• We Can Be The Change

    June 5, 2008

    A man whom I respect, love and admire, Dave Andrews, has a website called wecan.be -calling on us all to be the change in the world and not to let the extremists from both ends and all reglions and factions set the World’s agenda. He says that small changes - little changes by individuals may just be that - little changes, but that cumulatively, when teh same action or joined, they are BIG changes.

    Dave calls us to go from Plan A - Treat others Like They Have Treated Us - to go to Plan Be; Treat Others Like We Would Like to Be Treated. This, the Golden Rule, is a common thread for all major religions. But, as Andrew says,

    “The strength of the Golden Rule is that everybody agrees that it is great place to start. Its weakness is that though its nice and warm and fuzzy people find it a bit vague as guideline.

    Which is why Jesus of Nazareth spent so much time unpacking the specific implications of the Golden Rule in his Sermon on the Mount - summarising his suggestions in his Beatitudes.

    But the trouble is, few people who would claim to be admirers of Jesus - even among those who would call themselves “believers” – take the Be-Attitudes seriously as ethical guidelines.”

    Dave then calls for us to re-acquaint ourselves with the beatitudes, not as a set of spiritual promises but as a set of ethical guidelines. He goes onto write,

    If we are to take the Beatitudes seriously as a set of ethical guidelines, then we need to re-acquaint ourselves with the Be-Attitudes and re-discover the workable virtues they embody. For an exciting detailed exploration of the workable virtues embodied in the Beatitudes you can study my series of meditations on “The Be-Attitudes For Today’s World”

    He then calls on people to sign up to the global web based campaign to sign on to ‘Plan Be’, to practice the Be-Attitudes and be ‘The-People-That-Be’ over against ‘The-Powers-That-Be’.

    You can sign up and start to ‘be involved’ right now …

    Dave has an excellent book out called Plan Be. You can order the book online or from your local Christian bookstore.

    Plan Be rescues the ‘beatitudes’ from their obscurity as a poetic introduction to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and reframes them as a set of radical ‘Be-Attitudes’ that can enable us to ‘be the change we want to see in the world’. According to Dave Andrews, the ‘Be-Attitudes’ are an original, imaginative and brilliantly do-able set of realistic ideals that introduce us to Jesus’ ingenious way of engaging our world of poverty and violence.

    I have signed up to the site and movement a while ago and publicly want to say that I am trying to follow this credo from Jesus. So, here is what I have signed up to, agreeing to follow Jesus by living out these Be-Attitudes!

    I Want To Be The Change I Want To See.

    1. I will identify with the poor ‘in spirit’.
    2. I will grieve over injustice in the world.
    3. I will get angry, but never get aggressive.
    4. I will seek to do justice, even to my enemies.
    5. I will extend compassion to all those in need.
    6. I will act with integrity, not for the publicity.
    7. I will work for peace in the midst of violence.
    8. I will suffer myself, rather than inflict suffering.

    Niall (Neal) Taylor

    So, take a moment to go have a read of Dave’s online excellent exploration of the beatitudes and step away from the misunderstanding that the beatiudes aren’t meant fro you, here now, today, in this time and place, and believe that they are Jesus’ exploration of what it means to Love one another. Then read the book!

    Shalom!

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