Cynics may sneer and say that it is about cost-cutting. Getting volunteers to do what the professionals did before. And of course that is partly true. We will have to wait to see if the government' actions live up to their rhetoric. But the idea, the ideal, is a good one - we, the people, taking responsibility for our community. And a quick historical survey reveals that our education system, our health care system, and many other positive aspects of our caring society, developed as active citizens, mostly active Christians in fact, took a "big society" view and got stuck in, perhaps encouraged by texts such as Galatians 6:2 "Bear one
another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." and of course Matthew 25:35 where Jesus said
"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me."
It is, though, worth stating the obvious - that the Big Society starts small! To borrow a few lines from a radical of former days - William Blake
"Labour well the Minute Particulars: attend to the Little Ones,
And those who are in misery cannot remain so long,
If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth. . .
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.
General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer;"
And those who are in misery cannot remain so long,
If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth. . .
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.
General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer;"
It starts with your neighbour, with your street, your suburb, yes even your family. That is the only way in which the rhetoric can become reality. In these hard times it needs to become reality, NOT to prove Mr Cameron right, but to prove that we are what we claim to be - people who care!
