Buckley on Racism and the American Dream

For this final day of Black History Month 2012, I’ll post links to some YouTube videos that I was watching a couple of days ago.  Essentially, they’re William F. Buckley, Jr.’s contribution to his 1965 debate with James Baldwin about racism and the American dream.  See here and here for the videos.  If you’d like to listen to Baldwin and the other contributors to the debate, they’re also on YouTube.

Buckley is not exactly easy for me to follow, due to his intellectual verbiage, but what I got out of his presentation was the following four points:

1.  Buckley argues that African-Americans are holding themselves back.  He appeals to a scholar who argues that African-Americans have displayed less motivation than other minority groups to become doctors, even though there are schools that are non-discriminatory and offer scholarships.  Buckley also refers to the increase in out-of-wedlock births among African-Americans.  Buckley states that America is a mobile society, and that the solution should be to provide opportunities, not to resort to the iconoclasm against America that Baldwin practices.

2.  Buckley states that the plight of African-Americans should be addressed with concern, and that it has been in America.  James Baldwin, after all, is a well-received author, and the issue of the plight of African-Americans is prominent in the United States.

3.  Buckley fears radical “solutions” to a complex problem.

4.  On the issue of African-American suffrage, Buckley glibly remarks that the problem is that too many white people are voting!  Buckley also echoes Booker T. Washington’s sentiment that African-Americans should be educated to become informed voters.

Buckley was roundly applauded at this debate, but his position was ultimately out-voted.  The proposition was that “The American dream is at the expense of the Negro”, and Baldwin was arguing in favor of this, whereas Buckley and another speaker were arguing the opposite.

My greatest problem with Buckley’s argument was that he under-estimated the reality of racial discrimination. Regarding Buckley’s comments on suffrage, I think that any adult should be able to vote.  But what if the person is not educated and does not know what’s best for society (which is not to say that Buckley had a high opinion of the Ivy League, notwithstanding his Yale credentials)?  First of all, I think that people with or without education (formal or informal) can, on the basis of their experiences, form a legitimate opinion about what policies help them or hurt them.  Second, we usually vote for people who are educated, anyway.  I think that we can listen to all sorts of policies developed by educated people and make a fairly informed decision about which we like and dislike.

John Meier on Evaluating the Gospels for What’s Historical

In my write-up today on volume 1 of John Meier’s A Marginal Jew, I will talk about Meier’s analysis of scholarly criteria for determining what in the Gospels is historical.

1.  Meier discusses what he calls “PRIMARY CRITERIA”.

a.  Criterion of Embarrassment

According to this criterion, what is embarrassing to Jesus was most likely historical, since the early Christians would not have made up anything that put Jesus in an embarrassing light.  For instance, Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is baptized by John the Baptist.  That early Christians were embarrassed by this is evident from how subsequent Gospels treated this event: Matthew explains why Jesus was baptized (to fulfill all righteousness), Luke does not say who baptized Jesus, and John omits the baptism scene altogether.  Meier does not think that this criterion is fool-proof.  For example, Jesus in Mark asks God why God has forsaken him.  Subsequent Gospels may have been embarrassed by this, for Luke’s Jesus instead commends his spirit to the Father, and John’s Jesus triumphantly cries out “It is finished.”  Does that mean that Jesus really asked God why God forsook him?  Not necessarily, for Meier can think of a reason that Mark would make this up: to show that Jesus is close enough to God to boldly confront him, and to highlight that Jesus trusts in a God who is silent.

b.  The Criterion of Discontinuity

This criterion says that things that Jesus says or does that are discontinuous with his Jewish context and later Christian teaching is most likely historical.  The idea may be that the original teachings that are attributed to Jesus had to come from somewhere, so why not Jesus himself?  Plus, the early Christians would not attribute to Jesus something that contradicted their own teachings, so it must be authentic to Jesus.  Meier has at least three problems with this criterion.  First, it detaches Jesus from history, for why should we assume that Jesus did not reflect his first century Jewish context or inspire some of the teachings of early Christianity?  Second, the criterion assumes that Christians after Jesus could not have come up with something original, in that it attributes original stuff to Jesus himself.  And, third, scholars cannot even agree on the validity of this criterion.  E.P. Sanders, for example, says that the historical Jesus most likely did not proclaim all foods clean (Mark 7:15) because that would have been too revolutionary.  So, for Sanders, an excessive amount of discontinuity with first century Judaism demonstrates that something is not historical.

