Plan Be

I came across a book today called Plan Be by Dave Andrews and when I followed up some links I discovered an interesting campaign called Wecan.be. The book is an exploration of the Beatitudes of Jesus as a call to radical living: 

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”

We can see the workable virtues advocated in the values that are blessed in the Be-Attitudes
1. Blessed are the poor – or poor in spirit – who do not trust in status or riches
2. Blessed are those who mourn – who grieve over the injustice in the world
3. Blessed are the meek – who get angry but who never get aggressive
4. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – who seek justice
5. Blessed are the merciful – who are compassionate to everyone in need
6. Blessed are the pure in heart – who are whole-hearted in desire to do right
7. Blessed are the peacemakers – who work for peace in a world at war
8. Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness – who suffer for just causes

The Wecan.be campaign is described in the following terms by the author of the book:

Wecan.be is a global web-based campaign to encourage people 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 …

In an article called Cold Turkey, Kurt Vonnegut, the famous satirical American author, wrote:
“For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the beatitudes. But – often with tears in their eyes – they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes, be posted anywhere.”

Well, I think its time we took up Kurt’s challenge and posted the Be-attitudes up everywhere.
After you have signed up to practice the Be-Attitudes I’d encourage you to post a copy of the Be-Attitudes in your own private space – like on the wall of your bedroom – and in a public space – like on the door of your church, or of your city council, or your state government or, of course, your blog.^*

Dave Andrews

Well I’ve done the easy bit which is to post the Beatitudes on my blog. Now for the hard bit; to live them out!

h/t Pete Ward