WEBVTT
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(enchanting pipe organ music)
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(man mumbles)
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(church choir singing gospel hymn)
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(enchanting pipe organ music)
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(church choir singing gospel hymn)
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You may be seated.
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On this joyous occasion,
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it is easy to get so caught up in the world around us
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that we cannot hear the voice of God
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or feel the presence of all that is holy.
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Let us look closely now
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that we might see ourselves in the presence of God.
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Let us confess our sinfulness together.
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Most merciful God,
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we confess that we have sinned against you
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in thought, word and deed
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by what we have done
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and by what we have left undone.
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We have not loved you with our whole heart,
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we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves,
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we are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
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For the sake of your son, Jesus Christ,
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have mercy on us and forgive us
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that we may delight in your will
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and walk in your ways to the glory of your name, amen.
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For as the heavens are high above the earth,
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so great is God's steadfast love toward those who fear him.
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As far as the east is from the west,
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so far does God remove our transgressions from us, amen.
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(enchanting pipe organ music)
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(church choir singing gospel hymn)
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Let us pray.
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Almighty God, in you are hidden all the treasures
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of wisdom and knowledge.
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Open our eyes that we may see the wonders of your word
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and give us grace that we may clearly understand
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and freely choose the way of your wisdom
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through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.
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Our Psalter is found on page 758,
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Psalm 27 verses one through four.
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Please stand and read responsively.
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The Lord is my light and my salvation,
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whom shall I fear.
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(congregation mumbles)
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When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh,
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my adversaries and foes shall stumble and fall.
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(congregation mumbles)
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One thing I ask of the Lord that will I seek after.
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(congregation mumbles)
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(enchanting pipe organ music)
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(church choir singing gospel hymn)
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Please be seated.
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The lesson for today is from the Book of Numbers,
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selected verses from the 13th and 14th chapters
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using the new revised standard version.
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And the Lord said to Moses,
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"Send men to spy out the land of Canaan,
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"which I am giving to the Israelites.
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"From each of their ancestral tribes,
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"you shall send a man everyone a leader among them."
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Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan
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and said to them, "Go up there into Negev
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"and go unto the hill country
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"and see what the land is like,
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"and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak,
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"whether they are few or many,
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"whether the land they live in is good or bad,
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"and whether the towns they live in
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"are unwalled or fortified,
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"and whether the land is rich or poor,
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"and whether there are trees in it or not.
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"Be bold and bring some of the fruit of the land."
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Now it was the season of the first ripe grapes.
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So they went up and spied out the land
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from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, Lebo-hamath.
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At the end of 40 days,
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they returned from spying out the land.
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They came to Moses and Aaron
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and to all the congregation of the Israelites
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in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh.
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They brought back word to them
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and to all the congregation
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and showed them the fruit of the land and they told him,
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"We came to the land to which you sent us.
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"It flows with milk and honey,
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"and this is its fruit.
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"Yet the people who live in the land are strong
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"and the towns are fortified and very large,
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"and besides we saw the descendents of Anak."
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But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said,
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"Let us go up at once and occupy it,
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"for we are able to overcome it."
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Then the man who had gone up with him said,
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"We are not able to go up against the people,
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"for they are stronger than we are."
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So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report
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of the land they had spied out saying,
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"The land that we have gone through as spies
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"is a land that devours the inhabitants
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"and all the people that we saw in it are of great size.
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"There we saw Nephilim
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"and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers,
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"and so we seemed to them."
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Then all the congregation raised a loud cry
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and the people wept that night,
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and all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron,
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and the whole congregation said to them,
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"Would that we had died in the land of Egypt!
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"Or would that we had died in the wilderness!
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"Why is the Lord bringing us into this land
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"to fall by the sword?
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"And our wives and our little ones will become booty!
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"Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?"
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So they said to one another,
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"Let us choose a captain and go back to Egypt."
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And Joshua's son of Nun
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and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh,
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who were among those who had spied out the land,
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tore their clothes and said
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to all the congregation of the Israelites,
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"The land that we went through as spies
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"is an exceedingly good land.