c.  The Criterion of Multiple Attestation

This says that something appearing in multiple independent sources is historical.  Meier’s problem here is that “a saying invented early on by a Christian community or prophet [could have] met the needs of the Church so perfectly that it rapidly entered into a number of different strands of tradition” (page 175), meaning that the saying technically has only one attestation and that its appearance in multiple sources does not make it historical.  Moreover, Meier notes that scholars have accepted the historicity of things that appear in only one source, such as Jesus calling God “Abba” in Mark 14:36.

d.  The Criterion of Coherence

The idea here is that things that cohere with what we know about the historical Jesus are historical.  Meier’s problem here is that the early Christians could have invented things that cohered with the historical Jesus, and also that the criterion of coherence wrongly precludes paradox and tension.

e.  The Criterion of Rejection and Execution

My impression is that this criterion is saying that Jesus had to have offended people (especially powerful people) in order to get killed, and so we should keep that in mind when seeking to reconstruct the historical Jesus, lest our version of Jesus be inoffensive and thus historically implausible.  Meier appears to agree with this criterion.

2.  Meier also discusses what he calls “SECONDARY (OR DUBIOUS) CRITERIA”.

a.  The Criterion of Traces of Aramaic

The idea here is that sayings in the Gospels that point to traces of Aramaic—-meaning that they can be “easily retroverted from Greek into Aramaic” (page 178)—-are most likely authentic to Jesus, who spoke Aramaic.  One problem that Meier has with this is that many of the earliest Christians were from Palestine and spoke Aramaic, and so they could have invented sayings that point to Aramaic, meaning they’re not necessarily from Jesus himself.  Another problem is that a saying that does not resemble Aramaic can still be from Jesus because a translator could have translated the Aramaic saying into elegant Greek rather than being wooden in his translation.  The third problem that Meier identifies is that many Greek-speaking Christians were familiar with the Greek of the Septuagint, which had a Semitic flare, and so they could have imitated that.  In short, a saying resembling Aramaic does not mean that it came from Jesus, and a saying not resembling Aramaic does not preclude it from originating with Jesus.

b.  The Criterion of Palestinian Environment

The idea here is that the sayings that reflect first century Palestine came from Jesus.  The problem, according to Meier, is that Christians after the time of the historical Jesus also came from first century Palestine, and so they could have invented the sayings that manifest familiarity with what first century Palestine was like.

c.  The Criterion of Vividness of Narration

The idea here is that narratives with “liveliness and concrete details—-especially when the details are not relevant to the main point of the story—-are sometimes taken to be indicators of an eyewitness report” (page 180).  Meier’s problem with this is that the vivid oral traditions that came to Mark could have been that way for the purpose of effective storytelling.

d.  The Criterion of the Tendencies of the Developing Synoptic Tradition

Meier refers to Rudolph Bultmann, who claimed to identify laws of development in the synoptic tradition: details are made more concrete, proper names are added to the stories, indirect discourse is made into direct quotation, Aramaic words and constructions are eliminated, etc.  But Meier says that these laws are far from absolute, and that a tradition could be shortened in the course of its development.  (On a related note, against those who argue that the Gospel of Thomas is a first century document because its sayings lack the meaningful contexts that they have in the synoptic Gospels, showing that the Gospel of Thomas came before the synoptics and is not dependent on them, Meier argues that the Gospel of Thomas could have drawn the sayings from the synoptics while not preserving their contexts in order to be esoteric.)

e.  The Criterion of Historical Presumption

I don’t know to what extent this is a criterion, but essentially it’s a disagreement about where the burden of proof lies.  Should we treat the Gospels as guilty until proven innocent, or innocent until proven guilty?  Should each saying be shown to be historical, or should we accept the saying as historical unless there is reason to believe otherwise?  According to Meier, those who stress the decades between Jesus’ death and the composition of the Gospels as well as the flexibility of oral tradition go with the former, whereas those who maintain that eyewitnesses guarded the tradition hold to the latter.  Meier appears to lean towards the former, but he also acknowledges that there are many cases where it is not clear whether a saying is historical or not.

