#OWS

Here are some pictures from Occupy Wall Street's Liberty Plaza on Sunday when OnFire joined the interfaith prayer service held every Sunday. By today, Mayor Bloomberg has evicted everyone from this place that has really become a community. The camp is regrouping at Foley Square now, but prayers for all those doing this work as they recover from last night.





I love that sign: place your suggestions here for the improved world you want. What are some of your suggestions? Post here, on our Facebook page, or tag us @umonfire.

Occupy Boston

by Zach Kerzee

On Monday, October 10, a group of Harvard students, including myself, met by the famous "Statue of Three Lies" to march collectively to Boston Common. There we would meet hundreds of other students from colleges in Boston to join voices with the Occupy Boston protesters who were camped out in tents in Boston’s financial district.

I came to the protest hesitantly. I had heard all of the news reports, and was not quite sure what to make of this small, but growing movement. I had heard of the movement’s lack of direction, organization, or even a clear theme. I had heard that the movement was nothing more than a liberal response to the Tea Party movement – that it was composed of whiney young people who didn’t want to find a job. What I saw when we reached the protest’s starting point, however, quickly dissolved these preconceptions.

Last Monday’s protest boasted over 1,000 participants from across Boston. The sheer size of the group absolutely blew me away – this was a highly coordinated effort that was able to inspire hundreds of people to action. In the thirty minutes or so between the time when I arrived in Boston Common and the time the protest began, I took pictures of the signs that protesters had made. People held up signs representing a vast array of different causes. Some of those causes were:

Abolishment of Capital Punishment, Prison Reform, Education Reform, Greater Teacher Pay, Forgiveness of Student Debt, Mortgage Debt Forgiveness, Redistribution of Wealth, Redistribution of Influence, Anti-Consumerism, Anti-Capitalism, The Formation of a Radical Democracy, The End of Bank Bailouts, The End of America’s Wars, and even The Legalization of Marijuana…

The protest left Boston Common at approximately 2 P.M. and marched for approximately three hours. The group chanted together:


"We are the 99 percent!"
"How do we fix the deficit? End the War! Tax the Rich!"

The protest reached its climax at approximately 5:00 P.M. when we met a police barricade at the Charlestown Bridge. Several people were arrested that evening at the bridge, and 140 others were arrested that night at the tent village as they attempted to expand the camp away from the initial site to form a second camp.

The protest was overwhelming, and so I took several days to process all that I saw before attempting to share my thoughts on the Occupy movement. So now, on Thursday 10/13, after having spent the night in tents with hundreds of other participants, I’m prepared to make some observations.

First, I think that it is important to distinguish this protest movement in from other similar movements of civil disobedience. This is not Egypt. This is not Gandhi. This is not King… yet. The Occupy movement, which has now spread to over 100 cities, lacks the unity and direction of those three movements, but it has potential.

Which leads to my second point: the movement should be seen, at this point, as less than a "movement" per se, and more as a collective expression of discontent. The movement is a soap-box – a sounding board where people who have historically been silenced are able to have their voices heard.

It is longing for unity – but not yet unified. What the movement lacks in unity and clarity, however, it more than makes up for in sheer momentum and passion of voice. This movement points, I believe, to the formation of another movement. The people’s voices have been heard – now strong leadership is required to turn discontent into constructive policy.

Several students from Harvard Divinity School have established a spiritual presence at the camp, and have coordinated with other seminarians and people of faith to host religious services which serve the needs of the protesters. These "Protest Chaplains" are there to listen to what the protesters have to say and to provide, if desired, spiritual counsel and guidance. Last night, I sat with a group of seven protesters in the "Faith and Spirituality Tent" and simply asked them why they were there. The protesters’ answers were varied, and each had her/his own reason for attending. But one thing united them. Each one of them wanted to be heard.

I see this as my Christian mission within the Occupy movement – to listen to the voices of those who desperately want to be heard. To work for justice. To hope for peace. To be a voice as well as a silent presence. To live in solidarity with those in whom, and through whom, I believe God is working to form a better world.

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Zach Kerzee is a Master of Divinity Student at Harvard Divinity School from Abilene, Texas.

"I am the 99% and so are you."

by Michael Airgood

On Sunday morning I approached the communion stewards at New Day Bronx UMC and received Holy Communion. My wrists were still bruised and sore from the handcuffs, but my soul was rejoicing.

On Saturday I had not planned to get arrested. I imagine that few of my 700 companions had planned on spending hours in a prison holding cell. I had already purchased my bus ticket out of the city for the evening, and had already planned and bought supplies to teach Sunday School in the morning.

I was careful not to step off of the sidewalk during the Occupy Wall Street protests, but as police officers stopped traffic on Brooklyn Bridge and stepped back to make more room for us to march, I joined the crowd in marching across the bridge. I heard no call to disperse and no officer informed us that we would be arrested. In the panic of the "kettle" I feared that we would all be trampled and killed as the police forced us closer and closer together.

I decided to join the protest because of my Christian faith. While the media filled pages with pictures of dirty hippies and crazed leftists, I knew that as a follower of Jesus Christ I was also called to care about the injustices in the system. This was not a left vs. right issue. We have allowed the poor and the marginalized to grow poorer and move further toward the fringe. We lose our humanity when we allow corporations to make billions in profits while millions of children go hungry every night. We cannot claim to be followers of Jesus Christ if the cries of the poor and needy go unheeded by our churches and our Christians. I decided to join the protest because of my Christian faith.

I thanked the officer that arrested me for doing his job, and I thanked every officer that helped to process my arrest. Some of the boys in blue apologized for arresting us. They squeezed 120 of us into a holding cell built for far fewer. I was not the only religious leader in the group. A Buddhist monk and an African American Pentecostal pastor were also present. We talked with people and tried to calm the anxious.

I posted on Facebook the following morning, "There are some who want you to believe that they just arrested dirty hippies and radicals yesterday; but you know me. I am your friend, your brother, a person of faith, a moderate and thoughtful person and I was arrested with hundreds like me for protesting an unjust system. I am the 99% and so are you."

Unjust systems cannot be fixed without the support of people of faith. We are the 99%. Pastors, priests, Sunday School teachers, soccer moms, nuns and the rest of us work hard to live out our faith every day in tangible ways. We must live with the consequences of our actions, and our children and grandchildren must live with the consequences of our actions.

When I was arrested my first thought was that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as I worshiped as a guest of the wonderfully inclusive New Day Church, it became more apparent that when I was arrested I was at the right place at the right time. I was raising my voice and allowing my actions to speak out against an unjust system. While the path isn’t for everyone, it was certainly right for me that day.

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Michael Airgood is licensed to be a local pastor in the Western Pennsylvania Annual conference and serves with GBGM as a standard support missionary in L’viv, Ukraine. He is a graduate of Toccoa Falls College in Toccoa, GA with a BS in Intercultural Studies and plans to attend seminary in the near future.