[OccupySheffield] Fwd: Attn: Dean Peter Bradley

[Chris]

Hi

Forwarding this email for info.

All the best

Chris

----- Forwarded message from Occupy Sheffield <info at occupysheffield.org.uk> -----

To: <peter.bradley at sheffield-cathedral.org.uk>,
	<carl.hutton at sheffield-cathedral.org.uk>,
	<Fran.Joel at sheffield-cathedral.org.uk>,
	<Tim.Renshaw at sheffield-cathedral.org.uk>,
	<Clergy_Mail at sheffield-cathedral.org.uk>
Subject: Attn: Dean Peter Bradley

Season Greetings.

We are writing to you in a spirit of goodwill and - from many in our 
campaign - Christian fellowship, to wish for you and your family and 
congregation a peaceful Christmas. We hope that you are able to find, in 
between the wrappings and trappings, some moments to reflect on the 
meaning of Christmas away from the Bacchanalian feast it can resemble.

Occupy Sheffield will brave the elements, and while some will celebrate 
the birth of Jesus Christ, others will warm themselves in the light of 
each other and our fellowship. As ever, you are welcome to join us in 
the camp to be part of this. If not in the next few days, then at a time 
of your choosing thereafter.

In the New Year we will return to our efforts to engage with you 
through the Ecumenical meetings. We will seek to convince you that the 
only way to create proposals that can become part of the national 
conversation is via an ongoing and very visible public presence - 
however uncomfortable this may be for The Establishment. We will 
reiterate that we do not contest the work of the Church, or the Archer 
Project - we are not here to occupy Sheffield Cathedral. We will 
continue to discuss and debate the ideas that will become our proposals 
for a world run in the interests of the 99%, not the 1%, as is currently 
manifest. These discussions and their output will be in concert with 
other Occupations throughout the UK and the world.

There is a great deal of hope in the camp that we will be allowed to 
focus on developing these proposals, and that our efforts will not be 
assailed by mammon. If they are, we will only be encouraged in our 
efforts. There was some discussion in the camp about movements of the 
past, and how they were initially scorned, disrupted, smeared and 
attacked - but in the end proven to be right. Among these, the right to 
democracy, the abolition of slavery, the right to universal suffrage, 
the end of the Vietnam war, the protests against the war on Iraq.

We believe that the Occupation movement is one such movement - namely, 
that it is right that the country and the world should be run in the 
interest of the many, not the few, and that this should not be 
hand-waving aspiration, but built into the fabric of the legal and 
financial frameworks that underpin our societies.

It is our hope this Christmas that on reflection, our ideas will find a 
natural constituency with those who adjuge humble beginnings and great 
ideas to be a more true vessel for what is right and good than with 
those aspirants of over-consumption and acquisition.

With peace in our hearts, we wish you a Merry Christmas.

Occupy Sheffield

----- End forwarded message -----