Today is Hugo and Arcadia's wedding

5/19

Arcadia and Hugo

Today is the day of Hugo and Arcadia’s wedding.  I stop by early with keys so that Teddy and Chris can get the vacuum and make sure that eveeything’s clean and ready.

It’s nearing wedding time and I’m waiting to work out the service with my old colleague Regi who was my Associate and Pastor for Multicultural Ministries for five years starting in 2000.  Rachelle, who yesterday had brought a gift fr Danielle’s husband Nate’s graduation, is back. She wants to see the bride. It’s good luck, she says. And a Spanish speaking woman is looking for help finding a place to stay. She gives me the name of a Harlem hotel. I call, but they accept no cards. She’s crying as she leaves, Teddy goes out with her. I’m expecting Anna and Bobby at any minute. 

Teddy has someone new for me to meet. It’s Chris, clean shaven for the occasion. 

The sanctuary is filled with white bows and rows of little candles, lavender and white. Lit and glowing. 

Regi arrives and after making  sure that the computer is ready to project lyrics, we meet to divide the service. It has grown and expanded since Hugo and Arcadia and I met. Now bearing Regi’s unique interpretive liturgical mark. We divide up the service, ready to go. 

The sanctuary fills. Hugo is pacing and ready. Finally Arcadia arrives in a beautiful white gown, her hair done especially for the day. Hugo is resplendent in his tux. As two small signs, I’m wearing a small FSLN Sandinista pin on mu lapel and the purple band bracelet with the name Adham Brenes and Bob Marley’s One Love, One Heart Arcadia had made for the anniversary of Adham’s death. 

Regi and I go to the front. And Hugo and Arcadia come down the aisle together.  I invoke the presence of beloved family who have gone before, ending with, of course Adham. There is Latin music from a band. Prayers. 1 Corinthians 13 in Spanish. Regi’s warmth and down to earth engagement in the moment. Commentary and reflection.And finally the vows. When we get to the lines, With all that I have and all that I am I will honor you, I find myself ready to cry. For a world of reasons. The looks of love on their faces alone would be enough. 

We get the family to agree to bless the marriage. And the whole congregation. 

I bless the rings in Spanish. Regi leads the through a traditional Nicaraguan ceremony involving 13 coins with the coins being the ones his father gave his mother. We do the pronouncement of marriage together, the congregation bursts into applause. The couple kiss. And walk down the aisle again. As the congregation greets then with soap bubbles. (Every detail, lovingly, beautifully planned.)

We have been waiting for this a long time. Their home is one of openness and love. One where there is always food and a place at the table. Where the word familia is open to all who will come. 

Arcadia, Hugo and Bob

We go to my office for a quick champagne toast. The couple has taken off for the reception. Chris will come with me, Teddy to follow. God smiles on days like these. 

All because of the open door

5/17

The young rabbi and his consultant are back for another visit. I’ve got Jamie in my corner.  They are very interested. Even making an offer. There’s a lot more to think about here. Jamie also has a proposal from brokers to share with us.

I’m pushing it to the last minute tryign to come up with the right decisiono about legal represntation fro tomorrow. I go back and forth on the issue several times and finally decide to sign up the bar association lawyer as time is running out. 

Mim has come earlu fo rour Center Board meeting/strategy session to get ready.

The Baord meets. There is a concensus that the West-Park members want out fom i de the buildig so that the can deveote full time an denergy to rebuolding the congregation. There is concensus that we want to keep the vision/dream of our Center alive. The question is how to accomplish those things. And that’ s where concensus ends. 

I am very tired when I go home.

5/18

Joan Wilde is in to review plans fo rhe rperfomrance coming up on Sunday. Her original song cycle about the ages of woman, a a play off of Shakespeare’s ages of man soliloquy. She’s a seasoned old pro. Also one of the founders of the Grandmothers’ Peace Brigade and Grannies Against the war. I’m glad she wants to do her show at West-Park.

Teddy comes in and  we talk about why he’s stil here and not in Chicago. Danielle and I have to work on a write up of another legal case before she goes to he husband Nate’s graduation at Union. Chris wants to confirm his and Runi’s leaving for Portland in the morning. Little  Christopher has an appointment Teddy has worked really hard to get him set up with. He’s definitely going.

Jessica is talking with Jeanie, who’s getting ready for a job interview. Jessica wills stick around to talk with Little Chris. I am saddened to hear that Raven and Jeanie an others have joined an encampment down by the water. It troubles me deeply, but there’s nothing I can do right now. 

