One of the things for which the Net has been invaluable in my journey of late is to keep me “in the loop” with what is happening amongst the Occupy movement. I hear various people talking about how they aren’t noticing Occupy much of late. Well one, if you depend on the mainstream media, that will be the impression. But if one is immersed in various social media streams (such as #OWS and its various supporting networks and local incarnations like #OccupyNashville) then a very different picture presents itself.
I wrote in my previous post that Occupy is “spiritual” and “theological”. Staying “connected” to it by setting up streams in my Tweetdeck twitter client, I get a steady stream of updates, videos, articles, and “theological reflections” coming out of the participants and supporters in this country. It is alive and growing. By the time the weather begins to warm again, the movement will be ready to explode into social prescence actions again (not that there NONE of those things still happening now. There are, such as #J17, a national call to prescence in DC on January 17th, where thousands came to the Supreme Court steps and police pushed crowds back and , in some cases, down the steps.
In November, I opened a “Section” (using WordPress ‘ Custom post types) for #occupyTheology, where I have been aggregating reports and reflections regarding the involvement of church people in Occupy. Many have expressed a delight in seeing the church begin to become supportive and active in Occupy (including me). But there is also a sense in which Occupy is also a secular recognition of what many Christian movements have been writing about and mobilizing around for decades (Sojourners is the first one that comes to mind, although there are many “social justice” organizations and movements out there (and Dorothy Day comes to mind as an example who was active and instrumental in getting awareness flowing in the Catholic Church with a “Catholic Worker movement” in the last major financial crisis, the Great Depression. She co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement with Peter Maurin in 1933.
Perhaps this time we will have an ecumenical Worker movement (or perhaps we already do).