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"If the Lord is pleased with us,
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"he will bring us into this land and give it to us,
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"a land that flows with milk and honey.
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"Only do not rebel against the Lord
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"and do not fear the people of the land,
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"for they are no more than bread for us.
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"Their protection is removed from them
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"and the Lord is with us,
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"do not fear them."
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This is the word of the Lord.
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Thanks be to God.
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(enchanting pipe organ music)
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(church choir singing gospel hymn)
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Class of 1992,
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there you are and here am I,
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there you are preparing to cross
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a great threshold in your life, your graduation.
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And at this threshold, we gather again in the chapel.
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Do you remember when we first met? It was
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the first day of your orientation four years ago,
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in the afternoon we gathered here in the chapel.
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I prayed to God to ask God to give you what you needed
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in this strange new world named Duke.
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And then a professor, as I remember spoke to you,
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and I sat up here and looked at you,
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and that afternoon you looked so
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young and eager and virginal,
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(congregation laughs)
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now you look older.
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Are you ready to go?
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I ask that because there is a melody,
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which sometimes occurs in seniors
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this time of the year called,
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there's still one more course I want to take syndrome.
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Strange, people who their sophomore year could not find
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anything in the curriculum worth having
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now say that their education can be complete
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only by taking one more course.
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(students laugh)
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Other symptoms: strong desire to spend
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one more night in Krzyzewskiville.
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(students laugh)
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Particularly bizarre is the wish for
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another meal of the Duke food service.
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(congregation laughs)
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Can I stay another year?
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No, dear, we say we've already
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given your room to three others.
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You've got to go, goodbye,
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adios, this is it.
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You and I have a way I'm saying of meeting
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in these liminal moments, these moments,
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these thresholds between the old and the new,
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between hello and goodbye.
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People on the outside
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frequently ask me, "Well, what are today's students like?"
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And I know it's hard to generalize,
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but I say, well, the seniors are scared.
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And I know that characterization does not fit you all,
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but many of you it seems to me this year are scared.
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It's an unattractive characteristic in the young.
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I, like your parents, was a student in the 60s,
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and we thought there was a lot wrong with our world,
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but nothing was wrong that
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we couldn't fix once we were in charge.
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Now we are in charge.
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And our baccalaureates 60s self-confidence
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seems almost laughable now.
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54% of you in a recent survey said
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that you believe your future
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will not be as good as your parents' present.
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And your pessimism may not be unjustified.
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Your senior year on-campus recruitment
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by corporations was down 50%.
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We had to beg IBM to come talk to you.
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One of your classmates met one of last year's graduates.
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One of the ones that heard my,
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You are The Hope of Tomorrow baccalaureate in 1991,
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here's the way she described it in The Chronicle.
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"The day we had dinner
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"he spent all afternoon playing Nintendo.
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"He was bored because his sisters started back to school
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"and didn't have anybody to bully around.
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"His mother had been dropping hints
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"more like bombs about how nice it would be
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"if he would get a job.
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"He was scheduled to start
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"the next day at a temporary agency,
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"one of those places that we thought
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"a Duke education would prevent us from ever entering.
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"And he'd memorized the TV guide.
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"I hear he's managing people
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"who sell perfume on street corners.
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"I am scared."
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Graduation 1992, it strikes me
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that it's a long way from say
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Columbus 1492.
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I don't know about you,
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but as a child we learned that story
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as children in the poem of 1492.
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Behind him lay the gray Azores,
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Behind him lay the Gates of Hercules;
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Before him only shoreless seas.
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Lo! even the stars are gone.
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Why, Columbus, why 'Sail on! sail on!
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And it's a long way, a kind of great psychological gap
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between that 1492 and our 1992.
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A great gap.
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Not only because thanks to your Duke PC education,
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you know the Columbus story to be a deeply problematic,
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culturally falsified myth,
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(congregation laughs)
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(congregation applauds)
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but also because the prospect of your voyage
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into the new after-1992-world has got us, well,
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scared.
