May 2007 - What is it about Twelve?

What is it about Twelve?

From the Executive Director

The month of May is a month of endings: seminary and divinity school students are finishing up their last papers, professors and their students are focusing on final exams, seniors are preparing for graduation?all the usual signs of the end of the academic year.

I see this May as a month of beginnings: I am pleased to announce the formation of three new chapters of The Beatitudes Society at Chicago Theological Seminary, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. In this second academic year of The Beatitudes Society, we have added eight new chapters, bringing our total to twelve. And students and faculty at our chapters are making plans for next fall: scheduling speakers, planning workshops, choosing leadership for their various activities. And we are planning to launch more chapters in the fall. Check out our chapter pages HERE.

Twelve is also the number of students who will be serving this summer as Beatitudes Society Fellows. Starting in June, twelve students will take on their eight-week summer internships with African American Ministers’ Leadership Council, Bread for the World, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Children’s Defense Fund, Episcopal Public Policy Network, Faith in Public Life, PICO (Oakland Community Organizations), Sojourners, The Regeneration Project, and United Religions Initiative. These twelve students (selected from 42 applicants) will be featured in our June newsletter.

And twelve is the number of students and alums traveling to the Gulf Coast for our June “Heads, Hearts and Hands” service learning trip. These students and alums will be joined by faculty, staff and friends of The Beatitudes Society?and there is still room for more friends with willing hands and open hearts to witness and work in the wake of Katrina. Click HERE for more information on the trip.

What is it about twelve? Twelve was a small number in the Mediterranean world when Jesus gathered that motley crew of disciples and taught them how to serve, and how to love one another and the world around them. From that first group of twelve a movement grew, a movement that said the “politics of compassion” was a force more powerful than the might of Rome. A group of twelve can turn the world upside down.

It is a privilege to see these groups of twelve across our country who are willing to drop their nets and take up the challenge of practicing what Jesus preached. They bear the promise of changing our world.

In Christ's Peace,

The Rev. Anne S. Howard

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