New year hopes and wishes

In this last column of the year, I would like to share with you some of my new year hopes and wishes based on some of my personal reflections on this retiring year. They are not in any particular order, but I feel strongly about all of them.

I hope and I pray that Duke’s men and women’s basketball teams will win the NCAA championship in this upcoming year. This will only strengthen the sports theology to which I subscribe. I may be religiously, politically and socially a COMMITTED inclusivist/pluralist, but when it comes to college athletics, especially basketball, I am a PROUD exclusivist. According to my sports theology, I doctrinally believe that there is only one way to the truth, only one way to receive salvation, one way to achieve enlightenment... and that’s through cheering for the right tone of blue. I believe in the sanctity of Temple Cameron and choosiness of Coach K. I consider the people who are not fortunate enough to cheer for the right tone of blue to be people astray and wish for them to find the right path sooner or later. I am also happy to debate and discuss this sports theology with any one of them in any format and shape in which they feel comfortable. I hope to elaborate this theology of mine through some scriptural and canonical backing in a separate column, but for now please allow me to say my prayers: Go Blue Devils.

I hope and pray that we will have a more meaningful and less destructive social life on Duke’s campus. The tragic deaths of two seniors in two separate alcohol-related incidents were, by far, the lowest moments for me in the last 12 months. I still often remember both of them, pray and grieve. Whenever I see the cross on Academy Road, my heart aches. I grieve because of who they were and how they died, but I grieve more strongly for who they could have become. The troubling incidents related to the existing drinking and partying culture on campus is not limited to these two tragic deaths. There is a much longer list of students who were shuttled to the ER, went or are still going through certain disciplinary trials, health challenges, deteriorating relationships, slipping grades and more.... I hope and pray that the Duke community will not be wounded again by similar heartbreaking incidents, we will learn the lessons of the past and more importantly everyone will do their part to promote and sustain a healthier culture on this beautiful campus.

I also really hope, as Americans, we will have a fruitful presidential election process in this coming new year. I pray that many Americans will take this upcoming election as an opportunity for an in-depth soul search. I hope the election process will provide us with a rich opportunity to talk about real matters that most, if not all, Americans are facing in these particularly difficult times. I hope we will not waste too much time talking about trivial and sensational matters. Instead, I hope that this process will be a serious reflection on who we are as a nation and where we are vis-a-vie our foundational ideals and aspirations. I hope we will ask the right kind of questions to those who are inspired to lead us and insist on getting the right kinds of answers from them. I sincerely hope and pray, in this coming new year, that we will hear a lot more good news about our government, our economy, our foreign policy and more importantly, about our secular democracy and civic culture—because I for one am really sick and tired of hearing of one bad event after another. I don’t think I am alone in this scarred state of mind.

I hope and pray we will have a joyful farewell party for the Class of 2012 in mid-May. Graduations have always been a bittersweet experience for me. It is simply difficult to say goodbye to so many good friends, even though you are very happy and proud to see them flying out of their Duke nest and landing in many great destinations. The upcoming graduation will be a particularly difficult one for me as I consider myself one of the members of the Class of 2012. We arrived at Duke together and had four rewarding years together, filled with many rich conversations and adventures. I feel an important part of me will graduate and leave with them, and maybe that’s why I started breathing that bittersweet mode as early as December.

I have many more hopes and wishes, but The Chronicle wouldn’t give me enough space to share them all with you. I will end with one of the most central one: I hope and pray that every single member of the Duke community and their loved ones’ lives, health, finances, knowledge and relationships will improve in this new year—that they all will be showered by grace and glory more so than in those years past. Have a very successful finals period and restful but rewarding winter break, everyone!

Abdullah Antepli is the Muslim Chaplain and an adjunct faculty of Islamic Studies. This is his final column of the semester.