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Which brings me to another story
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of expiration of new worlds, a Bible story.
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In the story from Numbers 13 and 14,
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we are at the threshold of the promised land.
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The children of Israel been wandering for 40 years,
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and now these former slaves are about to see land.
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They stand on the threshold of this new land,
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these slaves who had nothing,
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and Moses has led them
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through the wilderness to the promised land,
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but there is just one small problem.
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The land is already occupied.
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The place is crawling with Canaanites.
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A friend of mine was teaching out in Texas,
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and he was lecturing on this very passage
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from the Book of Numbers.
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He was lecturing to his students about this
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taking of the promised land,
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and there was a hand,
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yes, what is it, Mr. Running Bear, what is it?
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He said, the questioner said:
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"who promised this land to the Hebrews?"
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"Well, God did."
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"Well, did God tell those Canaanites
263
00:43:45.397 --> 00:43:48.810
"that he had promised their land to somebody else?"
264
00:43:48.810 --> 00:43:52.960
"Could we go on with the class, Mr. Running Bear?"
265
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:56.600
Moses sends some scouts to reconnoiter the land,
266
00:43:56.600 --> 00:43:58.580
find out what things are like over there,
267
00:43:58.580 --> 00:44:02.597
how big a force it will be required to take it.
268
00:44:02.597 --> 00:44:04.620
And after a few days they come back
269
00:44:04.620 --> 00:44:06.300
and there are two reports given.
270
00:44:06.300 --> 00:44:08.770
There is a majority report
271
00:44:08.770 --> 00:44:12.785
and then there is a minority report by Caleb.
272
00:44:12.785 --> 00:44:14.360
And in hearing these two reports
273
00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:16.900
we're impressed by the gap in their perception
274
00:44:16.900 --> 00:44:20.842
of what this new land looks like.
275
00:44:20.842 --> 00:44:24.750
The cities are fortified, impregnable,
276
00:44:24.750 --> 00:44:27.450
the land devours its inhabitants.
277
00:44:27.450 --> 00:44:29.700
It devours its inhabitants, what does that mean?
278
00:44:29.700 --> 00:44:34.686
Is there famine, is there disease, are they cannibals?
279
00:44:35.645 --> 00:44:39.460
The people over there looked like giants,
280
00:44:39.460 --> 00:44:43.750
in the Hebrew, sons of the long neck.
281
00:44:43.750 --> 00:44:48.750
Compared to them we are to ourselves as grasshoppers.
282
00:44:50.440 --> 00:44:53.170
People over there, they just looked like giants.
283
00:44:53.170 --> 00:44:55.580
They have a great educational system,
284
00:44:55.580 --> 00:44:57.860
they don't do drugs, they work hard at the factory,
285
00:44:57.860 --> 00:45:00.419
they eat diets low in saturated fat.
286
00:45:00.419 --> 00:45:01.252
(congregation laughs)
287
00:45:01.252 --> 00:45:03.160
Why compared to them we just looked
288
00:45:03.160 --> 00:45:06.720
to ourselves like grasshoppers.
289
00:45:06.720 --> 00:45:09.290
And the story says that the people went crazy
290
00:45:09.290 --> 00:45:13.487
when they heard this majority report.
291
00:45:13.487 --> 00:45:14.430
"What have you done?"
292
00:45:14.430 --> 00:45:16.357
They screamed to Moses.
293
00:45:16.357 --> 00:45:19.167
"Bring us all the way up here from Egyptian slavery
294
00:45:19.167 --> 00:45:22.677
"only to perish at the hands of these giants.
295
00:45:22.677 --> 00:45:24.617
"At least in Egypt we knew our place
296
00:45:24.617 --> 00:45:28.192
"and we had three square meals a day."
297
00:45:28.192 --> 00:45:31.187
"Yeah, but you were slaves," said Moses.
298
00:45:31.187 --> 00:45:36.187
"Well, we had it better in the safety of slavery.
