OWS - Today in New York

Foley Square, New York, 5:30pm, Thursday, November 17

In Chicago, it is almost 5pm; so it's 6pm in New York. 10,000 people are in Foley Square in New York as I write this. They are expected to move towards the Brooklyn Bridge sometime this evening, and connect with at least one other group. The police are waiting at the bridge; they are all around the protesters and have been all day. Quite a bit of exceptionally well-documented rough stuff as people were arrested and put in the paddy wagon.

On Fox News last night, Bill O'Reilly declared the movement dead. After all, he told us, it's only made up of the homeless, the drug addicted, and other dysfunctional people. "There were good people to start with," O'Reilly said, "But they've all gone."

Popular support for the Occupy movement has dropped into the high 30s' from the mid 40s'. Obama and other Democrats are being warned of the "Occupy minefields", if they voice support for the movement. America doesn't like troublemakers, who upset the public spaces with no clear agenda, no leadership, no organization. Just another group in the endless list of freeloaders who want something for nothing.

It surprises me some, and disappoints me a lot that Fox and others have no real listening for what is going on. Worse...they have no curiosity about it. Why does the prejudgement always seem to come first? How can they possibly understand if this is something important, or just passing spite, if they don't engage the protesters honestly? Why don't they seem to care? The simple answer is that they are threatened; but I am not so sure. I simply do not think they can see or hear or understand anyone who has deep questions about America, her economic system and her distribution of wealth and power.

Winter will not end this. Folks may not sleep outdoors all winter in every city, or they might. Neither outcome would surprise me. Neither outcome is determinative of the movement's power. People listening deeply to each other about what would be a more just and more beautiful America...people who have experienced the utter magic of shared dreaming about things that matter deeply...these people are awakening, and they are waking up with others, together, in shared and beloved community.

Have you ever felt that energy, that life force, that sheer beauty and magnificence? If you have, then you know this is the fire that once lighted, cannot be put out. Understand...I make no political prediction. But I state as fact that everyone who has seriously engaged in the Occupy conversation, to the point where they have experienced some sense of "Aha", or some rush of joy, or some brief glimpse of the transcendent, knows they will never be the same again.

And dreams are much more powerful when they build from the bottom up.

I am reminded of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, a story told only in John. Jesus tells her that the water he will give her will cause her never to thirst again, that it will be like a "spring inside, welling up to eternal life" (by which I understand, opening up inside the individual to kingdom consciousness). Once this water has been recognized, nothing can ever be the same.

That's what I believe is happening. Perhaps not for everyone. And yes, there are bad eggs and a violent fringe. And why wouldn't the homeless wander into camp for free meals? But for those who drink deeply of this special water, nothing will ever be exactly the same as it was.