3.  For the primary criteria, Meier supports using more than one in tandem to allow for mutual correction.  Regarding the secondary criteria, Meier says that a-c can serve to reinforce what’s gleaned through application of the primary criteria, and that d-e of the secondary criteria are useless.  Meier then affirms that we are dealing in the realm of probabilities when attempting to reconstruct the historical Jesus, not certitude.

Disorganized Ramblings on Religion in the Public Square

As many of you know by now, Rick Santorum said that John F. Kennedy’s speech on the separation of church and state made him want to “throw up”.  I watched Santorum on ABC This Week as he attempted to clarify his remarks (read the transcript).  Essentially, Santorum maintains that people of faith should be allowed into the public square, as they contribute their two-cents about what they think is best for the country.  Santorum believes that people with no faith should be part of that public square, as well.  What he resents is any implication that the public square is only for people who have no religious faith, or who leave their faith at the door.  (I’m inferring the latter from Santorum’s comments.)

I myself wrestle with this issue.  There are people of faith who have a vision about what they consider to be best for the country.  This vision, in large part, is informed by their faith.  Why shouldn’t they be allowed to contribute their ideas?

Barack Obama said when he was running for President that there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as those ideas have some secular justification.  Fine.  But then we’re at the issue of foundationalism: what is the foundation for morality?  What would the secular justification be for, say, banning slavery or racial segregation?  Because they’re unjust?  On what basis?  I’d like to think that there’s a deeper reason to oppose racial segregation or discrimination than saying that racial discrimination wastes manpower, or that it’s cheaper for kids of different races to go to the same schools than separate schools.  Those things may be true, but racism is wrong because it’s unjust.  Is there a secular way to justify that moral judgment?  Martin Luther King appealed to religion.  I suppose that John Rawls’ views could offer some secular foundation for a just society: that we should have a society that is just because how would we feel if we ourselves were part of the disadvantaged group?

Then there’s the issue of freedom.  Certain Catholics may feel that society would be better if sex were used solely for procreation, since society tends to cheapen sex with its liberal attitudes.  But do they have the right to impose that idea on people with different points-of-view?  Well, perhaps they can offer a secular argument: that liberal attitudes on sex result in the dissolution of society.  Maybe if they got a majority they could craft a law banning contraception, as was done in certain periods of American history.  But does majority rule make right?  Part of being a constitutional society is that the minority can be protected from majority rule.

Please don’t take anything I say in this post as an absolute.  For example, when I ask what the foundation is for justice, I’m well aware that there are things in the Bible that appear to contradict justice.  There’s the exclusion of certain people-groups from the Israelite community, slavery, etc.  But I question whether we can bracket religion (or some form of metaphysics) out entirely in our attempts to talk about what constitutes a just society.  Maybe we can.  I don’t know.

Reflections on Projects for Black History Month

For the last two days of Black History Month, I was planning to blog about the chapter on civil rights in Joan Hoff’s Nixon Reconsidered.  But I changed my mind on that, for a variety of reasons.  For one, the chapter discusses African-American civil rights and also feminism, and I didn’t want to go off course more than I already have (since my blogging through Dean Kotlowski’s Nixon’s Civil Rights ended up discussing Native American and feminist issues, which are not exactly relevant to Black History Month).  Second, Hoff discusses African-American issues outside of her chapter on civil rights.  There is a solid chance that I will one day read Hoff’s entire book and blog through it, but I won’t be reading and blogging about any of it for the last two days of Black History Month.

Overall, I’m glad that I read and blogged through Kotlowski’s Nixon’s Civil Rights this month.  I first saw the book at a public library a few years ago, but I did not have the time to read it then, since I was trying to concentrate on preparing for my comprehensive exams, and I already had enough books on my plate.  I was contemplating the possibility of reading and blogging about it during February, 2011, but I decided instead to read and blog about W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.  During earlier Black History Months, I was curious about the disagreement between those two African-American leaders, especially because it was often discussed in Roots: The Next Generation, which I watched for several Black History Months.  I also noticed that many African-American conservatives gravitated towards Booker T. Washington, whereas some African-American liberals preferred Du Bois (and this characterization is far from absolute).  I figured that I should read what these figures themselves had to say, before I read about Richard Nixon’s civil rights policies.