299
00:45:36.317 --> 00:45:38.077
"We might have lived like grasshoppers,
300
00:45:38.077 --> 00:45:43.077
"but at least we were well-fed grasshoppers."
301
00:45:43.410 --> 00:45:48.410
Then comes the minority report, Caleb says,
302
00:45:49.057 --> 00:45:51.999
"I can't believe we saw the same place.
303
00:45:51.999 --> 00:45:56.317
"The land is rich, the Lord is with us, ours for the taking.
304
00:45:56.317 --> 00:46:00.939
"Let us go at once and take what the Lord has given us."
305
00:46:03.070 --> 00:46:06.820
Here in this ancient story,
306
00:46:06.820 --> 00:46:09.700
the threshold of the promised land,
307
00:46:09.700 --> 00:46:13.990
the graduation from slavery to freedom
308
00:46:13.990 --> 00:46:18.990
is rendered as a kind of a epistemological dilemma.
309
00:46:18.990 --> 00:46:21.370
Who knows what the future looks like
310
00:46:21.370 --> 00:46:24.770
and who shall name that future?
311
00:46:24.770 --> 00:46:29.440
The fearful majority or the faithful minority?
312
00:46:31.822 --> 00:46:36.125
We know, we know this story well.
313
00:46:36.125 --> 00:46:39.577
It's a story about how
314
00:46:39.577 --> 00:46:44.460
every journey's end as an invitation to wander into some
315
00:46:44.460 --> 00:46:48.996
and perhaps more perilous new path.
316
00:46:48.996 --> 00:46:52.028
Every victory we get in life always has a way of
317
00:46:52.028 --> 00:46:56.379
landing us right into the unknown.
318
00:46:56.379 --> 00:47:01.120
At the threshold between a land we knew
319
00:47:01.120 --> 00:47:04.395
and a land we do not know
320
00:47:04.395 --> 00:47:08.080
between the grinding the humanizing world of the slave
321
00:47:08.080 --> 00:47:13.066
and this risky unknown promised world of the free,
322
00:47:14.090 --> 00:47:18.700
a great deal depends on how we describe
323
00:47:18.700 --> 00:47:21.856
what awaits us.
324
00:47:21.856 --> 00:47:24.030
The majority saw Canaan as a land
325
00:47:24.030 --> 00:47:26.213
of these impregnable fortresses,
326
00:47:26.213 --> 00:47:30.748
unscalable heights, these giants.
327
00:47:30.748 --> 00:47:35.706
But Caleb spoke of Canaan as God's land.
328
00:47:37.740 --> 00:47:40.910
Even the Canaanites as God's people,
329
00:47:40.910 --> 00:47:45.443
a land promised to do with his God pleased.
330
00:47:45.443 --> 00:47:48.790
Could they have been describing the same place?
331
00:47:48.790 --> 00:47:52.945
There's a vast epistemological, theological gap
332
00:47:52.945 --> 00:47:56.950
which lies between the, they're giants, we're grasshoppers
333
00:47:56.950 --> 00:48:00.320
and the God is with us,
334
00:48:00.320 --> 00:48:05.320
let us put our fears aside and go forth.
335
00:48:05.490 --> 00:48:07.660
Now I'll admit it even as I tell this tale
336
00:48:07.660 --> 00:48:11.360
that Numbers 13, 14 is a very risky story to tell
337
00:48:11.360 --> 00:48:13.420
among people like us.
338
00:48:13.420 --> 00:48:15.310
So risky that I thought for awhile
339
00:48:15.310 --> 00:48:16.903
about not telling it to you
340
00:48:16.903 --> 00:48:21.703
for the risk of the damage it might do if poorly told.
341
00:48:21.703 --> 00:48:24.130
Because you know that this is the Bible story
342
00:48:24.130 --> 00:48:26.470
that's been told for centuries
343
00:48:26.470 --> 00:48:29.248
by the possessors of the land
344
00:48:29.248 --> 00:48:31.850
to justify how they got land.
345
00:48:31.850 --> 00:48:36.718
And now they must retain it with murderess possessiveness.
