2nd Tuesday of the 1st Amendment at Ground Zero
Added: 2004-03-24 13:46:13.0 | link | comments: 0

Certainly there were more of us and more cops as well. Even the super terrorist squad in black SUV's circling above us, with machine guns no less. Lots of photographers, who were cross examined by the police, for which I apologize. Did you receive any real tickets or summonses?

The heart of the matter, the joy of it, was simply repeating these words. They have an elusive life in them. They have an authority, as I repeated the words I could feel that. They are so decisive.

I wondered, as I haltingly shouted them -- couldn't the founding fathers have written a list of a hundred rights and prohibitions -- why these five: the freedom to worship, to free speech, to have a free press, to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for redress of greivances. And yet these five are the constellating ideas that create the far longer comprehensive list. More than a list, a feeling of freedom. Something you can apply. Did you feel that?

Repeating it, how many times -- 30 times, maybe? or 40? I was down there about 25 minutes doing that single thing, repeating that phrase. The mounting repititions did give me a special feeling, that the phrase was radiating far beyond itself. Consider that slave-owners wrote these words but Dr. King referred to them constantly. A hundred years from now they will continue to have their strong life.

I wasn't so aware of the 3,000 spirits who are there. Not this time. The first week, when there were only about 20 of us -- I was more aware of 9/11 then. This time, we were repeating the words, creating these echoes, with the cops walking among, then asking each other questions, suddenly relieved to have a photographer to harass.

I did talk to some power guy, maybe brass from the cops, and the thought our shouting was not respectful. I go to shouting, as a preacher I suppose. I thought of leading us down to a whisper, and then I also thought of walking up the stairs continuing to recite the amendment. But Savitri thinks that I shouldn't think in the Reverend Billy way, and that it was good not to wear the costume and the hair, because the moving thing about this action is those words.

Thank you all for doing this with us, and who knows how many of us there will be if we do this every Tuesday. How many of us will be doing this come June and July?

Rev Billy
 http://stopshoppingmonitor.journurl.com/