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| Photo by Randy Brown (Oct. 7th, 2011) |
"Hey."So, I didn't give him any candles. I might have, but I honestly don't know where we keep candles.
"Hey," I said. "Can I help you?"
The first guy didn't seem to want to make a sentence. But he persisted: "We are involved with this thing. And we thought you guys would want to know about it." He handed me a homemade 1/4 sheet black & white flyer. It said "Occupy Atlanta."
"Yeah, I know about the movement," I said. "I've been following it on Twitter."
"Oh, cool. Alright. And we were wondering if we could borrow some candles."
"Candles?"
"Yeah, we're occupying Woodruff Park and we're re-naming it 'Troy Davis Park' and tomorrow is his birthday and we're going to be holding a vigil. We were hoping you might have some candles we could use."
What I took from the interaction were these things:
1) This guy came to OUR church, nowhere near Woodruff Park. Turns out he had been there "about 10 years ago" and knew one of our church families and thought we might be sympathetic to the cause.
2) I felt old talking to him. I judged him by the way he dressed and the way he spoke. He just "presented" really poorly. He wasn't articulate about what they were doing or why. Not sure what Troy Davis has to do with Wall Street. It just was a bad, bad "sales pitch." And yet...
3) I was delighted. I am so so glad that young people in Atlanta are picking this movement up. And while virtually nothing about these young men's pitch to me was impressive, I still want to help them out. I think this movement has enough Jesus in it to make it worthwhile.
4) He came to our church! He thought--hey, folks at this particular church might want to be involved in this, the most anti-establishment of movements. I find that such a shocking complement about the ways our congregation's members have been involved in our community's life, that a 20-something who was there once 10 years ago might remember us and think, "those folks are radical enough to cold call them!" That's a sign from God that I'm in the right church if I've ever seen one!
I'll be headed down to Woodruff Park soon. Let you know.
yeah, we think you're in the right church!
ReplyDeleteI haven't been actively keeping up with the activities of Occupy Atlanta. Your post prompted me to do a bit of reading. The following article (Oct. 7)doesn't represent the most recent news, but I found it helpful because it includes a list of the group's demands.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/interspire/news/2011/10/07/happening-now-occupy-atlanta-occupying-woodruff-park.html
The article provides a brief overview of the movement, and I think the comments are interesting, especially the various reactions to the fact that Representative John Lewis was not allowed to speak at the beginning of the gathering on Oct. 7.
I like your thoughts about your interaction with the two young men who showed up at the church as you were leaving. I imagine you were taken somewhat off-guard. You could have totally dismissed the interaction, but you chose to contemplate whether "this movement has enough Jesus in it to make it worthwhile." On top of that, you paid attention to what the visit by the two young men might say about the role (the image? the perceived mission?)of "this particular church." Your thought process encourages me to be more open myself.
The whole link for the article concerning Occupy Atlanta didn't show up. Here it is. (It includes a hard return after "interspire/", so if you are interested in looking at the article, you might have to mess with how you handle the link.)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atlantaprogressivenews.c
om/interspire/
news/2011/10/07/happening-now-occupy-atlanta-occupying-woodruff-park.html
Just heard about "Occupy Atlanta" again today - and thought, well David
ReplyDeleteprobably has a post about this, and sure 'nuf - glad to read your first
hand account of two protesters who (purposefully) sought out your church
for support - even the simplest kind.