Tracy shows up and we go to Barney Greengrass for bagels and conversation about what's next now that they’ve won a victory at V&T Pizza and the next door neighbo Hungarian Pastry Shop seems to have come around as well. Naeed to have a celebration, invite religious folk, workers, politicians, maybe even bosses. Keep the pressure up for Sweatshop Free. When we return, Teddy goes off with Tracy to join the picket line at Sigon Grill 

Two women detectives come in with photographs of the possible wallet thief from Imiko’s concert. They’re looking for Rafael to take a look at the pictures. I’ll have to try and fin him.

Leonel is in with flyers for her concert with Joan on Sunday. Glen has come and brought a playwright with him to schedule audition times and rehearsal times and possibly performance times. John H wants to know how the morning curt appearance went. 

Runi is very upset because her ride has just fallen through. Could be a very long conversation. RL wanting to talk about Make Music New York and fixing the grate.  Anna and Puppy have arrived and she wabts her place in line. When Hope arrives, Anna is clear, I’m next she says. 

Danielle is long gone to graduation. I’m meeting with people one at a time. Rachelle has dropped by too. Tells me she is staying somewhere temporarily. Longs to return to the Upper East Side.  Says I’m an  angel. An that Danielle said, more than. (If that’s true, bless her for that. Bless her anyways for hanign in htere..)

A small group has gathered in te sanctuary, Hope and Teddy and Jamie has joined them. All waiting. Jane comes in with her college room mate, sees them, thinks there’s a meeting going on. Just people hangin’, no meeting. It’s getting late. I step out fo r abite with Jamie.

On the way home, I see Goerge has returned for a visit. I’m too tired for apoclyotic pronouncemts and visions tonight, so I try to be incognito.

It’s been a no breath day. A day filled with people. A good day. Hope says its good and all because of the open door. We need ti do the same thgn wiht our vision. 

On the bus, let's go; Occupy NATO

5/16

Talking with Steve and Chris about last night’s first bus to take off for Chicago.  Seems like everything came off pretty smoothly. Buses finally took off around 4:30 am. Tonight will be the real test.

Danielle has arrived back from Iowa and a family wedding. There is a lot to catch up on. 

RL drops in and we continue to talk about the plan to fix that pesky grate outside that has plagued us for so long. 

Taking a break on the steps, Seth stops to talk with me. He’s from the coop to the north on 87th Street. One of the original Friends of West-Park who opposed our development plan. But then when we developed the hybrid Richman plan, he swung over and put together a group to try and support that plan in every way. Saw it in his coop’s interest. He asks me how’s it going? How do I answer that question? I talk about challenges, struggles, difficult times....He admires my courage and persistence. For us all...., he says.

                                                * * * * 

There’s always a strange quiet around 3 am on Amsterdam. Not much happening  on the street. But as I near West-Park, it’s buzzing with activity. Four buses lined up. A crowd of young Occupiers anxious with anticipation, ready to get on the buses. I see again many faces I haven’t seen in months. I feel again that adrenaline charged energy of the first few weeks of Occupy West-Park. 

I ask Chris how’s it going. He says Pretty good til just now. They’re ready to go...

Steve comes outside.  Anyone who’s not smoking, back inside. And immediately cigarette bumming becomes the order of the moment. Steven, you are encouraging people to smoke.Not sure how I feel bout that, man...and I smile and he laughs. There’s a lot to keep in order here. I wonder where all thee people have been since they left West-Park. One by one Chris and Jay are herding people back inside.  

They’ve shown Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911. And now videos from Occupy West Side Story...Gee Officer Kinski...(about NYPD police brutality) and the Debt song....when you’re in debt you’re in debt all the way... Clever and well done.    ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WZ2Hla2cPs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wGZRJG4ZJE&feature=relmfu )

I go back outside. Dan, who’s not been here in several weeks, is lurking around the edges, now sporting a Mohawk. He’s not officially signed up. Steven preparing for a possible confrontation. Fewer people than signed up have shown up. One bus will be sent home. A wild eyed young man tries to engage me in one of those semi-paranoid conversations about do I know what’s really going on here and how do I feel about it and he was an Occupier before there was an occupy and all the drugs he’s currently on. 

