During this last weekend, Emily and I slipped away and spent some time in Philadelphia. It was to celebrate the impending end of a decade long project called Omnibus! We planned our weekend to maximize rest, eat a few meals at some nice restaurants, and spend some time talking about what we need to accomplish as Christians, as spouses, as parents, and as members of this community over the next 15 years. It was a blast! It was also very thought provoking. We were on our way to a restaurant Friday evening. When we walked past (almost walked right into) the Occupy march which was coming down Broad Street moving down the Avenue of the Arts in Philadelphia. This caused a few musings for Emily and I that I will share in this and two other posts entitled, Occupy: A Front Row Seat at the Revolution?, Occupy: What links Occupy and the Tea Party, Occupy: Where should our tents be; and what should we be doing!
I have watched this Occupy movement . . . .
I have watched this Occupy movement with a level of disdain (really mainly for the media that is so happy covering them) and intrigue because I had no idea what these people were saying and how they could all be saying such seemingly inconsistent things and call themselves a movement.
My main experiences had been mediated through TV which makes the movement look like a something akin to an role playing game called “Democracy” where the people are setting up social services and having governmental meetings in the evening (which I think is neat) and the protesters in downtown Lancaster (who I think of as quaint). In Philly, I got to see them front and center and the picture was substantively different. They were a few hundred people marching up Broad Street with placards chanting curse words (in unison loudly) and calling for “REVOLUTION!” I was so thankful that I had not brought my children to Philadelphia. It was ugly. As I got to the restaurant (a French one), I walked by a bust of Marie Antoinette and did a double take. She had struggled with the same sort of folks.
I believe this country needs change. I think we need more change than most people. (In fact, sometimes I despair just thinking about how much change we need.) Positive change cannot come from groups like the one I saw on Friday. What I saw was not law abiding citizens asking for redress of their government or moral citizens confronting rulers with God’s righteous standards, it was angry people cursing and calling for destruction. It felt nihilistic. They are camping out around City Hall (that beautiful building with William Penn’s statue looking down toward the place where he landed). The folks I saw were not one’s who could found or maintain a government. They will not be able to call our government to justice if they will not even restrain their passions to the point of common decency. I am no prude, but the baseness displayed publically with the imagining that sincerity cleansing it magically is bunk. Our leaders need to be held accountable. They cannot be held accountable by people who won’t start by holding themselves accountable in the simplest of ways.
As a classical Christian school, as readers of Thucydides (Thucydides: The Civil War at Corcyra), we can see that revolution tolerated eats away the heart of a culture. We know this…or we should know this! We have forgotten it, however, and there might be a terrible price to pay for forgetfulness.
