I went to two meetings today. (when did I become a person who goes to meetings?) My city, by virtue of being a state capitol, has Occupiers (apparently only about 20, but still enough for the effect, and they know what they're doing). The local university held a public forum to educate the public, in an intentionally-balanced if not entirely actually-balanced way, about the Occupy movement. Aside from people from the Occupiers (mostly in their 20s and dressed like college students), they had a Democrat state senator, a Republican state senator, and a state house representative who claimed he just happened to be in the building to sell back a textbook. (the bookstore offered him 10% of what he paid for the mathematics textbook, but, see, he'd already taken college-level math and knew he was being ripped off.) There was to be a Tea Party representative, but he chose to speak as a private citizen with everyone else instead, rather than claim more authority to speak on behalf of his party than he actually had. (From this, I learned that the Tea Party really is a leaderless organization, too... some parts are co-opted Baggers for Palin but others have different agendas or goals or values that might not match each other. there are many varieties of tea. so it's possible tea and pie can coexist instead of clashing. I imagine the poster for such a summit depicting art-school graphics of a blue table in front of red wall, with a white teacup and saucer emitting waving stripes of white steam against the red, next to a red and off-white apple pie, complete except for a tiny teensy missing sliver. Captioned: Occupy / Tea
Joint Combined Assembly (dates here) Everyone knows what's wrong. Let's talk about what we're going to Do about it.)
Anyway, I was impressed with the democratic politicians' brief statements, but I felt the republican was stuck between his instinct to please those in the room and his training to dismiss the Occupiers as silly, ineffective, and message-less. He was right about how the partisans no longer really talk to each other. I hope he noticed that the Occupiers are trying to change that.
The second half of the meeting was organized in Occupier General Assembly format, which was educationally cool. It's a sort of parliamentary procedure re-created by bloggers. To start a new topic, you have to be put "on the stack", which is first-come, first-served, get in line and hope there's time to get to you after everyone ahead of you has had a chance. (As with traditional Rules of Order, I suspect this is intended to encourage brevity and chill such passions as tend to derail meetings). However, other people can respond to the current speaker with hand signals. Both hands held aloft, fingers spread and wiggling, means "I agree" (like a Like button, but not as noisy and time-consuming as clapping), whereas pointing like a pistol with your fingers means "I have a direct response to what that person is saying" (like an internet comment, with multiple pointers to a given speaker stacked chronologically among themselves) There are two moderators. One is doing the typical duties that would typically be aided by a gavel, a stopwatch, a vaudeville shepherd's crook, or a conductor's baton. The other is keeping track of who is on which stack and who wishes to be added to a stack. Just like on the internet, there were some people more considerate than others, or more eloquent than others, and so on. The man at the very top of the stack had an elaborate speech involving the national debt and allegedly free college for everyone, complete with a handout for the republican politician but not enough copies for everyone else, and had to be told twice to wrap it up so others could talk. But he was told to wrap it up. twice. and they would've said it three times or fifty, I think. They aren't about filibusters or letting any one person do all the talking.
I was especially impressed when one of the Occupy Augusta members said that, since they're on the lawn by the State House anyway, they've been talking over the issues that the legislators will be voting on soon, getting consensus, then attending the hearings to speak about it... and since they don't charge admission or rent, citizens from all over the state are welcome to come join them for long enough to attend hearings on issues that concern them, instead of worrying about hotels and food and so on. I was floored by the simple brilliance of this. They're using what's still (sort of) working in our democracy, and amplifying it.
It's clear they value the process of reaching consensus more than specific demands to be met. As another Occupier (Demi Colby, i think) said earlier, "we're not deconstructing government... we're REconstructing it." and they're encouraging civil discussion (much better than civil war) and civic engagement. As an Occupier named Josiah said, "If you have time to post to Facebook, you have time to educate yourself." I made sure to get his name because I intend to quote him on Facebook.
(interlude: after meeting #1, I went to workplace to get my paycheck. It came to exactly $666.16 but I'm cashing it anyway. The waxed floors were _all_ greasy and slick. Apparently the night crew did something wrong when they cleaned the floor. Wonder if it has anything to do with the manager that wanted to use the night crew's machines to get a fabric softener spill off the floor? probably not, since there were slick spots yesterday before that, but my cynical vengeful nature finds it tempting. Glad I wasn't working today. I got a haircut. Trimmed and shaved and having regained my pre-vegan weight, without my glasses, I resemble my brother. not surprising but strange anyway. Thus ends my few days of not worrying about my weight gain. *sigh* Then I stopped at the bookstore, spend too much time, and bought the last Superman before the relaunch (the one that contains the words "and they lived happily ever after") and Sun Tzu's the Art of War because I should read it, and then I should give it away to someone else who should read it. I'm more artist than warrior, but sometimes the war is more about hearts and minds than blood and fear. see also and compare to here/now:
http://www.emcit.com/emcitS03.shtml#Art )
The second meeting was a job interview for a priest candidate for our church. He was very personable, knowledgeable, yet down to earth. (and he's semi-retired so he actually fits our budget) We were impressed. He'd brought more people to the last church he was at. He said the central point about his skillset was that he was great at the process. The collaborative, developmental process. He said churches are like gardens. You can't just drop in seeds and expect results. You need to tend the growing plants (aka: the flock of sheep) and you need the right kind of soil for the kind of plant you're growing, get the right pH balance between bitter and sweet, not so bitter that it stings, but not so sweet that the truth is glazed over.
I keep coming back to that poem by Emma Lazarus, "the New Colossus".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Colossus this has become my prayer, the thread betwixt a church that fights for survival, a nation that cries out for justice for its people, the dreams of frantic sudden revolutions in distant empires, even, maybe, the tales of heroes hated by the very masses they protect.
Listening to the radio just now to stay awake so I can write all this, and I hear again a line I used to hear all the time from a certain person, God bless her: "Call on Me and I will answer you, and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." It's from the book of Jeremiah. I would call, but I already feel like God's giving me more signs than Times Square, and my head is swimming trying to see how it all fits together. Like, Double Rainbow all the Way writer's high here. bit of headache, too, it's okay.
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