Steven and one of the Nurses Union guys begin the check in, one by one. A young woman has tried to sneak on an aluminum baseball bat. When asked to produce it, she claims she threw it away, around the corner. But it turns up in someone else’s bag.Sorry, you’re not going, you signed a nonviolence pledge. That doesn’t mean bring your bat....

The Nurses’ Union guy is concerned about the guys with bandanas.. What’s this? he asks pointedly. We’re anarchists they say. Right, like they need to hide their identity on a bus ride. It’s ok, says Steven, don’t worry about it... Patrick the French filmmaker is there filming everything. Anna and Puppy are seated nearby, taking it all in.

One by one the buses are filling. It has the air of a high school field trip with Steven the Principal. It takes a lot of courage to try and pull this off. Three young girls are bouncing up and down like Tiggers, or high school cheerleaders, their lean male companion nearby. On the bus, let’s go, Occupy NATO... they cheer. 

Finally the buses are loaded and ready. Dan has tried to enter every bus and been rebuffed. Chris fears he’s entered the church, Jay reports seeing him cross the street. Makes me sad. Wish we could have done more.  It’s time to go and no sign of Teddy. Steven is well, pissed off.  I bid Steven farewell and good travel as he boards the bus. The buses are off. The New York City Occupy contingent on its way to take on NATO and the Chicago Police Force. I wish I were going. Steven had offered to hook me up to speak to the Nurses’ rally. But there’s too much going on. Court appearances, meetings. Can’t go. 

Steven boarding the bus. Travel well.

The buses are gone. The cheer leaders have another cheer  or two then bounce off to the subway. Only Chris and Jay and I are left. They congratulate each other on a job well done. They’ll be up late cleaning up. Tomorrow Jay will go to the VA hospital. He’s bee ordered to report for active duty. Again. We’re hoping his still healing fractured leg will get him a stateside desk job. For awhile. You never know. 

I’m walking home. It’s 4:30 am. And quiet again.

The white guy in the box is back again

5/15

Stop by the church to pick up some papers on the way to see an attorney from the New York City Bar Association referral program. All these legal wranglings are wearing in their own unique way...

A long conversation with Jehan. I’ve always wondered about her. There’s a shrouded story in there somewhere. She comes across as cultured, educated, a product of the African-American middle class. She came to occupy not because of any political commitments but because she was homeless. Someone she met told her that she could find a home there, so she went to Zucotti and became part of the women’s tent. And eventually to West-Park. She never fully became part of the coop, keeping to herself. Spends her days singing on the subway, dreaming of a career as a performer. Now that the coop’s ending, she has no idea what to do. Can she simply come by and prepare healthy food? Sure. Why not. As long as nothing else is going on. I keep looking. But its hard to see inside. Something else is going on in there. 

Stop and talk with Steven and Chris outside. Steve is employing Chris as a security guard for the first buses heading to Chicago tonight.  People will start showing up around eleven.

When Steve is gone, I tell Chris how much I respect him. That he should use me as a reference. That there’s no reason he can’t get a job. That he is responsible, reliable, creative in problem solving. Most of all, I’d trust him with anything. He does not  belong on the streets. 

On my way back for teaching my night seminary class, I stop to see what’s going on. Already people are gathering on the steps. Takes me back to the early days when OWS overran the place and all the kids gathered outside upset the neighbors. I recognize many faces of those who once lived at West-Park. I see Maria, who delivered the proposal that resulted in people staying. Who I saw carried out more than once because of her seizures. She may not be allowed to travel to Chicago. 

Talk to Steven and Chris. Jason there, too. Time to let people in. Jason will watch the back stairs. Steven the inside guy, Chris in charge of the outside. The bus will arrive around 3 am. 

Steven and I go to invite everyone inside. The guy wearing a Bears sweatshirt turns out to be a reporter from the Chicago Tribune sent to be embedded on the bus trip to Chicago. Key organizers have been staying away from their homes so as to not be picked up before  the action. They're gathered here, at West-Park.


The white guy in the box is back again.

A Mexican and a white guy in a box

5/14

For the first time since the Occupiers have been here, I find myself sweeping the steps myself again. Good to remember what that feels like. It’s why I feel so much a part of the building, problems, karma and all.....

John H comes in, excited, emotional. Wants me to think again about the vision. Not let it get lost. As the brutally honest business voice I so often need, I appreciate this coming from John.  This day calls for a new reality. What it could be, Christians, Jews, Muslims sharing a building together with a commitment to justice and a home for the arts. He believes we can still have it all. You have all the pieces, he says, they’re all there.  John sees things. When everyone else thought OWS was a distraction, he felt it could help center the church. He was right. 