How did Kotlowski’s book compare with my expectations?  When I first saw the book in the library, I did not know if it would be enthralling or dry.  It turned out to be both.  I think that the book was enthralling when it discussed the complexity of Nixon—-how his rhetoric and personal attitudes were regressive and conservative, and yet many of his policies were progressive.  It was also enthralling when it discussed the personal reasons that Nixon had for opposing racism, as well as how Nixon boldly stood up to Southern states.  But, ironically, the book was also dry because of Nixon’s complexity, for it was hard to admire fully a President who waffled all over the place before he could arrive at a position, plus some of the discussion of policy was dry.  But the dryness is a huge part of why the book is a valuable resource, for a mark of solid research is that it acknowledges complexity and gets into detail, while meticulously documenting the details.  It’s good when a piece of non-fiction can have enthralling novelistic elements, and Kotlowski’s book did, to a certain extent.  But, in other areas, it did not because it’s ultimately not a novel, but a work of research.

I’m not sure what I’ll blog about tomorrow, the last day of Black History Month (since February 2012 has 29 days).  We’ll see, though.  Stay tuned!

John Meier on the Authenticity of Josephus and Tacitus in Their References to Jesus

I started volume 1 of John Meier’s A Marginal Jew, which is about Jesus.  In this post, I will talk about Meier’s discussion about the authenticity of two extrabiblical references to Jesus: that of Josephus (first century C.E.), and that of the Roman historian Tacitus (first-second centuries C.E.).

1.  In Josephus’ Antiquities 18.3.3, we read the following:

“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”  (See here.)

There are different views on this passage.  Most scholars maintain that it is largely by Josephus, and that there were some Christian glosses put into it.  Some believe that all of it is a Christian interpolation, and some think that it is authentic to Josephus in its entirety.

Meier goes with the majority view, that it is largely by Josephus.  He has a variety of reasons for this.  First, Josephus refers to the death of James the brother of Jesus in Antiquities 20.9.1, and Meier thinks it makes sense that Josephus would have told his readers earlier who this Jesus was.  Otherwise, they’d wonder who Jesus was when Josephus referred to James the brother of Jesus.  Second, Meier believes that, overall, the passage resembles Josephus’ style and vocabulary. (But see here.)

Third, Meier states that there are differences between what Josephus says about Jesus in this passage and how the New Testament and early Christianity conceptualizes him, showing that the passage was not a Christian interpolation.  The passage says that Jesus was a wise man, whereas Christianity regarded Jesus as much loftier than that.  The passage says that Jesus attracted Jews and Gentiles, whereas the Gospels largely depict Jesus reaching out to Israel and gaining his following from among Jews, not Gentiles.  The passage blames Pilate primarily for Jesus’ death, whereas the Gospels are more anti-Jewish.  Because Meier considers “for he appeared to them alive again the third day” to be a Christian gloss, he argues that Josephus does not mention Jesus’ resurrection, which would be odd if all of the passage were a Christian interpolation.  And Meier regards the part about the tribe of Christians remaining to this day to reflect Josephus’ contempt for the Christians, as Josephus is puzzled that there are people who are following a man who was crucified.  Fourth, Meier believes that Christian thinkers prior to Eusebius (third-fourth centuries C.E.) do not refer to this passage (meaning this passage minus what Meier and others have considered to be the Christian glosses) because it does not support Jesus as the Christ.  Origen in the third century boldly says that Josephus was not a believer in Jesus as the Messiah (Commentary on Matthew 10.17; Contra Celsum 1.47), and Meier maintains that Origen is basing this on Antiquities 18.3.3.  Why, after all, would Origen think that Josephus thought anything about Jesus, if Josephus did not even mention Jesus?

And fifth, Meier holds that the passage fits well within its context, showing that it was not inserted at a later date.  On page 86, Meier states: “one wonders whether any greater link need exist for Josephus than the fact that the account of Jesus (who is crucified by Pilate) is preceded by a story about Pilate in which many Jews are killed (Ant. 18.3.2[~]60-62) and is followed by a story in which tricksters are punished by crucifixion (Ant. 18.3.4[~]65-80).”

