I was moved by the segment on Rachel Maddow's Show where she had Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hamshire She talks first in the segment about the "move your money day" and then goes into the ad that OWS is putting up. But it was the conversation with the Bishop that made me stop and blink a little start of tears. It comes about 3 minutes into the segment. He said that part of what a Bishop does is to look for God. "Look for God in the world. And I think I saw God at work in Zuccoti Park."
Now I am not a religious person. I haven't been to a church in a long time. I've argued with the Jehovah Witnesses when they come to my door about how I feel that religions tend to try to diminish God. And I have quite a lecture worked up about it too, but they usually smile and agree with me even though they think I'm nuts.
If we posit a Creator God, then why not look at the Hubble pics and NASA pics and understand how vast the territory IS for a Creator. And we want this Creator to care about football games? Wars between nations? Although, looking through a microscope at grains of sand that suddenly turn into a treasure chest of jewels, there might be some element of micro management within this Creator.
But I feel that whether God is or isn't, we don't usually see God interfering directly with our idiocies of the day. I think some giant hand ought to come down and thwack a few blue coats with armor in Oakland but it ain't gonna happen. But maybe, just maybe, God or our better angels comes through from us.
Bishop Robinson then goes on to talk about the "grieving over the loss of community." And that is a very powerful and profound idea to me. He says: "People are mourning that this society has become a place where it is every man woman and child for themselves. Not as a society where we care for one another as a community."
And he goes on to talking about this is a conversation that we have needed for a long long time "What is our responsibility to each other?" And he asks about what do we contribute to the common good.
And what about morality? We have the so-called "Christian Conservatives" who love to spout the values thing but they who do aren't particullary moral, imo. (Ralph Reed moral (bwa ha ha ha ha))!
So one question for you is do you feel that you have a relationship within a community? I have to confess that I, now moving into my seventh decade, feel very much isolated. Yes I come here to dKos everyday and yes I thrill that people will give to each other. I am not certain that I am an integral part of the community however. I am not certain that I have anything to give or that what I have to give is even wanted.. What I need from a community is a lessening of the isolation I feel as an older woman. (An online thread probably will not get me much in that.) What about our connection to the larger community? We see the homeless being taken care of in Zuccoti Park. In most communities they get chased around the city and their access to night time accommodations is limited for a few hours at night, in some places. What is it like for them in your community? How do we take care of the least of these? And what do you consider moral?