346
00:48:36.718 --> 00:48:41.550
In calling what was really a very ancient world
347
00:48:41.550 --> 00:48:44.895
the new world,
348
00:48:44.895 --> 00:48:48.338
we became giants in our own eyes
349
00:48:48.338 --> 00:48:53.290
and treated millions of God's people like grasshoppers.
350
00:48:54.140 --> 00:48:59.140
There were no Canaanites' voices in the 1492 Columbus story
351
00:49:01.800 --> 00:49:04.050
because most of the history we know
352
00:49:04.050 --> 00:49:08.908
silences the cries of the people who are vanquished.
353
00:49:10.430 --> 00:49:15.358
This Bible story, I believe, is the one that my ancestors
354
00:49:15.358 --> 00:49:17.450
in South Carolina love to tell
355
00:49:17.450 --> 00:49:20.300
as explanation and justification
356
00:49:20.300 --> 00:49:23.320
for why people of our color had land
357
00:49:23.320 --> 00:49:28.305
and people of their color had none.
358
00:49:28.305 --> 00:49:33.305
It is the 1492 story retold in 1992,
359
00:49:33.940 --> 00:49:38.490
Belfast and Soweto and Jerusalem and Durham
360
00:49:38.490 --> 00:49:40.031
up this day
361
00:49:40.031 --> 00:49:42.810
by the possessors in an attempt to give
362
00:49:42.810 --> 00:49:47.618
ideological justification to our dispossession of others.
363
00:49:48.960 --> 00:49:50.720
But I'm telling it to you this afternoon
364
00:49:50.720 --> 00:49:53.490
because I hope that you can see
365
00:49:53.490 --> 00:49:55.460
how such a telling of this story
366
00:49:55.460 --> 00:49:58.710
is an ideological perversion of the story
367
00:49:58.710 --> 00:50:03.330
rather than the story.
368
00:50:03.330 --> 00:50:06.670
I think that this story from Numbers only makes sense
369
00:50:06.670 --> 00:50:11.670
if we remember that it was first told by landless people.
370
00:50:12.070 --> 00:50:17.067
The people who told this empowering tale were slaves
371
00:50:17.067 --> 00:50:18.420
and before that nomads.
372
00:50:18.420 --> 00:50:19.970
They were people who had never known
373
00:50:19.970 --> 00:50:23.260
what it was like to have land.
374
00:50:23.260 --> 00:50:25.470
This is the tale meant to be told
375
00:50:25.470 --> 00:50:29.730
in the ghetto, in the barrio, at the bottom.
376
00:50:29.730 --> 00:50:33.330
It's meant to be told in the refugee camp,
377
00:50:33.330 --> 00:50:38.106
a tale meant to electrify those who have nothing,
378
00:50:38.106 --> 00:50:41.370
but who may be imaginative enough,
379
00:50:41.370 --> 00:50:44.250
if they hear the story, to believe the promise
380
00:50:44.250 --> 00:50:47.790
that the land is not ours, it's God's,
381
00:50:47.790 --> 00:50:52.790
and this is God's world and God intends them to have it.
382
00:50:55.473 --> 00:51:00.135
The question: can this story of the landless
383
00:51:00.135 --> 00:51:03.792
have any meaning for us, the landed?
384
00:51:03.792 --> 00:51:06.311
Because you and I don't live in a ghetto or a barrio,
385
00:51:06.311 --> 00:51:08.652
we live at Duke.
386
00:51:08.652 --> 00:51:10.140
And we are here in great part
387
00:51:10.140 --> 00:51:12.440
because we have been the possessors
388
00:51:12.440 --> 00:51:16.681
of all that this society has got to offer,
389
00:51:16.681 --> 00:51:21.681
the best homes, the best schools, the best advantages,
390
00:51:22.250 --> 00:51:24.630
and we would love to get together at graduation
391
00:51:24.630 --> 00:51:28.290
and think that we are here just because we worked hard
392
00:51:28.290 --> 00:51:31.034
and have taken advantage of our advantages.