Teddy has just waked up. A bit sleepy. But ready to dig in for today’s work. The clearing up, cleaning out phase has turned up some very strange finds in unexpected places.  It’s all being timed for the next city pick up days. 

Chris and Runi come in for a consultation, join Teddy in the work. I do not want them on the steps.

Sandy comes in. She’s got a lead on some property upstate. Woodstock area. Possibility of growing flowers. She still has the dream of an Occupy intentional community. She was one of the first to come in to West-Park with a work crew. And a dream. It got overwhelmed. But she has never lost sight of it. The Coop that came together came close. Her idea was right. I catch her up on what’s been going on. Sadly, even if they had all stayed together, keeping a Woodstock community together, paying the bills, wouldn’t happen. Maybe there’s still a way to gather a select Occupy group more interested in the social movement than the protest movement. How to do it?

Hugo and Arcadia come in to plan their wedding. This will be a true celebration. A real moment for our community. While we are talking, a man comes in. At first I think he’s speaking Spanish, but as we all look at each other, we realize it’s not. Turns out it’s Romanian. His name’s Dmitri. Looking for the Romanian Orthodox  Church. Hugo and I figure it out. It’s on 87th. Arcadia draws a little map. Hugo takes him outside to point him in the right direction. 

Sekou has arrived early. Sandy has cornered him. Chris and Runi are here again. Someone is playing the piano. Steve talking about the Chicago bus trip. Before I go in to meet with another couple, Sekou says, I’m tastin your world, my brother. They should set up a hazing program for new ministers. Make em spend a day with you. Anyone makes it through, get in...and he laughs his full body laugh. 

This is an interfaith couple. Referred from the Interfaith Community I still advise.  At first, I think its simply a question of planning  a service, but I can see from the woman’s face there’s more to it. How much do you have to sacrifice? How do you give up wanting your kids to believe that Jesus is your personal lord and savior and necessary for salvation? When you can’t imagine life without the one you love?  Lots to talk about. This isn’t one conversation. Hugo and Arcadia. Chris and Runi. This couple. Couples. 

Finally time for Bible study. Sekou shares his letter responding to the black clergy that have been on Obama’s case for proclaiming his support for marriage equality. (That’s what it is...civil rights...) I answer Anna ‘s question from last week. Turns out the fishers of men is not just about organizing. It picks u on an image fro Jeremiah about bringing judgment to rich and powerful. This is not about evangelism as we think it is. It’s a direct action campaign. The call repentance is a call to turn your back on all the powers of the structure that is, the structure of domination and control. Not only turn around, but turn away....

We get into exorcisms, healings. The demons know Jesus. And he knows them. That training in the wilderness. 

And then the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law. A widow. A cut off one. It is restoration. And that restoration, that rreclaiming of one’s life, is followed by service, we pass it on. 

He keeps healing. Casting out demons. Keeps them silent.Tactical choice. Don’t draw attention until the time is right. Time to gather the forces en las montanas. 

Anna has been right on target again. Marsha sees the connections with IAF. Bobby has come in, wearing m NYPD hat from 9-11. How’d that happen? Yes, I know, Condaleeza Rice is a concert pianist. He won’t rest until I get her here. John brings in teBivle study fro another church, another perspective. Always wants to know how it helps anyone live a better life. Teddy says, Let me get this straight, this is the very beginning right? We nod. I got it, he says, Zucotti Park, September. I got it.

That’s it. Outside, there’s a Mexican and a white guy in a box I’ve never seen before.

Jamie says, Yesterday would’ve been the perfect day to sneak in the blessed Mother. You know, Mother’s Day. She needs to be here...

She’s welcome, I say, just need to find the right place. Her own altar/prayer place. I need all the help I can get. 

Sixth Sunday in Easter: and it's going to rain

5/8-11

Three days in Lousiville at a national presbyterian church meeting. The same problems are affecting the church at every level. We continue to try to manage our way out of the problem while a radical rebirth is needed. We use language like equipping transformational leadership, but does anyone have any idea what that really means in concrete terms? The church has lost a third of its budget (40 million dolars) in six years. The national office now has a sign outside thay says Available, 30000 square feet commercial  as footsteps echo in empty halls. At the bottom the sign says Transforming space, changing lives.......What?  The possible meanings of that are endless, and not many positive...

