tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1001212361881658125.post8106694966570085925..comments2024-03-09T08:49:51.461-05:00Comments on Downtown Monks: A LAMENT FOR COMMUNITYFr Alberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02195307683109646666noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1001212361881658125.post-46232035016929194632012-11-17T20:51:10.506-05:002012-11-17T20:51:10.506-05:00Very well put. It used to be that churches were th...Very well put. It used to be that churches were the highest buildings in a town, so that anyone traveling would see it first. It has been my experience in events which have affected the community act to make the smoke clear and bring us together. The first time I felt this sense of community surrounding an event was when the Space Shuttle exploded during its ascent. I was in high school at the time and I remember having a talk with someone - the first time too - about God. He was a born again Christian and I was at the beginnings of being a lapsed Catholic. He seemed to want to make the event into something spiritually significant. I disagreed with him and said that if it were to be seen in that light, then, well, it was God's fault. Besides that incident. there seemed to be a sense of national mourning. The second time was for the verdict at the OJ Simpson trial. I was out of college by then and working in a law firm downtown. We watched the verdict in a conference room that looked out above Broadway. Image the streets of Broadway in downtown NYC on a weekday afternoon empty. Empty. No cabs or pedestrians. I felt this tremendous sense of ambivalence in the room and felt that during that whole period. I also recall blackouts and of court 9/11. In those two last incidents, there WAS a sense of community (not for vengeance in the latter one, but of sticking together. Concerning an incident which I recalled listening to on the radio during a blackout of some sort, people gathered together at night throughout the city for a candlelit night on the steps of museums in the cool summer night air. Another story was of an immigrant pedestrian directing traffic in Times Square and exclaiming how much he loved this country. During Sandy, residents in my building all gathered together in the lobby and in the hallways and actually spoke to one another. I for one could not keep my mind off the thought of people in other parts of the state who were in real need and I felt somewhat conflicted about being with my family and just wanting to help. No specifics about who I should be helping or how I could help them. They occupied my mind as much as me being concerned about my son and wife. I wound up not caring about all the things that I took for granted which heat and electricity bring. Not even food. These incidents are few and far between, and perhaps we should act more like a community. I don't quite agree with Brueggeman saying that we have lost a sense of public awareness and public imagination. I think it is latent in us. Asleep. Suppressed even, but it is still there. Just as that image and likeness of whom we are made in is still within us. Catastrophe is the only way for it to be brought out. I think people have always been this way, except that we are much less likely to encounter catastrophe in our lives. Should we then, be open to it? Should we dismantle all the obstacles to let the flood in? I think Jesus wants us to be, right?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14364906866089387629noreply@blogger.com