Occupy Toronto, Part V

We bumped into each other in our church foyer just before a worship service, a woman I hadn’t spoken to before. Instead of the usual, “Isn’t it a beautiful sunny day?” kind of comment I expected, she began to criticize. She told me everything that was wrong with those “Occupy” people. She was very elderly, so maybe it would be kind to assume that extreme age was twisting her mind and her character beyond her control. “Why don’t they get a job?” “What good are they doing?” “And that girl just died in Vancouver.” On and on she went with a peculiar vehemence. I just listened in silence, but I wondered, “What is it to you, that you should be so upset?”

Then there was a blog war I followed last week. The blogger had offered an intemperate lecture to the Occupy London participants. Comments poured in. One side agreed with the initial post that the Occupiers should go home and be useful, while the other begged for patient listening.  They did not express these opinions in the tone or the language I am using in this description. Phew, the feathers flew!

I am fascinated by the emotion around the “Occupy Movement”. Why do these campsites make people furious?

I would understand if such anger came from a local business owner who thought they were keeping customers away. I would understand if drivers expressed anger that the marches were adding significantly to traffic congestion. I certainly understand that people will be arrested if they act violently toward others or their property.

But many folk who have no first-hand knowledge or experience of what’s happening seem to be extreme in their reactions. They seem quick to focus on any negative side-effects of the protest and show no interest at all in discovering whether something positive might be happening. Without having met and spoken to any of the Occupiers they spew insulting assumptions about their intelligence, their life circumstances and their ethics. Curious.

The mayor of Vancouver, for instance, is blaming the tragedy of a drug overdose death on the Occupy camp’s “dangerous” living conditions. Really? because such tragedies don’t happen otherwise? Is this just a political excuse to keep the law and order folk happy or is he expressing a deeper fear?

I’d like to think of these seemingly irrational reactions as a litmus test of our own state of mind or spiritual maturity, but it has to be more complicated than that.

There are a lot of hidden buttons being pushed and there have to be some lessons here for all of us.

Wouldn’t it be cool if, when we see somebody doing something we think is crazy, we reacted with curiosity and questions, instead of judgement and disdain?

Occupying Toronto, Part IV: Signs

It felt weird to walk up my quiet suburban street, solo, holding at my side a hand-made protest sign. I avoided people’s eyes but could see that everyone I passed curiously scanned the upside down text on my piece of cardboard. Have you ever been on a protest march all by yourself? On your own block? Embarrassing.

At the subway entrance, I hoisted the sign over the turnstile, scooted down to the platform and when a train stopped, leaned the sign against the train’s doorway wall, out of people’s way. I slunk from one side of the car to the other (with my sign) so that I could stand in the doorway opposite the one where riders were exiting and entering.  As usual, multiple passengers offered the old lady (me) their seats. This time I pointed at my sign-on-a-stick as I smilingly refused their kind offers. Now they think I’m crazy as well as old.

St. James Park was week-day quiet, still filled with tents and guarded by police on bikes. I walked around reading chalk messages along the sidewalks. Beside these on the grass were piles of cardboard signs. “People aren’t for sale”, “We are the 99%”,

I noticed a group of teenagers. Their teacher spotted my sign and said to them, “Look at this. It’s a bible verse” They obediently looked over, with that killer teenage stare.

“ACT JUSTLY,

LOVE MERCY,

WALK HUMBLY WITH GOD”

Micah 6, the Bible

They weren’t impressed.

The sound of drumming started and I found a few First Nations guys gathered nearby. They had a couple of Indian flags and a megaphone. After a song and a speech the leader started off to march to Bay St. A small group followed.

Since nothing else was happening, I figured I’d join in.  I shortly found myself dodging both the leader who was using the megaphone to share his political harangue with stunned passersby and some tall man wrapped in a cannabis flag, carrying a sign that read, “Hemp will save the world”

Oh dear. I did a u-turn and headed back to the park.

In my head someone’s singing an old 60’s song , “Signs, signs, everywhere a sign,  blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind”.

(check it out www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_2wjRk02s&feature=related )

I remembered one more sign on the grass at St. James. I didn’t write it, honest. In big letters on brown cardboard it said “ God is here”.

Occupying Toronto, Part III

St. James Park on King St. was full of tents. Smack up against the most “establishment” church in Toronto, hundreds of young adults have hunkered down to live out their own values and make their own rules. St. James is the Anglican cathedral (head church), and in the history of Toronto, Anglicans used to call the shots. This is the church that mayors (maybe not Rob Ford) and Premiers still attend on Christmas Eve.

It also welcomes the Queen and other royals any time they’re in Toronto on a Sunday. This is where, if anywhere, the ultra rich are likely to worship among their friends. It was a hilarious and wondrous sight to see a rebel campsite in the side yard of the huge, old stone building, its spire long a landmark for our city.

I wandered among the tents seeing handmade signs for First Aid, Media, and Information.

There were roughly crafted signs everywhere, leaning against tree trunks, stuck in the ground, taped onto people’s chests, or laid in rows under another sign that read, “Signs”, ready for the next street march.