2.  Tacitus, in Annals 15.44, states (according to whatever translation Meier is using): “Therefore, to squelch the rumor, Nero created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures those whom the common people called ‘Christians,’ [a group] hated for their abominable crimes.  Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate.  Suppressed for the moment, the deadly superstition broke out again, not only in Judea, the land which originated this evil, but also in the city of Rome, where all sorts of horrendous and shameful practices from every part of the world converge and are fervently cultivated.”

Meier does not believe that this is a Christian interpolation because, well, it is so anti-Christian, calling Christianity a deadly superstition and an evil.  Meier thinks that Tacitus got his knowledge of the Christians from somebody else, such as general knowledge or Pliny the Younger.  While Meier is open to the possibility that Tacitus was consulting Roman archives, he does not think that Tacitus is citing an official record in his writing because Tacitus incorrectly calls Pilate a procurator, whereas Pilate was a prefect.

Friendship

I finished Hans Dieter Betz’s commentary on The Sermon on the Mount.  In this post, I’ll quote some statements that Betz makes about friendship.

On page 600, Betz states: “Greek ethics did understand love and friendship in terms of an exchange of favors; but the Greeks construed the granting of such favors merely as responses to favors received to be false love and friendship.  True love and friendship do not wait for another to act and do not cease, even when rejected.”

On page 632, Betz quotes Aristotle, who says: “…inferior people will make friends for pleasure or for use, if they are like in that respect, while good men will be friends for each other’s own sake, since they are alike in being good.”

I wonder to what extent this is a true characterization of friendship.  I think it was last week that a thought occurred to me: Rather than being preoccupied with the question of whether other people accept me and looking back with resentment on the times when they did not, perhaps I should accept other people.  When we move into the realm of friendship, however, I tend to get a bit pickier, since I’m using my time to be with somebody else.  In that case, my thoughts turn to what I can gain from the encounter—-encouragement, a favor for the future, the enjoyment of laughing and joking around about life with someone else?  I think that others are like this as well, to an extent, even though they may not be as touchy as I am in terms of getting their feelings hurt easily, or they may stick by their friends even when those friends are going through destructive phases.  I think that friendship is a combination of give-and-take but also unconditional love.  I know those are contradictory things, but I still believe that friendships have both.  Maybe the unconditional love comes with time.

Ron Paul on Firing Line (1988)

I was watching some Firing Line videos on YouTube yesterday.  Today, I’m watching William F. Buckley’s 1988 interview with Ron Paul, who was the Libertarian candidate for President at the time.  A professor also cross-examines Paul.  The topics include Paul’s view that the CIA and the income tax should be abolished, as well as Paul’s issues with President Ronald Reagan’s governance.

It’s a good discussion.  I can see Buckley’s point that an institution (such as the CIA) making mistakes is no reason to abolish that institution.  As the professor states, medicine does not work all of the time, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t ever be used.  Buckley also asks why Paul supports other taxes, but not the tax on income.  Paul addresses why he thinks that the CIA and income tax should be abolished—-because government power corrupts—-but most of his arguments are based on examples of the institutions’ mismanagement or abuse.

What especially stood out to me was Buckley’s introduction of Ron Paul, in which Buckley said that he was deluged with letters to have Ron Paul on the show.  So Ron Paul supporters were passionate back then!

Enjoy:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Nixon’s Civil Rights 27

I finished Dean Kotlowski’s Nixon’s Civil Rights.  In his epilogue, Kotlowski offers his assessment of President Richard Nixon’s civil rights policies.  In some areas, Nixon followed others, either activist federal courts or the Democratic-controlled Congress.  This was evident on such issues as school desegregation in the South, voting rights, lowering the voting age to eighteen, Title IX, and the Equal Rights Amendment.  On other issues, such as tribal self-determination and assistance to African-American colleges and minority-owned businesses, Nixon was more of a leader.

In terms of the effects of Nixon’s policies, Kotlowski sees positives and negatives.  Affirmative action opened the door for minorities to get professional or managerial positions, and that allowed U.S. firms to gain “a cultural advantage over European and Japanese competitors in the race for global alliances and international business deals” (page 262).  But affirmative action “did not touch all blacks and still left them overrepresented in low-wage, unskilled jobs” (page 261).  As African-American historian John Hope Franklin argued, the African-American middle class was increasing, but so was the African-American underclass.  President Nixon’s lack of emphasis on integration had negative results, according to Kotlowski, for it left blacks and whites separate and unequal, and the later location of service- and information-based industries in the suburbs “added new layers onto the walls of segregation” (page 262).  A positive element of Nixon’s policies, according to Kotlowski, was that they acknowledged that civil rights applied to a variety of people, and Kotlowski in this epilogue discusses Nixon’s revolutionary policies for the elderly.

