Wednesday, April 1, 2009

What are You?

How would you answer this question: What are you? How would you describe yourself?

We are all connected, and yet, distinct and unique. Some emphasize the former:

Terence wrote (Heauton Timorumenos) "Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto", or "I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me."

Others begin with the general and progress towards the specific:

Samuel Spearing (19th century former slave-turned-Black Republican Florida lawmaker) described himself as "a man first, a Christian second, an American third, a Baptist fourth, and, oh yes, I'm a Black man too."

John "Rabbi" Duncan (19th century Scottish Presbyterian) said of himself that "
I'm first a Christian, next a catholic, then a Calvinist, fourth an evangelical, and fifth a Presbyterian. I cannot reverse this order." Someone responded to him with the suggestion that these labels "were like circles within each other, the first the widest and the best." He expanded on that thought: "I like better to think of them as towers rising one above the other, though narrowing as they as they rise. The first is the broadest, and is the foundation laid by Christ; but we are build on that foundation, and, as we ascend, our outlook widens." (William Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica: Deep-sea Soundings: Being Notes of Conversations With the Late John Duncan, LL.D., p. 8)

So, what are you? How would you describe yourself?

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