5/12

A quick pass through tthe church. Deescalation non-violence training led by the fellowship of Reconciliation is being conducted in the church for those occupiers heading to Chicago to be involved in the mass action there this week. 900 from New York City have signed up for buses....

5/13

The day begins with a text message from Teddy: The sanctuary’s ready. Stool in place. Steps swept. Coffee’s on upstairs. And I smile. I also smile because I know Andre will be there.

When I get there, Rachelle is back. Looking kind of Isak Dineson, Out of Africa, today...Heading to the Columbus Avenue flea market. She is helping a man who is terminally ill, but she must keep it a secret. Can she bring her cart back later?

Come eleven, I’m ready to begin, just like last Sunday.

John reads the Act passage, (10:44-48) and Steve the epistle, 1 John 5: 1-6.  




We read thse words from Psalm 98:

⁵Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody.

⁶With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.

⁷Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it.

⁸Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy

I come back and ask...can you hear the lyre? The trumpets? The sound of the horn? The roaring sea? And the clapping hands of the flood? And the hills singing together?

The hills are alive, with the sound of music....

Arcadia reads the gospel on Spanish and me in English.

As always, there’s a lot to think about. Maurice Sendak passed away last week. To any of us who are parents, that’s significant. I recall last monday’s Bible study. Callie pointing out that Jesus was in the wilderness with the wild animals, not the tame ones. As Sendak’s wild things say, Wild forever. So may we be.

Mother’s day. There are always issues with that. Those who wanted to be mothers and couldn’t be. Those whose relationships with their mothers were not the best. But all of us have someone who has been a mother to us. And as someone points out, sometimes men have been mothers. So for once, I forego the remembering of Julia Ward Howe and the antiwar roots of Mother’s Day:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_Day_Proclamation And America’s way of taming these shout outs for peace, justice. (Wild forever.)So I ask people to  talk about their mothers. About anyone who has ben that. And the stories pour forth and echo.  

So...time to look at the scriptures. See where they take us. First, Acts.

“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 

Last week it was the Ethiopian eunuch. This time around it’s gentiles.This week in a week where  Obama finally comes around. Does the right thing. Comes out for marriage equality.  All part of Resurrection  living, what Easter sesson is all about. 

On this Mother’s Day, the word is Love. It says Jesus loved with water and blood..and that the essence of love is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Especially on Mother’s Day, we need to be cafeful with that..

Sharon Welch, in her A Feminist Ethic of Risk, says that the language of self-sacrifice faulty in two regards:

1. Sacrifice is reviewer language,ie, it is what one sees from the outside, not inside the person resisting. For that person, the primary motivations are integrity and community, not sacrifice
2. And what is lost is precisely not the self..what is gained in this process affirms the self as one defined by relationships with others and love. It is the self, in its fullest sense, that is not lost, but gained.  

Maybe it’s like the airplane oxygen analogy. You know, in  case oxygen is needed, pull down the mask and breathe in first before assisting your child. No way you can save anyone else if you’re already gone. Love your neighbor as you love yourself....

And of course the purpose here is that : so that joy can be complete..there it is again that word, joy.....

Jesus tells su that we are no longer servants, but friends...Friends, equals, in relationships of mutuality. 

Finally, we don’t choose, we are chosen...called to be the unique person we are created to be..we can accept or reject, but we are chosen...and it is our responsibility, our job for us to help each other discover the concrete content of our chosenness. And in short, the bottom line is, ...To love one another

As we take up the offering, Andre sings in his own style, What a friend we have in Jesus. I was prepared to do this if he hadn’t come today, guitar and all. But he makes it his own. Now if only P-------weren’t trying to sing along in that high, childhood voice of hers. 

We gather in the circle. I ask everyone to name where thr mother came from. Johannesburg, South Africa; Havana, Cuba; rural midwest, Texas, Central America, New England, deep south Florida...we come from the four corners to be here. And then our benediction, our prayers, Alleluia! Amen....

The session only meets a short while. Only to review a few things. Arcadia has brought cake. it’s Mother’s Day.

I come back in the evening for the Jeunes Virtuoses de New York concert. And once eagain, I am surprised. They’ve got a decent crowd. And the music is fine. Better than fine. Strings are the downfall of most young/amateur classic groups. But these strings are clean and crsip, no mush. They move the solos around like a true ensemble. George Kiss of France’s Fetes Musicales de Savoie, is the guest harpsichoridst. By the time David Roberts finishes with a rosuing Yankee Doodle by Vieuxtemps, it’s been a great evening. 