Kotlowski argues that Nixon’s civil rights policies were significant because they occurred in an important time in history and set the stage for how subsequent Presidents handled civil rights issues.  But there came a point when later Presidents retreated somewhat from Nixon’s policies.  Kotlowski notes that Nixon’s detractor, Roy Wilkins, thought that Nixon’s civil rights policies looked good when compared to those of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush!  Republicans in the 1990′s criticized affirmative-action and supported making English the official language, whereas Nixon was more supportive of bilingualism.  Bill Clinton embraced the Eisenhower Republican ideal of using government to give people a hand-up as opposed to hand-outs, but, while Nixon mostly emphasized action over talk in the area of civil rights (and often talked in a manner that appeased Southern conservatives), Clinton was the opposite, focusing on talk rather than action.

In certain respects, this book was difficult to read because reality is complex, and thus it’s difficult to place it into a neat narrative.  There were times when Nixon was bold—-dramatically bolder than his predecessors—-but then Nixon would retreat somewhat, or he would pursue a middle ground.  It was hard to make firm, definitive statements on Nixon’s civil rights policies because there were paradoxes and contradictions, but Kotlowski did rather well in his attempt.  While I applaud Kotlowski’s attention to detail and nuance throughout this book, there were a couple of times when I wished he provided more detail.  For example, what were the long-term effects of Nixon’s policies to help minority-owned businesses and colleges?  Did they make a significant impact, and, if so, why is there still a lot of poverty among African-Americans?  Was it due to any deficiency in Nixon’s programs?

This is a good book to read.  There was plenty of material in it that my blog posts did not cover!  There are two more days of Black History Month for this year, and we’ll see what I blog about.  Stay tuned!

Andrew Marin on “When Your Child ‘Comes Out’ to You”

In her Sunday Superlatives today, one post that Rachel Held Evans highlights is by Andrew Marin, the author of Love Is an Orientation.  Andrew’s post is about what parents should do when their child “comes out” to them.  This is something that many (not all, but many) Christian conservative parents seriously botch up, for I have heard and read horror stories about parents’ reactions when their gay children come out to them.  Sometimes, the parents kick their child out of the house, or they treat the child in a manner that influences the child to commit suicide.  Even if the parents believe that homosexuality is a sin, they can still respond to their child coming out to them with love.  Andrew Marin offers tips on how parents can do this.

The Wilderness and the Closing

At church this morning, the pastor talked about being faithful in the wilderness.  He appealed to the example of basketball superstar Jeremy Lin, who practiced continually even in a season of his life when he did not appear to be going anywhere, since he was sitting on the bench (both literally and figuratively).  The pastor also drew from the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in Mark 1:12-13, in which Jesus is with wild beasts, and yet the angels came to minister to him.  The pastor encouraged us not to listen to the discouraging wild beasts that put us down, but to allow God’s angels to minister to us in the wilderness.

I appreciated this message because it hit home for me, on so many levels.  But what I especially liked was the pastor’s quotation of how Fourth Presbyterian Church pastor John Buchanan closes his services (see here):

“Go into the world in peace and courage.
“Hold to the good. Honor all of God’s children.
“Love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.”

I like this closing better than other closings I have heard.  Why?  In other closings, there is an emphasis on going out and serving others, and I wonder if I would be able to do that for the week, since I have challenges meeting other people and knowing how to serve those I do meet.  I am a shy introvert, and it’s also a struggle for me to determine when and whether people even want my help.

But I feel that, on some level, I can strive for and do the things that John Buchanan talks about: to cultivate peace and to encourage myself, to hold to the positive rather than the negative, to honor and to see every human being as valuable in the sight of God, to identify in my mind the things that draw me to God, to serve God in my own way while using my own talents, and to rejoice in the Holy Spirit’s role in my life.

Does any of this preclude serving others?  Absolutely not.  But this list enables me to cultivate an attitude that is conducive to service, so that I’m ready when opportunities to serve do arrive.