4/20

I’ve been working for an hour and a half with Jamie to prepare a presentation  for another meeting with the Presbytery committee on Nurture of Congregations tomorrow. Jamie’s helped me get a good outline together. I head across the street to share these thoughts with Marsha and Hope. Jamie comes across and joins us and soon we have a strategy we can all work with. It will require me to write a status report and get copies at Kinko’s with plastic covers and all.  Teddy offers to help me with that, but I think I’ve got it covered.

There’s a meeting I don’t want to have. The fact is the insurance broker has told Danielle that if the Occupiers are still living wth us when the insurance company comes for an inspection, there’s no way we’ll get insurance.  We’ve got to move the exit date up, even when the t-shirt work has just begun to come together.

There’s a quick visit with Pete who still maintains he can get a cover for our baptismal font created for us. I want to believe him. That would make such a great story. But it’s been months. Hard to believe until I see it. 

Talk with Raven about his bird, actually a crow, who said raven. And we talk about Edgar Alan Poe who lived down the street a couple of blocks when this was the country. When he  moved up here from Greenwich Village for the  air. And lived across the street from Park Presbyterian. 

No more avoiding it, we’ve got to talk. Explain that this is all about insurance and nothing else. Some still want to believe that someone with a personal agenda is doing this. That’s easier to believe, I guess than just random forces in the universe. 

Clearly the coop is not going to continue and that’s a hard reality to grasp. Rose suggests moving into a squat together, but even Requiem wants no part of that. This has been sanctuary. This has been safe. This has been home. I’ve got to get our social wokers in here, both for logisitcs and for the emotional impact of this change. 

Hell, it’s hard on me too.  Logistically, a core of these guys are my support team, my building maintenance and security staff. Emotionally, I feel connected to them. They’re living in my house. They’re part of my life. Where’s my social worker?

My first commitment is to make sure that everyone’s taken care of. Runi wants to know if there’s another Presbyterian church they can move to. Answer, no. And no other kind of church either.Don't you guys work together? she asks. Well..... We’re sort of the last sole survivor on that line. I ‘m wondering if I can get Marc Greenburg of the Interfaith Assemby or Project Reachout or Laura  and the Westside Fedration to help. 

But I also want to see what’s possible. What we can do to keep the most important  relationships intact. I need that.

I'm dressed to go to the 175th anniversary symposia at Union. But there's a lot of writing, a lot of typing to get done.