393
00:51:31.034 --> 00:51:36.034
God is with us, let us go forth and take it.
394
00:51:36.324 --> 00:51:41.216
But is there no part of us able to admit somewhere down deep
395
00:51:42.620 --> 00:51:45.600
that everything that we've got,
396
00:51:45.600 --> 00:51:50.600
which we shall celebrate this weekend came as a gift?
397
00:51:51.020 --> 00:51:53.670
We're gonna pray that in just a moment,
398
00:51:53.670 --> 00:51:56.610
confessing our indebtedness
399
00:51:56.610 --> 00:51:59.800
to parents and benefactors and teachers and,
400
00:51:59.800 --> 00:52:02.100
but do we believe it?
401
00:52:02.100 --> 00:52:04.070
Do we believe that everything we've got
402
00:52:04.070 --> 00:52:07.710
was God's before it was ours?
403
00:52:07.710 --> 00:52:12.710
And is there no part of us able to be 1992 surprised?
404
00:52:14.200 --> 00:52:18.110
Having been assured at least since 1492
405
00:52:18.110 --> 00:52:21.320
that we are landed and entitled
406
00:52:21.320 --> 00:52:25.988
and titled and secure and gifted.
407
00:52:25.988 --> 00:52:29.080
That maybe all of that could kind of be a lie,
408
00:52:29.080 --> 00:52:33.600
a hype of a society much more internally troubled
409
00:52:33.600 --> 00:52:38.600
than it dares to admit to its young.
410
00:52:38.820 --> 00:52:43.820
Isn't it odd to find ourselves 500 years after Columbus
411
00:52:46.330 --> 00:52:51.330
feeling so strange, so old in this allegedly new world?
412
00:52:51.560 --> 00:52:54.510
Our little North American 1992 noses
413
00:52:54.510 --> 00:52:56.780
pressed to the shop window
414
00:52:56.780 --> 00:53:00.110
peering at other nation's material achievements,
415
00:53:00.110 --> 00:53:03.180
coming to feel like the dispossessed
416
00:53:03.180 --> 00:53:08.133
in the technological, industrial world that we created.
417
00:53:09.630 --> 00:53:12.730
And this is important, because if we can
418
00:53:12.730 --> 00:53:15.030
make that imaginative leap
419
00:53:15.030 --> 00:53:18.060
and imagine ourselves not as lords
420
00:53:18.060 --> 00:53:20.100
of everything that we survey,
421
00:53:20.100 --> 00:53:25.100
but as frail, unsteady, scared immigrants
422
00:53:25.310 --> 00:53:28.720
in a 1992 threshold of the future
423
00:53:28.720 --> 00:53:32.166
that we may not control,
424
00:53:32.166 --> 00:53:37.140
maybe then this old Bible story could speak to us.
425
00:53:38.510 --> 00:53:43.360
Can we trust the beckoning of a living God
426
00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:45.150
who doesn't stand in the old world,
427
00:53:45.150 --> 00:53:47.280
but he's always in the new on the other side
428
00:53:47.280 --> 00:53:50.220
in the unknown, in the threshold over in the New World?
429
00:53:50.220 --> 00:53:54.410
Can we trust that God?
430
00:53:54.410 --> 00:53:55.946
Let's admit there is part of us
431
00:53:55.946 --> 00:53:58.761
that would just love to go back to Egypt,
432
00:53:58.761 --> 00:54:01.478
to the narrow, but at least secure world
433
00:54:01.478 --> 00:54:04.160
that we once had.
434
00:54:04.160 --> 00:54:07.390
But I think the story says with Caleb,
435
00:54:07.390 --> 00:54:12.264
don't go back because back there is slavery,
436
00:54:12.264 --> 00:54:14.822
not life.
437
00:54:14.822 --> 00:54:18.620
Maybe you do think that your future will be smaller
438
00:54:18.620 --> 00:54:22.650
than the present of your parents.
439
00:54:22.650 --> 00:54:24.680
I know from the poll that most of you
440
00:54:24.680 --> 00:54:29.680
do not expect to make as much money as your parents.
