"Unlike most of us, Jos simply treated people as if they were people rather than either abstractions (what category can I put this person in? do I want to spend time with this kind of person?) or as deflections from ourselves (can we talk about me now?).

I was thinking about the way Jos had of humanizing really huge and overwhelming issues like the religious/political issues we talked about in the portion he taught of my US Congress class: abortion, euthanasia, freedom of worship, etc. Without diminishing the gravity of the issues at hand, he often found aspects of them which were absurd to the point of silliness. A good joke would often diffuse tension, and we could go on with our often very serious discussion. His seriousness and goofiness were woven together." writes David Menefee-Libey.