Talking with Steve outside. Even though he’s completely enmeshed in the upcoming Chicago action, he’s been here since 4 making sure the concert comes off well. As we’re talking, Runi comes up in her speed talking mode. ...and it’s going to rain...she says....Steve and I look at each other, it’s a perfect night.  Checks his smrtphone, no rain in the forecast.... He tells me confidentially that he found Chris and Runi on the steps last night. No good, I say,  Chris has come too far to wind up on the steps....

So what do you want to do? asks Steve. I look at him, conflicted...

Back inside Bobby appproaches us. Condaleeza Rice again....  then he says, ....and it’s  going to rain...I look at Steve, well, there we are....

When people are ready, it happens

5/6

Steve and Requiem drop in to see where we are with insurance visits. It has finally worked out that Rose’s mom will welcome Rose and Requiem for a month so they’re taking the bus to the Berkshires. 

Anna is sitting with Puppy out on the sidewalk near the bus stop. She’s got nothing good to say about the people she net going thorugh the church making plans. I’m guessing they weee Melisa’s people. I tell her I’ll look into it.

The St. Agnes volunteer boys are back and hard at work again, cleaning away.

P________ comes in. Her case has taken new and bizarre turns. The State Supreme Court has denied her appeal. At one point she gors into a rant about how they’re all, the judges, the lawyers, the landlords, Jewish. I tell her not to go there. Point out a latino and a Muslim on the judge list. She says, but the Jewish one’s in charge. I must speak the truth. Then she goes off on how the Bible says homosexulaity is an abomination and as a scientist, men with men has some kind of negative effect chemically. And my patience is running thin on this day. The pressure is getting to her. More stories of how they’re trying to kill her with rays and gases and....Thing is, they’re not only trying to evict her, they’re wanting her to pay back market rate rent in the neighborhood of $40000 AND the landlord’s legal fees. If a judge would ever listen to her for 5 minutes, they’d see she is crazy. But she refuses to agree to a psych eval, afraid they’ll put her in the loony bin...I call her attorney, put him on the line. Maybe there’s still something he can do, maybe. He wants $1500 up front to try. She may be crazy, but the rest of this is mad obscene crazy.

As she’s talking to me, Sekou has arrived early for our Bible Study. We’d like to go across the street for a coffee, but Jamie has arrived with two realtors, so I have to do the tour. Tell our story.  See what they might come up with.

Once again, a good mixed  group for Bible Study. After a recap, we headback into the first chapter of Mark again. Talk about what’s being signified. The levels of the text. How Jesus submits to baptism as an act of solidarity with us human beings. But also as a symbolic turning away from the system of domination and control as it is. Repent, meaning turn around.....go another direction... how the temptation time in the desert is like boot camp, Satan in the Lou Gossett/Samuel L. Jackson role. ....he was with the wild animals....Callie from the Bronx points out that he is at one with wild animals, not tame. Even with its resonance of Daniel in the lion’s den, or the peaceable kingdom images, the animals are wild. 

This is all necessary before Jesus is ready to pick up the mantle of his fallen  cousin, John the Baptist. He goes back to Galilee, that nowhere place of nowhere places to begin hs work. He calls out to working people, fishers, and they immediately respond. Callie says, they were ready...We’re talking chronos and kairos and she says, no when people are reeady, it happens. 

And Teddy and Steve talk about the people who just walked away from where they were to join Occupy.  Sekou talks about not taming Jesus, not disempowering the radicality of the witness here and what went into it. Rosa Parks didn’t just get tired and refuse to move from a bus seat, she had trained for months for that moment. We cannot dehistoricize Jesus or Martin ..or Rosa.

Steve and Teddy and Callie all see parallels with Occupy here and an opportunity for critical analysis of the Bible....and the movement...others ae just amazed at the thickness of the text...what is in every word...

Anna stays behind..to ask about the signifcance of fishers.. I’m going to have to look into that.

Even Bobby had a brilliant comment tonght....with a reference to Quaker Oats as a metaphor for instantly.

A good might. But the pressures are mounting. Walking home, I’m  not sure that I can  leave tomorrow to go to Louisville, as important as that meeting is. Walking up the street, I desperately need to talk to someone. And no one’s there.