Elias Chakour

I wrote about my own experience of Elias Chacour who lives in Palestine here. At our morning prayer on Wednesday we continued sharing of stories and Liz Burne told her story of meeting with him and the lasting impression he has made on her deeper understanding of the Israel Palestine conflict.
Thinking about Chacour as we progressed into our day of remembering stories I realised that he is in many ways one of Christ's riddlers.
Anyway for now here is an extract from a post I wrote after meeting Chacour at the extraordinaary meeting the WCC organised in Bern last September.

[Chacour] is a passionate believer in non-violence but this doesn't mean he believes in being passive or letting injustice go unchallenged.
As a speaker of eleven languages he also pointed to how taking a new look at the translation of the Beatitudes could help us reconsider the basis of our Christian commitment.
Translators rendered the Aramaic, Hebrew term "ashreï" that Jesus would have used and gave it the meaning of the Greek "makarioï" which in French or English is often rendered as happy or blessed. But "ashreï" has rather the meaning get up or get going, debout or en marche in French. Archbishop Chacour quoted André Chouraqui's translation into French of the Beatitudes which takes this challenge up and also seems to fit well within the framework of the overall message and movement of the gospel of Christ.
Chacour insisted that "peace needs the proactive, don't sit down, stand up, get your hands dirty" he said. "If you are hungry you will fish all day trying to find something to feed yourself and your family ... if we truly hunger and thirst for justice then we will do likewise."
So try reading the beatitudes differently replacing the words "blessed" or "happy" with "stand up" or "set out." One step on the way to becoming proactive for peace.