I could see a couple of the usual union banners but  few people over forty.

As an aside, people are very kind to anyone with white hair like mine. They assume we’re fragile and decrepit, offering me seats on the subway so frequently that I’ve given up saying I prefer to stand. White hair is a perfect disguise for a rebel.

I was warmly welcomed and asked if I was going to join the march. I said, “Sure” and could hear surprise in the young guy’s voice, “Great!”

A covered bandstand was serving as a stage for speakers. I didn’t understand what the crowd was saying in unison until I got closer and witnessed something intriguing. Maybe the technique is common in poorer countries but it was new to me. 

The speaker had no microphone, so, as if he were working with a translator, he would first shout “Mike check” and then begin his speech or announcement. Without a real microphone, those near enough to hear the speaker would loudly repeat what he had said, so that people further back could get the message. It worked brilliantly. 

When the speaker  was trying to tell the crowd where any volunteer leaders would be meeting and pointed to  a meeting tent, the crowd repeated his words and his gesture.

I spoke to a couple of young women beside me who had come in from London, Ontario. According to them, these speeches, by anyone who signed up for a turn, had been going on for three hours. Somehow a commitment had been made for consensus decision-making and they had spent hours trying to agree on their next steps. What a refreshing change from the usual cynicism of politicians and corporate executives! Impractical and inefficient, sure, but glorious to see.

Occupying Toronto, Part II

Today I heard God speak on TV.

A television reporter was standing at the Occupy Toronto encampment in St. James Park and wanted to find someone to answer the anchor desk's question about how these campers could afford to stay in the park for days on end. 

The reporter pulled in the nearest protestor.

Here's the short interview with young “Elijah”.

Reporter: “How can you afford to do this?”

Elijah: “I quit my well-paying job as the operations manager of a woodmilling shop.  I moved out of my apartment . We’re going to stay here until world peace is achieved.” He looked into the camera, raised his hand in the peace sign and said, “Welcome to freedom.”

Again, I admit, the naivete is breathtaking, but...

Elijah is the name of a Jewish prophet who lived many centuries ago. He is honoured by Jews, Christians and Muslims. He is famous for conducting an outrageous experiment to show his contemporaries that there is only one God worth recognizing, the God who created us and wants justice and mercy for all of humanity. He tells the people to to stop giving honour, time and money to false idols. 

The folks who are occupying world cities are speaking out against the false idols of wealth and power. They are calling us all to love justice and mercy, to share power and to lift up the poor.

Jesus said to the rich man who wanted spiritual salvation, “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor”. Like all the other preachers who explain this bible story, I’m sure Jesus didn’t really mean what he said (!), but a few people take his words seriously.

Some of them are camping out in our cities and marching through our streets. Instead of scoffing, we should cheer them on and help them find their way.

We oldsters who watched in amazement as the Berlin Wall was torn down, we know that the unimaginable is possible.

Occupying Toronto, Part I

After my neighbour called me out for being at home doing a crossword on my front porch instead of joining the protestors downtown, I decided to head for the subway. She never attends such marches and rallies herself, but knows that I’m a demonstration junky. I joke that my favourite part is getting to walk in the streets shouting my head off. It feels great yelling chants like, “Hey Mister, Mister! Get your hands off my sister!” or the favorite call and reply chant, “Whose streets?” “Our streets!”

In truth, I am always interested in what issues motivate people, and often they hit the streets for reasons that matter to me, too. However, I hadn’t been moved by this new “occupy” action immediately, probably  because economics makes my head spin. I’m allergic to numbers, spreadsheets and anything else that reminds me of Grade 10 math, the last year I took that lousy subject. Apparently fate thinks it funny to watch those of us who snobbishly scorned the highschool courses in typing, scrambling desperately, decades later, to learn keyboarding. Likewise with math. I was chagrined to hear a leading feminist preach that if we wanted to change the world for girls and women in particular, we had to learn how the world economies work. Doggone it.

So I have learned about micro-businesses and made myself listen to some of the reports on Bernie Madoff and his evil colleagues. I’ve watched documentaries explaining how the mortgage mess happened in the U.S. and others that tell sad stories about clueless home buyers who are now homeless. Once in a while I even open the Business Section of the newspaper.

Lately there’s been enough broadcasting about occupying Wall St. that despite the appearance of disorganization and lack of clear goals among the protestors,  I do recognize values in common. I suspect that the Spirit of God has provoked many to take a stand, even without offering solutions,  against the unfair distribution of resources and profit. They are protesting a capitalist system and unionism that are both unchecked by any concern about their abuse of power and endless greed. 


Yes, the ‘occupiers’ are a ragtag bunch, unable to identify exactly what they want or exactly how fundamental changes to our economic norms can happen (don't ask me). But the movement may be, at least partly, an expression of a God-given insight that we are living in a deeply unhealthy culture, where some among us need reality TV shows to rescue us from buying more stuff, and others rob and murder as a twisted response to hopeless poverty. 


My own story of occupying to follow.