441
00:54:30.250 --> 00:54:32.818
And why should you?
442
00:54:32.818 --> 00:54:35.930
You have grown up in perhaps the most selfish generation
443
00:54:35.930 --> 00:54:38.460
ever to rule the United States,
444
00:54:38.460 --> 00:54:41.430
having taken from your children
445
00:54:41.430 --> 00:54:46.430
and your grandchildren to finance our false prosperity
446
00:54:46.950 --> 00:54:51.946
and thereby run up the largest deficit ever.
447
00:54:51.946 --> 00:54:54.323
No wonder you worry.
448
00:54:54.323 --> 00:54:58.198
It's a sign of intelligence.
449
00:54:58.198 --> 00:55:00.410
But I've come before you today to predict
450
00:55:00.410 --> 00:55:04.080
that your future may not be just simply smaller,
451
00:55:04.080 --> 00:55:09.000
but it may be different and maybe even better.
452
00:55:10.180 --> 00:55:12.830
Because from my brief expeditions
453
00:55:12.830 --> 00:55:16.170
spying out your generation,
454
00:55:16.170 --> 00:55:20.330
there's a lot that I like that I see.
455
00:55:20.330 --> 00:55:22.410
I just don't think it's any coincidence
456
00:55:22.410 --> 00:55:24.050
that it was your class
457
00:55:24.050 --> 00:55:28.330
that pioneered Duke's Student Volunteer program,
458
00:55:28.330 --> 00:55:30.922
cleaning up the mess
459
00:55:30.922 --> 00:55:33.690
that we and your parents made of Durham
460
00:55:33.690 --> 00:55:37.130
and the public schools and the healthcare system,
461
00:55:37.130 --> 00:55:40.270
one person at a time.
462
00:55:40.270 --> 00:55:41.802
And I love that your class
463
00:55:41.802 --> 00:55:46.706
gave a huge senior gift for the care of children.
464
00:55:47.850 --> 00:55:49.920
And I love that your commencement speaker
465
00:55:49.920 --> 00:55:52.981
is a woman that The Chronicle never heard of.
466
00:55:52.981 --> 00:55:55.669
(congregation laughs)
467
00:55:55.669 --> 00:55:58.370
(congregation applauds)
468
00:55:58.370 --> 00:56:01.390
I guess not.
469
00:56:01.390 --> 00:56:03.690
I guess not, not only is she from South Carolina,
470
00:56:03.690 --> 00:56:07.150
but she has spent her whole life speaking up for people
471
00:56:07.150 --> 00:56:11.150
that don't have a voice in this society, the children.
472
00:56:11.150 --> 00:56:12.220
(congregation applauds)
473
00:56:12.220 --> 00:56:14.520
And so what I'm saying is that in a weird way
474
00:56:14.520 --> 00:56:17.490
you are going to the promised land,
475
00:56:17.490 --> 00:56:19.480
though it looks a good deal different
476
00:56:19.480 --> 00:56:21.890
and maybe even better than the one
477
00:56:21.890 --> 00:56:26.890
that your parents thought God had promised to us.
478
00:56:27.510 --> 00:56:30.903
So class of 1992,
479
00:56:30.903 --> 00:56:33.490
lay aside your fears,
480
00:56:33.490 --> 00:56:36.470
get out of here, go for it,
481
00:56:36.470 --> 00:56:38.900
not because you're smart, talented and gifted,
482
00:56:38.900 --> 00:56:40.519
though many of you are.
483
00:56:40.519 --> 00:56:41.450
(congregation laughs)
484
00:56:41.450 --> 00:56:46.270
No, because of our faith that God is with us,
485
00:56:46.270 --> 00:56:48.290
let us go forth,
486
00:56:48.290 --> 00:56:53.290
God is with us.
487
00:56:53.986 --> 00:56:55.189
Amen.
488
00:56:55.189 --> 00:56:58.522
(congregation applauds)
489
00:57:08.853 --> 00:57:12.686
(enchanting pipe organ music)
490
00:57:57.714 --> 00:58:01.964
(church choir singing gospel hymn)
491
01:00:31.403 --> 01:00:33.643
Please join me in the responsive prayer.
492
01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:39.010
Almighty God, as you've granted us
493
01:00:39.010 --> 01:00:41.023
a place in this University,
494
01:00:41.910 --> 01:00:44.740
allow to us now this day
495
01:00:44.740 --> 01:00:46.740
when we dedicate ourselves to the life
496
01:00:46.740 --> 01:00:48.883
and work to which you have called us,
497
01:00:50.669 --> 01:00:53.210
that we may remember with gratitude
498
01:00:53.210 --> 01:00:56.073
the families and friends who have cared for us.
499
01:00:57.000 --> 01:00:59.688
(congregation mumbles)
500
01:00:59.688 --> 01:01:01.330
That in the life ahead,
501
01:01:01.330 --> 01:01:04.410
we may keep faith with those who loved us
502
01:01:04.410 --> 01:01:08.776
and trusted us and whose hopes follow us.
503
01:01:08.776 --> 01:01:12.220
(congregation mumbles)
504
01:01:12.220 --> 01:01:15.350
That we may enter with good courage and constant purpose
505
01:01:15.350 --> 01:01:17.403
upon the task which await us.
506
01:01:18.296 --> 01:01:20.900
(congregation mumbles)
507
01:01:20.900 --> 01:01:25.900
From all vanity and pride as if our accomplishments
508
01:01:25.950 --> 01:01:27.683
were of our sole creation.
509
01:01:28.624 --> 01:01:30.730
(congregation mumbles)
510
01:01:30.730 --> 01:01:34.330
From neglect of the opportunities, which are all about us,
511
01:01:34.330 --> 01:01:36.020
and from distrust of our ability
512
01:01:36.020 --> 01:01:39.264
to meet the duties of each dawning day,
513
01:01:39.264 --> 01:01:41.840
(congregation mumbles)
514
01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:45.320
that the example of wise and generous people
515
01:01:45.320 --> 01:01:47.450
who have gone before us in our families
516
01:01:47.450 --> 01:01:49.080
and here in this university
517
01:01:50.040 --> 01:01:53.866
may save us from folly and self-indulgence.
518
01:01:53.866 --> 01:01:57.210
(congregation mumbles)
519
01:01:57.210 --> 01:02:01.330
More especially that you would show us
520
01:02:01.330 --> 01:02:03.430
to us your way of love,
521
01:02:03.430 --> 01:02:04.900
and all that we do or say
522
01:02:05.970 --> 01:02:07.520
that we should come to love the Lord,
523
01:02:07.520 --> 01:02:10.010
our God with our soul and mind and strength
524
01:02:11.130 --> 01:02:13.898
and our neighbor as ourselves.
525
01:02:13.898 --> 01:02:16.280
(congregation mumbles)
526
01:02:16.280 --> 01:02:18.930
These things and whatever else you see needful
527
01:02:18.930 --> 01:02:22.173
and right for us, we ask in your holy name.
528
01:02:23.169 --> 01:02:26.419
(congregation mumbles)
529
01:02:31.660 --> 01:02:33.683
And now class of 1992,
530
01:02:34.920 --> 01:02:37.500
the Lord bless and keep you,
531
01:02:37.500 --> 01:02:39.470
the Lord make his face to shine upon you
532
01:02:39.470 --> 01:02:41.510
and give you peace.
533
01:02:41.510 --> 01:02:44.470
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you
534
01:02:44.470 --> 01:02:48.083
and be with you this day and forevermore.
535
01:02:51.205 --> 01:02:55.455
(church choir singing gospel hymn)
536
01:03:30.730 --> 01:03:34.563
(enchanting pipe organ music)
537
01:04:11.309 --> 01:04:15.559
(church choir singing gospel hymn)
538
01:07:05.677 --> 01:07:09.510
(enchanting pipe organ music)