1 10 7 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/5eed45b5163bfcd245faed44e59c5f2b.pdf 65fc83d8a993cd77011496abcb50bd0d PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-644_A.mp3 [ORGAN MUSIC] Pitts Theology Library Emory University [SINGING] One of the common experiences which we share as we sit together in the quietness of this place, is the deep and searching awareness. That always between the desire and its fulfillment, between the intent and the act between the words that I used, and the ideas that are in the heart, there is the gulf, deep and wide. We are familiar with our words. They are the common coin, which is always at our disposal to give to those who walk the way with us. Ideas and notions, which we would have them experience and know. But such ideas and such notions may be far removed from that which is going on within our own minds and hearts. How so to relate to each other, that what we say, we mean. And what we mean, we do. How so to relate to ourselves, that what we say, we mean. And what we mean, we do. This is that for which we seek means and strength, as we wait together in the quietness. We do not wish to deceive each other, our Father. We do not want not to be true to that which is deepest than most meaningful within us. But our lives are burdened with so many other demands. So many minor things to which we give major attention. That we do not quite know how to be whole, to be ourselves. To be true, even in thy presence. Take all of the fragmentation of our lives, all the little pieces, all the divisiveness, take all of these things, Our Father. And with the strength of thy great wisdom, and the boundless compassion of thy spirit, make us whole. Make us whole, Our Father, that we may be true to ourselves. And to be drop thy still use of quietness, till all our striving cease. Take from our souls the strain and stress, and to let our ordered lives confess-[MUSIC PLAYING] --the beauty of thy peace. That was background for our thinking. I'm reading two things. He understood what it is that we are trying to work out. He was very old, and from the secret swaying of planets to the secret decencies in human hearts, he understood. I used to watch him watering his lawn, scattering the food for the woodpecker, sweeping the crossing before his house. It was not that there was light about him visible to the eye, as in the old paintings. Rather an influence came from him in little breaths. When we were with him, we became other. He saw us all as if we were that which we dreamed ourselves. He saw the town already closed for its tomorrow. He saw the world beating like a heart, beating like a heart. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu "How may I, too, know?" I wanted to cry to him. Instead, I only said, "And how is it with you?" But he answered both questions by the look in his eyes, for he had come to quietness. He had come to the place where sun and the moon meet, and where the spaces of the heavens open their doors. Pitts Theology Library Emory University He was understanding, and love, and the silence. He was the voice of these, as he fed the woodpecker. And then this. They have to start at starting places. These are souls this point is talking about. Souls have to start at starting places. Only angels don't. They have to start at somewhere close, like friends, like flags, like families. But mainly, souls are made for pushing out the walls of worlds, for shimmying up horizons and down the Milky Way. Mainly, souls are made like milkweed was, for distances. Souls are made with giant feet, like Marco Polo breaking camp at dawn. I guess if you caught a soul and set it in a rocking chair and told it, now, rock and rest, some morning soon you'd find it shriveled up and dead, like a man who's lost the inside out of life and knows he has. I want to do the awkward thing this morning by trying to pick up the threads of the discussion on which we launched some weeks ago, but time had to be taken out for special celebrations that were part of the Christian year-- Palm Sunday and Easter. And now we are back to work again. We were thinking about community. The underlying theme of the series of our thought is community and the Will of God. Community was defined as the experience of wholeness, of integration that any particular expression of life passed through in its existence. Community, in its essential and basic interpretation, had no element in it that was particularly metaphysical or purposive in any formal and ethical sense. But in its foundation, community is the experience of completeness, of wholeness that any form of life experiences, if it fulfills itself. Now, with this basic [? crud ?] fact, we may build the more far-reaching interpretations and definitions of community having to do with the character and the construct of human relations. But the ground of it is rooted here. Now, the Will of God, in this context, once again, has to do with the intent of life. It is based in my thought, and for the purposes of our discussion, it is based upon the fundamental affirmation that the world or existence as we know it did not just come into being. It did not just start off being what it is. But that God is the creator of life. God is the creator of the living substance. God is the creator of all of the time, space, manifestations of existence. All dimensions and aspects of life are ultimately rooted in the fundamental act of creation. Now, in as much as the act of creation, by which life itself comes into being, is directive, is orderly, is designed-- and I hate to use that strong word because it has a lot of connotations that are not particularly relevant. But we will use it. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University This means that wherever we see life, we see an orderly pursuit of a goal. But not goal in the sense of purpose, as if the life made a formal decision to pursue a particular end. Not purpose in that sense. But purpose in the sense that inherent in the very structure of life, the very vitality of life itself, is a movement towards fulfillment. An unfolding of what the life itself is about, rather than a decision on the part of life to select a goal, and then to organize all of its resources and go in pursuit of that goal. No. I do not mean that. That comes way down the road. But purposive in the sense that life is an expression of organized vitality. And it is this that distinguishes it from that which is no life. From that which is inanimate, from that which is not life. Wherever we see life, we see organized-- organized-- inherently organized intent. Moving always on the basis of a process, which is inherent in the life itself. Now, this process begins with some form of conception, some jumping off place. And then within the life and its movement, and the way that the life relates to the environment around it, a system of maintenance is operative, so that the life will be sustained as it moves through its process, as it seeks to fulfill its cycle. And then it comes to the time when it is rounded out, this whole thing, and it dies. Now, just as an aside almost, it is important to say something about the relation of death to this. That even though the logic-- even though the logic of this process, that each expression of life experiences or goes through, means that when it fulfills itself, when it ripens and has experienced community, then it dies. And from its death, other expressions of life move. But death is not a part of the process, because death does not operate within the process on the basis of a timetable. Death may come at any stage in the process-- at the very beginning, when its just on its way, when it's in mid-passage, when it's ripe and it has fulfilled itself. So that death, even though, is at the end of the process. It, at the same time, may operate upon the process at any point, for it is outside of the process. We've seen illustrations of this in our experiences, I'm sure. People who, by all the picture that we may have of them-- the clinical picture, whatever the word is-- they should not be living. But they are living. They are. A friend of mine who, for many years, was a missionary in China, and his wife was taken ill, and they brought her to California, to the University of California hospital, and what the diagnosis called for was a very high-- a certain number of cc's of Mercury pumped into her for some reason. I don't know all of the details, except that this happened in the afternoon. And the next morning when her husband went to the hospital to see her, he said to the doctor, "I forgot to tell you that one of the things that we discovered would be fatal to my wife is, the specific for this particular ailment, Mercury, and I hope that you have not given her this." And the doctor said, "You're just about nine hours late." And in the light of the amount of Mercury he'd given her, she should have died yesterday. But she didn't. We don't know very much about where, how death relates to the process. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu The dramatic story of Copernicus in this regard, you may recall how he was dying, and he waited. He said, "I cannot die." And the poet, Alfred Noyes, has a very interesting little dialogue between Copernicus and death. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Death is standing just outside the door in the shadow. The nurses and then the doctors don't see death, but Copernicus sees death. So Copernicus says to death, "Now, you need not be in such a hurry. You have it made." [LAUGHTER] "I'm going with you. I mean, that's the agreement that I made when I was born. But the time interval is mine to control for a while, and I cannot die until I feel the pages of my book. Has the runner come yet?" "No, he hasn't come." "Well, I can wait, and death, just relax until I'm ready." And then the poet describes how the runner's footsteps are heard, and then the runner comes in, and Copernicus, whose eyes now have lost their vision and their glow, but he feels the pages of his book. And he said, "Ah, now, throw wide the curtain. Swing open the door. I'm ready now, death. I will go with you." Now, death operates at any point in the process, even though the logic of the process in its unfolding, he hasn't [? seen yet. ?] No. Man's experience as a living creature is as a creature-now, bear in mind-- as a creature, man's experience is one of organic community. As was pointed out when we began, that there is an inherent sense of orderliness, or organic harmony, in man's body. The Psalmist, which was the selection which was read for our morning's lesson, the Psalmist has the same feeling torn here, that all of creation, including all the things that swim in the water, that walk on the earth, or all of these, and men are geared into one creative respiration. Now, the mind-- now, please, this is the crucial part. The mind of man seems to have been very late in appearing. That the body, all the organs, all of this organism, is inherently geared to fulfilling itself in an experience of organic integration, of organic community, of biological community. And for a long time, it would seem that all of the energy of the organism was spent in just the sheer business of surviving. When we think about it, what chance did our forebearers, who had no shells, who had no incrustations, who were completely and utterly vulnerable, what chance did they have with the dinosaurs and the reptilian, and all these other cumbersome creatures? So they had to exercise other dimensions of creativity in order to survive. They tell us that they took to the trees, so they could always see what was going on and be safe, relatively safe and protected. And then if we let our imaginations play with it, it may be that one day, one of them took a little trip trying to find a delicious portion for his son who was having a birthday. And he went quite a distance, and he noticed that a particular kind of egg that he was looking for was about 40 miles across the plain. And what's that to someone who has nothing but time? 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So he went over and found the egg, and then he started back, and he thought he would have a little siesta. So he stops to rest under the shade of a rock. Well, after he'd settled himself, the rock began to move, because it was one of these visiting creatures from another part of the world. He wasn't familiar with his shape, and he did think it was a rock. And then the pursuit was on. Pitts Theology Library Emory University So here they come, across the plain, and finally, there wasn't a tree anywhere to be seen, and all of his defense mechanisms were related to tree climbing. So he noticed the little hole in the side of a hill. Now, he'd passed that way 1,000 times, but when necessity is upon you, eyes see things that they had not seen before. So here was the opening, and end to that opening he went. And he found that inside, there was a lot of room. And this big thing that was chasing him could not get through the opening, and he was safe. And then he learned the how, because he already knew how to move things now, he learned how to seal it up with some stones that were there, so that even little things that could get through the opening couldn't get in. So under the cover of darkness, he brought his family down, and then the word went from treetop to treetop, you don't have to live in trees anymore. And then they decided that now, all of the energy, the inner integrated, tightly woven process by which the organism had survived with its enemies everywhere, now it did not have to use all of this energy. For the cave, now, became its bull walk against threat. But the energy was there, but no longer needed. And the energy now, could separate itself from the organic necessities of the body. And this energy became imagination, and mind detached itself now from being body-bound. And the part of the creative process that the creature must fulfill, given the freedom and emancipation of the mind from its body-bound involvement, the mind has to learn now, all over again, how to be a part of the organism. That the conflict, deep conflict, between mind and body, between flesh and spirit, this conflict can be integrated. And now, we'll be [? endgalass ?] of God, this is his destiny, rooted in [? creatureliness, ?] his mind having committed to memory the experience of integration, of wholeness, of community. Because for so many eons, it was body-bound while the body was experiencing [? whole ?] this integration community. And when the mind is released, and consciousness as consciousness becomes possible, there is a memory in the mind of order, of synthesis. So that always, wherever the mind pounces upon anything, the question that the mind raises is, what does it mean? It has to make sense-- sense-sense. Sense always. And where did the mind get this? When it was a part of the post speech of the body. Well, the time's up. But I must just say this-- it's very personal, but it ties together the heart of what's eating me. When I was a college boy, I had a dream. And that dream was that I would hurry and complete my education, and then when I had finished my education and was gainfully employed, I could write a letter to my mother and tell her that from this day forth, you will never have to work again. The long hours that you've spent over a hot stove cooking for other people in a hot climate will be over. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So when I got my first job, I wrote her the first letter telling her about this, and telling her to go home now and do the things she wanted to do-- visit the sick and have a garden, and just live for the first time in her life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University At the end of a year I went to see her. And we were sitting on the front porch talking together, and I said, "Well, how is it? How have you found this first year of freedom?" And she said, "Oh, it's been wonderful." And she talked about it. And then she said, "But you know, one important thing has happened. So many things in my life, having to do with my life, are now falling into place and being straightened out." "Because you see," she said, "All of my life I've had to work so hard, such long hours, that when I did have a chance to rest and to sleep by, I slept in a hurry so to get enough energy to take me through the next long day. So that I did not have time to detach myself." She didn't use that word, but this is what she meant. "To detach myself from all the things I was going through, and look at them, and evaluate them." "But now, I don't need all of my energy just to keep going. And this surplus now broods over all the story of my life. And the things that I did not understand are now clear." Now, this is what early man went through. Part of his destiny is to make the mind, once again, at home in the body, so that the dreams, and the hopes, and the yearnings, and the aspirations, all of those things that give wings to the longings of a human spirit can be supported, guaranteed, by the activity of the organism. For thou has made man a little lower than God. And has crowned man with glory and with honor. Take unto thy self, oh God, ourselves. That we may think thy thoughts after Thee, and become one with thy purposes and thy will. And for us all, Almighty God, this is enough. [SINGING] 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community and the Will of God Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, community is the will of God and the intent of life. All of life moves towards a greater sense of wholeness and fulfillment. In this sermon series, Thurman explores the various manifestations of this urge towards community in human life: creation myths, the innocence of childhood, human beings as children of nature, and the utopian dreams of prophets. Ultimately, Thurman illustrates that God is on the side of harmony, and that we as human beings have the opportunity to participate in the will of God. The furthering of life human life indeed depends on it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-644_A.html" ></iframe> Internal Notes Notes for project team Edited GL 7/8 Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-644_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Community and Creatureliness, 1961 April 9 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-04-09 Description An account of the resource In this third sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman illustrates what it means to be a living creature. According to Thurman, life is always unfolding towards the fulfillment of community. Looking at human beings, Thurman sees that there is an organic harmony in our bodies, each organ working towards biological community. The mind, however, has been separated from this harmony, and must learn again how to be at home in the body. By this, both mind and body together can fulfill the intent of life, which is the very will of God. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/ac50f1fe25649acdf67177b05f55631b.pdf 4c19c141966de7e62d38f4a7487dacbe PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-643_A.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University It is very good in the quietness of the sanctuary to be reminded of the way by which our lives are held together by trust-- the trust of the little child in the arms of his mother; the trust of the body when it gives up to rest and sleep with no possible guarantee that it will ever awaken again; the trust of the bird in the air, of the fish in the water; the trust that we have lifted now to the great expressions of faith and devotion that there is an overall brooding spirit that will not let us go even though there are moments when we cry out in the night because the night is long and dark, and day seems to have lost its memory of the road back. We thank Thee, our Father, for all of the reminders of Thy grace expressed in these little but important and crucial manifestations of Thyself. Teach us even as little children how to act where we are in Thy trust so that the fears that haunt us, that dog our footsteps, the anxieties that leap out of the shadows as soon as we come to rest, the disappointments, the disillusionments, the despairs all may be cradled in ways that will take from them their power to hurt and to destroy. We thank Thee, our Father, for so great a privilege to trust Thee, to trust Thee. [MUSIC PLAYING] On the seventh day, therefore, God could not rest. In the morning and the evening, He busied himself with terrible and beautiful concoctions. And in the twilight of the seventh day, He finished that which is of more import than the beasts of the earth and the fish of the sea and the lights of the firmament. And He called it imagination because it was made in His own image. And those onto whom it is given shall see God. And this from Commander Byrd's Alone-- "about 3 o'clock in the morning of June the second, I had another lucid phase. I tried without success to force my body into sleep. The sleeping pills were on the shelf. The flash light fingered the bottle. I took it down and dumped the pellets into my cupped palm. There were more than two dozen, white and round. They bespoke a lovely promise. I reached for the bottle, but then I stopped. It was impossible to go on like this. I should become a mad man, shrinking from every shadow and touch of pain. I found a match and lighted candle. An unused sheet of paper lay on the bunk on top of the diary. And I wrote these words-- the universe is not dead. Therefore there is that intelligence there, and it is all-pervading. At least one purpose, possibly the major purpose, of the intelligence is the achievement of universal harmony, striving in the right direction for peace. Harmony, therefore, as well as the achievement of it, is the result of accord with that intelligence. It is desirable to affect that accord. The human race, then, is not alone in the universe. Though I am cut off from human beings, I am not alone. For untold ages, man has felt an awareness of that intelligence. Belief in it is the one 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu point where all religions agree. It has been called by many names. Many call it God." It is working, this spirit, for the achievement of universal harmony. Pitts Theology Library Emory University We begin, as I said, some time ago-- two weeks, three weeks, some days ago-- another journey on community and the will of God. You may recall that the foundation was laid for this, but I will touch the foundation, take the tarpaulin off of it. And then we will go on. It is my basic thought in working on this line of creative movement of the mind and spirit that community is indigenous to life. It is a part of the structure of life. And as soon as I say that, I realize that that isn't quite right. But I don't know how to say it any other way. It is inherent in the characteristic of life. And by that I mean that wherever we see life working, or wherever we see life, we see that which is trying to achieve within the reach of itself harmony, order, wholeness, inner integration. It is trying to actualize or fulfill its potential. Now I am using the word "community" in this series to describe-- not to define-- but to describe this experience of the achieving of fulfillment on the part of any particular expression of life wherever we find it, whether it is the grass that keeps coming back trying to get to seed or whether it is the journey of the egg until it becomes a chicken and another egg. Whatever the journey is, I am using the term "community" to describe this cycle. It is a human experience. Now in the creation story, we see a very dramatic form of this. The story is very familiar to you. And I am referring, especially this morning, to the story of how the world got under way as found in our own tradition. Adam and Eve and all the various things that had been created living together in community, harmony, order, innocence until one day the serpent said to Eve, who in the story was really one of the potentials in Adam-- we need not take that too literally. He said to her, do you think you are free? Of course, I am. We can do anything we want to. We have all of our needs supplied. Everybody's in harmony. Nobody ever fusses. Nobody gets mad. There just isn't in disorder anywhere. It's tranquility in essence and in fact. Well, if everything is so peaceful, why is it that you do not rest anytime under that tree over there? Now why would you ask that? See, you started something. Why would you ask that? Well, why shouldn't I? If you have freedom of movement, then that means movement everywhere. But no, if there is movement everywhere, there can be no sense of freedom of movement for freedom of movement means with reference to some place that's fixed. It's a thing we forget often about what freedom means. But there was no time for any philosophic argument here. So the result of the whole thing was that the serpent said, if you eat the tree-- a fruit of the tree, then you won't die. But you will be as wise as God. And He does not want this to happen. So don't you let yourself be fooled. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And she wasn't fooled. She took it. She ate it. But it wasn't really eaten until Adam ate it. So he ate it. And when he ate it, then things began to happen. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The first-- he set in motion a series of actions which his initial choice precipitated. But after that, they were not related to him at all. A choice when made broke the harmony. And the first wave-this broken harmony, this broken community manifests itself whilst in the logic of the events that were set in motion. There is a dimension about life that seems always to be impersonal, that seems to be unable to take us into account once we take the initial step up of setting into motion a process. Adam in the story makes the choice. And there moved out from his choice, in the story, one action leading to another action and another and another and another because this is a vibrant, living universe. I remember many years ago the first time I came to California-- first time I went to California-sorry. I went to see the planetarium in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. I had a note from a man in Washington to the director of this planetarium. And when I delivered the note, he said, well, I'd like to show you around. And he and I were walking down one of the long corridors in the planetarium. And I was on the ragged edge of my hay fever. And I was talking and trying not to sneeze because when I sneeze it is something. So I held myself as much as I could. And of course, this just made the thing worse. And finally, without any preliminaries, I gave one of these tremendous things. And he stopped in his track. And he looked at me. And this is what he said, what a cosmic disturbance. And I sort of smiled. I reacted to it. But he said, I'm serious. And then as we walked on, he began talking to me in language that I didn't-- using terms I did not understand about sound waves and-- all I did was to set in motion by one act a movement that may still be going on. In a living universe that is always structured with a bias towards harmony, at any point in it, a solitary expression of life may set in motion something that multiplies itself and at the same time that calls for from the universe a movement of balance-- of balance, of balance. And this is what they see when community was broken in the midst of creation. Now the second choice, the second aspect here, had to do with the element of personal responsibility. Now please, follow me. Initially, you see, when Adam in the story makes the choice, he sets in motion things that are really independent of him, in a sense, as expressed in the curse as the way God spells the curse out. This will happen to the woman. This will happen to thorns and thistles. This will happen to the serpent-- all of this set in motion. And now Adam is back here, and the movement goes on. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now the second, the element of personal responsibility-- I am naked. This is the first form that it took. He became conscious of himself. And this gave him a feeling of being over against all the rest of creation. He had lost his innocence. And he had become knowledgeable. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Is there something inherent in the loss of innocence through knowledge that has to express itself in the form of guilt? What is your experience about this? Is there something about knowledge, as contrasted with innocence, that has in it an element of struggle? Is it that in knowledge the individual now has to achieve the equilibrium of tension, whereas before he had a sense of equilibrium because there was no tension? So that the problem is not to get rid of the tension, perhaps, but to keep the tension in balanced tension? Is there some contribution that is a necessitous contribution to the ultimate achievement of the fullest potential of man that is to be found in guaranteeing for a time interval the experience of innocence? Think about it. Suppose there were no experience in your path, no experience of innocence, no time when there were not those who built shelters that kept you from knowing the nature of the storm. Suppose in your past there had been no time when doors were closed and you could have the sense of being snug and secure. Suppose from the beginning you had to wrestle with your environment, as if you were as old as you are now and as wise as you are now. What is the nature of the loss if in the organized life of man we are unable to guarantee the childreness of children, so that there will be the grounding in innocence which will so fill the life with the rumor of its essence-- that once the innocence is lost through knowledge or what have you, there is something deep in the center of the spirit of the child that is always working to rediscover that which was lost. If this is true for the individual, it must be true for the race. This is what the story is about. Somewhere in the dim memory of the race is the rumor that the true relationship between all living things is the relationship of harmony. So if there were no such memory in the race, there would be no confidence in the possibility of doing something about the disorder in society, no confidence in doing anything about the possibility of creating a synthesis out of the antithesis and theses by which we are surrounded, no confidence that the contradictions of life are not final contradictions, but always, whether we are Christian or Hindu or Buddhist or Animist, wherever we find the creation stories told, they are trying to say over and over again there is a memory of the race which has to do with a moment when all the terrible things you are going through now did not exist. So gird up your loins, organize the resources of your life, bring to bear upon the disorder all the creative genius you can muster because there is inherent in the experience of all living stuff the push towards the actualizing of the potential. And this is true because of the memory of a time when the potential was actual. So God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden. And He placed an angel with a flaming sword, cherubim, and seraphim to keep Adam out. So all of the life of man is trying to find a way by 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu which once again we can get past the angel with the flaming sword back into the Garden of Eden, not as innocent human beings, but as good human beings. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And a man is good when he's learned how to distill beauty out of ugliness, peace out of pain, order out of chaos. This is the triumph of personality. This is to be good, while only the child is innocent. Our words are so futile, so broken, but they are the best that we have, our Father. Make of them living sacrament that they may carry to our hearts what it is that Thou wouldst have us know. Grant onto us Thy peace, our Father, as we separate one from the other. [MUSIC PLAYING] 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community and the Will of God Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, community is the will of God and the intent of life. All of life moves towards a greater sense of wholeness and fulfillment. In this sermon series, Thurman explores the various manifestations of this urge towards community in human life: creation myths, the innocence of childhood, human beings as children of nature, and the utopian dreams of prophets. Ultimately, Thurman illustrates that God is on the side of harmony, and that we as human beings have the opportunity to participate in the will of God. The furthering of life human life indeed depends on it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-643_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Community and Innocence (1); Innocence and Goodness (2), 1961 Feb 26, Mar 5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-643_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Community and Innocence, 1961 February 26 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-02-26 Description An account of the resource In this first sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman describes community as a structure and a goal that is inherent in life. Everything is striving to fulfill itself in community. This movement towards harmony is what binds and interconnects the lives and actions of living beings. With this intertwining comes the reality of personal responsibility. To know that we are connected to others in this way is to lose a degree of innocence. Drawing on the story of the Garden of Eden, Thurman says that human beings are trying to work their way back to the garden, not as innocents who are ignorant to the world, but as people consciously dedicated to the work of harmony. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/4b61c3e525cdcf29bf1762efe637cd43.pdf ecf3fe96aaae640fc98b3058f7680e93 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-646_A.mp3 (SINGING) Lord restore my soul. Release my heart My heart [INAUDIBLE] My [INAUDIBLE] My soul [INAUDIBLE] and my [INAUDIBLE] Pitts Theology Library Emory University [MUSIC PLAYING] The leaves were falling from the great oak at the meadow's edge. They were falling from all the trees. One branch of the oak reached high above the others and stretched out far over the meadow. Two leaves clung to its very tip. It isn't the way it used to be, said one leaf to the other. No, the other leaf answered. So many of us have fallen off tonight. We are almost the only ones left on our branch. You never know who is going to go next, said the first leaf. Even when it was warm and the sun shone, a storm or a cloudburst would come some time. Then many leaves were torn off, though they were still young. You never know who is going to go next. The sun seldom shines now, sighed the second leaf. And when it does, it gives no warmth. We must have warmth again. Can it be true, said the first leaf, can it really be true that others come to take our places when we are gone and after them still others and more and more? It is really true, whispered the second leaf. We can't even begin to imagine. It is beyond our power. It makes me very sad, said the first leaf. They were silent a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, why must we fall? The second leaf asked, what happens to us when we have fallen? We sink down, down. What is under us? The first leaf answered, I don't know. Some say one thing, some another. But nobody knows. The second leaf asked, do you feel anything? Do we know anything about ourselves when we are down there? The first leaf answered, who knows? Not one of all those down there has ever come back to tell us about it. They were silent again. Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other, don't worry so much about it. You're trembling. Oh, that's nothing, the second leaf answered. I tremble at the least thing now. I don't feel so sure of my hold as I used to. Let's not talk anymore about such things. No, we'll let be. But what else shall we talk about? She was silent. And after a while she said, which one of us will go first? There's still plenty of time to worry about that, the other leaf assured her. Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful when the sun came out and shown so warmly that we thought we would burst with life-- do you remember-- and the morning dew and the mild and splendid nights. Now the nights are dreadful, the second leaf complained. And there is no end to them. We shouldn't complain, said the first leaf gently. We've outlived many, many others. Have I changed much, asked the second leaf shyly but determinedly? Not in the least, the first leaf assured her. You only think so, because I've gotten to be so yellow and ugly. But it's different in your case. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu You're fooling me, the second leaf said. No, really, the first leaf exclaimed eagerly. Believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there may be a little yellow spot. But it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer. Believe me. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Thanks, whispered the second leaf, quite touched. I don't believe you, not all together. But I thank you, because you're so kind. You've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand how kind you are. Hush, said the other leaf and kept silent herself. But she was too troubled now to talk. Then they were both silent. Hours passed. A moist wind blew cold and hostile through the treetops. Oh, now, said the second leaf, I-- then her voice broke off. She was torn from her place and spun down. Winter had come. [MUSIC PLAYING] Search me, oh, God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. As an immediate background for our continuation of our series on community, there are two things that I'm reading. The first-- I like to feel strange life beating up against my life. I like to realize forms of life utterly unlike mine. When my own life feels small and I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see it in a picture in an instant, a multitude of disconnected unlike phases of human life-- a medieval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet orchard and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit trees; little Malay boys playing naked on a shining sea beach; a Hindu philosopher alone under his banyan tree thinking, thinking, thinking so that in the thought of God, he may lose himself; a troop of Bacchanalians dressed in white with crowns of vine leaves dancing along the Roman streets; a martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the sky and feeling that already he has the wings that shall bear him up; an Epicurean discoursing at a Roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of happiness; a kafir witch doctor seeking for herbs by moonlight while from the huts on the hillside come the sounds of dogs barking and the voices of women and children; a mother giving bread and milk to her children and little wooden basins and singing the evening song. I like to see it all. I feel it run through me that life belongs to me. It makes my little life larger. It breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in. And the second is some statistics. 1953-- this is about America. 1 out of every 4 families has mental illness, 1 murder every 72 minutes a day, every hour 15 crimes of violence, every hour 7 robberies and 26 cars stolen. 1 out of every 43 children has police records. One out of every three marriages end in divorce courts. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu We have been thinking together about community and the rough and rather growth in the sense of elemental working definition that we've used is that community is a sense of wholeness. It is the experience of inward togetherness. It is a sense of increasing fulfillment. Pitts Theology Library Emory University We are the heirs of two very definite ideas that have influenced our thinking. They come down to us from a far off past. The division by which they are known varies according to the scholar who is talking about them. But the basic ideas, which have to do with our subject of ease-- the first that the meaning of human life-- the significance of human life, at any particular moment, can be found by a study, an examination of the human life itself, of the human events-- the examination of the culture, the examination of the things which make up the life, that beyond the span of the individual life, beyond the context really of the particular life, there is no wisdom available to the mind for dealing with human life in terms of effective interpretation or in terms of social change. Now this concept, then, when applied to community locates all of the responsibility for the development of community within the context of human life itself, within the individual, and within the society, that we cannot expect to find in any sense any information, insight, or judgment, for that matter, that bears upon human life outside of human life itself, so that to make human life good and whole and [INAUDIBLE] to have community as an experience of balance and tranquility, all of the resources for this-- all of the ideals for it are to be found within the walk, then, [INAUDIBLE] of the life of the individuals. Now, this is very significant. It is one of the important heredities that has come down to us from the Greeks. But it is very interesting, isn't it, that very often both individuals and societies lift out of a particular set of ideas-- those ideas that have immediate bearing or that have significance for the life, that those ideas that seem to be on the side of the way we are going, overlooking what may be also included in the ideas. I think of this in connection with what we have done with the Greeks in this regard just in passing-- the idea that human life is to be lived on the basis that-- on a basis that is horizontal, that man has within his mind and then within his emotions all that he needs in order to establish a just society or a decent order of life. And if he gives definitions to the goals, then these definitions are taken from the lateral experience, which he has of life. Of course, this is not quite the Socratic position. But we have seized upon it as the most useful thing for the ends that we ourselves are seeking. I don't think perhaps if we did not have this we would be so full of the glory and the excitement and the convenience that our technological society has provided. Now there is another idea-another idea. Another idea is that always the destiny of man and the meaning of human history are to be found beyond human history, beyond time, and beyond all that man experiences. The prophets of history of express it-- what they want to know is what is it that God required, not what is it that is practical, not what is it that is feasible. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu But man is always relating, says the second position, to an order, to a law, to a God, who is in history but is always transcending history. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now this letter has also had a very profound influence on our minds and our thinking in two specific ways that I shall simply mention-- the first that we have a belief in a universal order-- a belief in a universal order that involves all of nature, all of the external world. Now this is a religious belief. And on the basis of that religious belief-- the source of which is long since forgotten, but on the basis of that religious belief, man has gone out, taking his creative mind, brooding over the stubborn and unyielding and often impersonal aspects of the world of nature until little by little here and there he has been able to discover principles, logic, order so as to reduce nature increasingly to manageable units of implementation control and power. But back of all of his activity is a religious belief that the external world is a world of order and that there is at work in the external world precisely what is at work in the mind of man. And if the rational principle in the mind of man makes contact with the rational principle in the external world, then these two meet. And in that meeting, there is creative synthesis and insight and wisdom and understanding despite the fact that the external world seems other than. Now the second belief, which is a religious belief, which influences our thinking about all of our utopias, about our dreams of how society can be when society is at its best is a belief in the infinite worth of human beings, which is a derivative from the religious notion that before God, the soul of man has a worth that is absolute. Now given this, then there is derived from this religious insight, which often we have forgotten, a whole series of other kinds of worth-- man's social worth and all kinds of worth. But back of it is this fundamentally religious belief that the soul of man is of infinite worth, of absolute worth before God. And we have, therefore, translated this in terms of the democratic dogma, in terms of concepts, which have to do with the meaning of love, with the meaning of tenderness, with all kinds of social reforms, all kinds of political reforms. But always soon or late, the individual who is being considered finds that he as a person takes his position as to what he is, what he is worth on the same foundation as established in the religious concept of man's soul being of absolute intrinsic worth before God. And much of the meaning of these statistics which I read at the beginning can be located in the fact that this sense of infinite worth is not merely disintegrating in our social forms. But what is even more deadly-- how to say this-- the individual himself more and more feels that he as an individual is of no account. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu There is a story that is told by a professor at the Union Theological Seminary. And it's worth repeating. A mother and her son-- young son-- and her daughter went to a restaurant. And the waitress came to the table. And the mother ordered. The daughter ordered. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And then the waitress said, and now young man, what will you have? And the mother said immediately, oh, I always order for him. And then the waitress said, but young man, what will you have? And the daughter said, when mother isn't here, I order for him. And the young man-- and the waitress said, young man, what will you have? And then with a beam he said, a hamburger. [LAUGHTER] And when he said that, she said, and do you want onions and relish and mustard and the works? And he said, onions, relish, mustard-- the works. So she went back to give the order. And she gave the mother's order and the daughter's order, saving the last order for the boy. And as she exclaimed hamburger and the works, the boy looked at his mother. And he said, mother, she thinks I'm real. [LAUGHTER] She thinks I'm real. What has happened? There is no community, no sense of the whole possible for a society in which the individual is seen by himself as being of no account. And the assessment of the personality cannot rest upon any external categories as important as these are. It cannot rest upon any kind of social classification as important as these are. It cannot rest upon any ecclesiastical classification as significant as these may be. In the last analysis, a society that does not make provision for the individual to have room enough to feel and experience his own life as his, as his, whatever else it offers, it makes no difference. It is true that again and again we are overwhelmed by our sense of insignificance, because we are taken in by the lateral classification of society but on the basis of which it seems many of our utopias are projected, but not the Prophet He said there should come a time when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. And the little child will put his hand or the whole of an asp. And the asp will relax hisself regarding impulse and not sting the child. Why? Because there has been a rehabilitation of the economic order as important as it is? Because suddenly there is health everywhere, as terribly important as this? No, the Prophet, said, because the knowledge of God will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea-- that the little man, the big man, the man of no consequence, and the man who is prestige bearing, the sick man, the diseased man, the well man, the little child, the old man, the farmer, the head of state-- each when stripped to that which is irreducible in himself must feel that in his own right he is of absolute worth before the Creator of existence. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Any society built upon the ignoring of this important thing cannot abide. There shall come a time when this kind of knowledge of God will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea. And time is running out. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Forgive us, our Father, for the halting limitations of our broken speech, the feeble stirring of the heart in response to so greater love. Forgive us, our Father. Walk beside us with the encouragement that only thou canst give from thy long experience with thy children, that we shall find our way into the fulfillment without which we perish, we die, our Father. [MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) Amen. Amen. Amen. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community and the Will of God Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, community is the will of God and the intent of life. All of life moves towards a greater sense of wholeness and fulfillment. In this sermon series, Thurman explores the various manifestations of this urge towards community in human life: creation myths, the innocence of childhood, human beings as children of nature, and the utopian dreams of prophets. Ultimately, Thurman illustrates that God is on the side of harmony, and that we as human beings have the opportunity to participate in the will of God. The furthering of life human life indeed depends on it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-646_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Community and Prophet's Dream I (6); Community and Prophet's Dream II (7), 1961 May 14, 21 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-646_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Community and Prophet's Dream I, 1961 May 14 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-05-14 Description An account of the resource In this sixth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman explores the ideas that influence our search for community. There is the idea that the meaning of human life is to be found beyond humanity, in the God that both moves in history and transcends history. Thurman says that this idea inspires our belief in universal order and the infinite worth of human beings. This is the foundation of democracy and our dreams of utopia, but Thurman says that this belief is disintegrating in society. Thurman says that without this fundamental belief, there can be no sense of community, and thus a society cannot support itself, for the prophets say that the knowledge of God will cover the Earth, bringing people of all sorts and circumstances to know their absolute worth before God. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/407179d30bd39c6c131d01dcd4bd3803.pdf 8c6edd1ff01a4154e5a6b664f84040f6 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-646_B.mp3 [SINGING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University We're all aware I'm sure of the very tempestuous and faithful moment that is being lived through in Montgomery, Alabama today. I am suggesting that while the organist plays the prayer hymn through very quietly twice, may we each in his own way deal with what is involved for us all. By thought, by meditation, and those who pray, by prayer. [ORGAN PLAYING] You cannot, by willing it, alter the vast world outside of you. You cannot perhaps cut the lash from one whip. You cannot stop the march of even one armed man going out to kill. You cannot, perhaps, strike the hand cuff from one chained hand. You cannot even remake your own soul that there shall be no tendency to evil in it. The great world rolls on, and you cannot reshape it. But this one thing only you can do. And that one small, minute, almost infinitesimal spark in the universe where your will rules. Where alone, you are as God, strive to make what you hunger for real. No man can prevent you there. In your own heart, strive to kill out all hate, all desire to see evil come, even to those who have injured you or another. What is weaker than yourselves try to help. Whatever is in pain or unjustly treated and cries out, say, I am here. I, little, weak, feeble, but I will do what I can for you. This is all you can do, but do it. It is not nothing. And then this feeling came to me, a feeling it is not easy to put into words, but it was like this. You also are a part of the great universe. What you strive for, something strives for. And nothing in this universe is quite alone. You are moving on towards something. We come now to the end of our thinking together about community. The journey is not complete, of course. But the calendar is relentless. We have been thinking about community as the experience of wholeness, of inner togetherness. Of that moment when any particular expression of life actualizes its potential. And we have been suggesting that community in this sense is intentional. Not in a metaphysical sense, but intentional in terms of the fulfillment of the process of which the particular life is an expression. And this kind of intent is interpreted by me as being also a precious ingredient in the will of God. And this intent expresses itself in the creation myths of the race, and the community of 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu innocents. It expresses itself in man's experience as a creature rooted and grounded in nature, a child of nature. Pitts Theology Library Emory University It expresses itself also in the dreams of men, and prophetic dreams in those far-flung, staggering aspirations that go to make up the structure of reality for the individual who sees the totality of life as something that is whole. As one lung through which the living God breaths. Now the prophets dream with reference to this concept. We touched upon a little last Sunday, but I want to pursue it in the minutes that are left. Man is a dreamer, because in addition to being a space binder, a binder of space, an occupier of space, man is also a time binder, a binder of time. There is a dimension, a personality that seems always to be operating outside of the time table or the time sequence in which, as a participant in the experiences of life, he is functioning. Man the time binder plays all events as the artist plays the instrument. Man the time binder emerges in the event at any particular moment, but always stands somewhat outside of the event. So man the time binder can go back through the years, forward, because he is operating in a sense outside of time. Since you've been sitting here this morning sharing in this service, you have been into this afternoon, into last night, into next week. Some of you have been into the examinations that you are yet to take. And all the time, you've been sitting right here, space binders. Now it is this dimension that the dreamer uses as he thinks of what are the authentic possibilities of the collective life? Now the dreamers who have left us their heritage to us various kinds of utopias are men who are working trafficking in this kind of reality. But one of the things we observe with reference to almost all of the utopias-- they are projected on the basis of some principle of discrimination. Everybody is not included. The dreamer thinks in terms of those people who are congenial to his interpretation of the meaning of life, those who fit into that which seems to him to be the best and significant. Whether the dream is that of an economist or a philosopher, whether it's The Republic, or More's Utopia, or certain elements of Marx's manifesto, or Mein Kampf, or what have you. Always, always, there is working a principle of discrimination which excludes some. Who, if they live for a thousand years, do not ever stand in candidacy for communion. And those who stand outside are always the threat of community. Therefore, it seems to me that the dream of community has to extend to all living things. It was Olive Schreiner who suggested many years ago that one of the reasons why men cannot implement effectively any notion of respect for human personality is due to the fact that this excludes so much of life, and that men cannot have respect for human personality if they do not have a fundamental respect and reverence for all of life. And she goes on to say in this connection that if I can kill a rattlesnake with impunity because he is outside of the magnetic field of my commitment, then all I need to do if I want a man to be 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu killed in the same way is to put to him outside of the magnetic field of my sensitivity, and I can kill him with the same kind of ruthlessness because he is not counted in as one who places upon my life some primary moral or ethical obligation. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And it is for this reason that in times of war, one of the first things that has to be done, the enemy of the country has to be redefined so that by definition, he is outside of the human race. And then it's open season without any sense of moral impunity or responsibility. So the prophet sees this very clearly. And he insists then that what we dream of as being mandatory as far as the collective destiny of man is concerned in the world, as far as the way by which the reality becomes instant fact. The way by which this is done must be rooted, grounded in a view of life that is total. Therefore, he says that when the time comes that man will beat their swords into plowshares or their spears into pruning hooks, then when this time comes, something else will be operative throughout all of life. The lion and the lamb will lie down together becomes a knowledge of God will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea. Do you remember one or one of the advertisements on television? I won't name it because I'm not making any plug for anything. But you remember there's a little music in the background. And you see a community going on about it's business. Cars are moving around, the children are drinking pop, and it's community life. And a lion just walks around. He walks in the street. He walks into a shop and looks around, and goes out, and everybody goes on about his business. Nobody is bothered. Now this is what the prophet says. That when the time comes that men relate to each other with the nerve center of their fields relax, the validity of this will be manifest throughout life! So there will be at no point any manifestation of life that threatens community! Now, this is the dream. And it is, for the maintenance and the furtherance of life, at the highest level. And for the human being, this is a level of spirit. And it also means that the individual is committed to the maintenance and the furtherance of life at it's highest. Now, if the dream is a reality, and if the reality has to become actualized as a part of the warp and weft of the texture of living experience, then it is necessary that ways and means and methods and techniques be worked upon all the time for the implementation of the dream. I have two suggestions to make in almost as many minutes. The first is that as a philosophy of a working technique, I would suggest that, if I stated it categorically, it would be that meaningful experiences of unity between living things or living people are more compelling than the things that separate them and divide them. Meaningful experiences of unity are more compelling than the things that divide. And if you multiply over a time interval of sufficient endurance, yes, these meaningful experiences, then you can undermine any barrier that separates one man from another. And this, 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu of course, is a part of the meaning of what is going on in Montgomery, Alabama this morning. For there is a clear insight at work that if there are no barriers between peoples so that they may have experiences, meaningful experiences of unity over time intervals of sufficient duration, then there is no barrier that can stand up against the relentless ferment of that kind of creative dynamism! Pitts Theology Library Emory University And men who see this know that their only security is to guarantee the wall so that there will be no experience, meaningful experiences of unity, that will always be exerting pressure, and pressure, and pressure against the wall. And the second is the use of love. Now I want to say something about this. I just don't like this pressure of time. But I can't stop it. So I'll cooperate with it. Now, love. Love, of course, means the maintenance and the furtherance of other lives at their highest level. Of course it means that. But you see, we may deal with it in two dimensions. I may deal with it as that to which I am personally committed. I may make this commitment my way of life, my expression of life. Now this is the insistence of all ethical religions-- that the individual must be involved. But there is a second way by which we deal with this. Love may be a technique-- I want you to think about this after this morning. So don't argue with me now in your mind. Just open your mind. Love may be a technique, a methodology, a formula, a handle, that I manipulate. While at the same time, I will not be involved in it. I will use it as a kind of schema, working always on behalf of ideals to which I may be committed. But it is something with reference to which I as a person have detachment. But those who are being affected by it, those who are involved in the manipulation, may relate to the experience personally and in terms of personal commitment. And their lives be altered, and social change may take place, while all of the time, I may be a professional lover. Uninvolved, detached, working love! And those who are involved who come into primary contact with the impact of this may establish a sense of relatedness to it. It may sit in judgment upon their lives. It may give to them a sense of guilt, with reference to which in community they may seek atonement. It may do all kinds of things. While in my heart, I may have contempt of the whole process. This is the paradox. And this is the great temptation of the Christian Church. To manipulate love as that which is effective and instrumental in bringing the Kingdom of God, while the church itself may have no private stake in so great a fulfillment of the will and the purposes of God. There shall come a time when the lion and the lamb will lie down together. When the little child will put his hand over the whole of an ass, and the ass will relax itself regarding impulse and not sting the child. When men shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu When will that be? When the knowledge of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. And somehow, somehow, may we be inspired to anticipate that time in the place where we live, and work, and think, and love, and play. Pitts Theology Library Emory University This is all we can feel, our Father. And it is the root of all we can think. The rest is in Thy keeping. Oh, love of God. Love of God. Love of God. [SINGING] 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community and the Will of God Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, community is the will of God and the intent of life. All of life moves towards a greater sense of wholeness and fulfillment. In this sermon series, Thurman explores the various manifestations of this urge towards community in human life: creation myths, the innocence of childhood, human beings as children of nature, and the utopian dreams of prophets. Ultimately, Thurman illustrates that God is on the side of harmony, and that we as human beings have the opportunity to participate in the will of God. The furthering of life human life indeed depends on it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-646_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Community and Prophet's Dream I (6); Community and Prophet's Dream II (7), 1961 May 14, 21, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-646_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Title A name given to the resource Community and Prophet's Dream II, 1961 May 21 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-05-21 Description An account of the resource In this final sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman finishes with the prophet's dream of lion and lamb lying down together. Thurman says that those who dream of utopia and community often make them on the basis of discrimination – there are insiders and there are outsiders who stand as threat to community. For this reason, Thurman says that the dream of community must extend to all living things, a dream in which no manifestation of life will be a threat. In this sermon, Thurman offers one of his main theses: meaningful experiences of unity are more compelling than the things that divide. It is these experiences that will undermine the barriers that separate, and bring the prophet's dream into frutition. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/35e995f2aa82140483d4c77d0d637a80.pdf 05282eda6614f9ad1409123067b888ad PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-644_B.mp3 [ORGAN MUSIC] Pitts Theology Library Emory University [CHOIR SINGING] As we wait together in the presence of God, our thoughts are full of forebodings and distresses and uneasinesses because there is so much that is broken and bleeding in our world. We find ourselves unable to manage the degree of our involvement in much that is at work in our world, the stark sense of guilt, which is every man's portion when we remember the terrible days of the gas chambers and the ovens, the mute, numb misery of the condemned, and the long, empty silence of all the world while the agonies ascended to God. How may we become clean again when we remember? The catalog is long and limitless, the sense of personal guilt that revolves around the deliberate act, the responsible, private act, which is ours, and in some sense, ours alone, and the need for forgiveness, for reconciliation, for a mounting experience of harmony with those who walk the way with us in order that we may find some measure of peace and tranquility in our own hearts. We turn to thee, our Father, with the great hunger for wholeness and cleanliness, that before our own eyes, even as before thee, we shall not be ashamed. Teach us thy forgiveness that we may learn, our Father, how to forgive ourselves. O God, draw us, God teach us while there is still time. [ORGAN MUSIC] May I take just a minute to extend a very special invitation to each of you to see the exhibit of Near and Middle East refugee materials downstairs? It is a very good thing to keep and maintain a robust conscience, even though what any one of us can do may be very slight. But if the conscience is tender, there is always riding the individual act, the possibility of a nudge on the elbow at a critical time when a simple offering can make a big difference. As a background for our thinking on community and the self, continuing our series, when you listen to these words, look around our world, behold the chain of love combining all below and all above. See plastic nature working to this end, the single atoms each to other tend, attract attracted to the next end place, formed and impelled its neighbor to embrace. See matter next with various life imbued. Press to one central still the general good. See dying vegetables, life-sustained. See life dissolving vegetate again. All forms that perish, other forms supply. By turns, we catch the vital breath and die. Like bubbles on the sea of matter born, they arise. They break and to that sea return. Nothing is foreign. Parts relate to whole. One all-extending, all-preserving soul connect each being, greatest with the least, made beast in aid of man and man of beast, all served, all serving. Nothing stands alone. The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And then this, no man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manner of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never assume to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The working definition of community is the experience of wholeness, of completeness, of inner to governance, of integration. And wherever this is experienced, at whatever level of life, at that particular level, there is community. We pointed out last week that the individual human being experiences in his organism this definition of community, as if the organism, all the parts, had committed to memory a sense of the whole, a social sense which is the overtone of the biological inner continuity. Now this is the heritage. It is this that is the essential and necessitous equipment of the little child, of the baby when the baby is born, if all is well. We do not know what the self is precisely. But there seems to be a considerable body of thought, and if I may put it this way, considerable body of thoughtful thought, that insists that we are not born human, that the self is a discovery of the organism, that the self emerges as the organism begins to discriminate between thisness and thatness, between the self and the not self. The sense first, I suppose, of self is rooted in the sense of one's own body. You may remember the incident to which I referred last, oh, that's awful-- last year. I was babysitting with a friend of mine. That is, he was babysitting. And I was sitting with him. And his little son was in the next room asleep while we were visiting. And then suddenly, the baby began whimpering. And then the whimper became a little more dramatic. And then it almost became full-blown, but not quite. And we were disturbed. And we went in. And we found a very interesting thing. This little boy baby was gumming his big toe. Now his gums were rather firm. And he was gumming his big toe. And it was hurting him. And he was crying, but he couldn't quite cry full-blown because he had to keep on gumming his toe. He didn't know that it was his toe. He had no sense of toeness. [LAUGHTER] It was not a part of his organism. He was yet to discover his body as distinguished from that which was not his body. It is in this development, this kind of tension, that the sense of self emerges. And as the self begins to develop, it is, in a sense, a gift which is embraced by the individual, but a gift from other selves. And this, wherever this happens, the self becomes articulate. Always is the sense then of belonging to some primary social unit is but an extension of the sense of biological community that the baby has when the baby is born, as if all through the corridors of his little organism, there were a social sense. And now when in relation to human beings, the same sense of harmony, the same sense of belonging, The same sense of continuity can be experienced. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Then the child grows up with what may be called a kind of emotional stability. But you see, there is always implicit in this process the elements that make for a crisis, you see? Because the needs which the child has are immediate needs. And the environment in its early stages, in the child's early stages, is conditioned to meeting those needs, those immediate needs, immediately. Pitts Theology Library Emory University This means then that for the little child, the time interval between what the child wishes in terms of its needs, its felt needs, and the fulfillment of these needs is zero. Now as long as it remains zero, there is the experience of harmony, the experience of community, the experience of the little integrated self. But when, for various reasons, the time interval between wish and fulfillment is tampered with, then the child senses the enemy. And he finds himself placed over ghost that which threatens him. And the threat takes the form of the unwillingness or the unavailability of the things which the child needs and needs now so that growth then becomes a part of the experience through which the child goes as the child begins to negotiate the expanding time interval between what the child desires and the meeting of those desires. Now once the sense of self becomes articulate, then the individual is always on the search for the kind of relationships that will restore the original sense of community. And for this reason, for instance, that if you are contemplating an act, the first question that you have to raise about that deed, the deed that you want to do, is not whether it is right or wrong. Theoretically, if you are of good conscience, this is the first question you raise. But actually, the first question you are apt to raise is, what is the relationship between this act that I contemplate and that little world of human beings to whom I relate in terms of community. If I do this deed, will it rupture my relationship? Will it break the thing that guarantees my persona, that gives to me my sense of community? And if I decide that I will run the risk of cutting myself off so that I will no longer be a person but an individual, then immediately, I must see this deed in terms of a new sense of community that I may develop. And it is for this reason then that all persons who are concerned about social change understand very clearly that it is never enough merely to try to change the insides of people's hearts. This is important. It is crucial. It is necessitous. But it is not enough, because the thing that guarantees the sense of private and personal stability for the individual is a sense of being supported, sustained, maintained in community. Now, with that background, let me hasten to do two things. First, how then may we develop the self in community? And by that, I do not mean merely the self in relation to other human beings, but the sense of inner wholeness so that the deep piercing dichotomies that ripped my tranquility can somehow be resolved. Now we do this in various ways. One, we seek to relate ourselves to something that is, to us, more significant, more important than whether we as human beings live or die, some transcendent purpose or cause which, in the impact that it makes upon us in terms of demand, will be so crucial that on its behalf, we are brought into focus some need that galvanizes the personality into focus, something that transcends all of the fragmentations of our lives and is so important to us that for its sake, we give up anything. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University A second thing, this possibility may be out of our reach. We may say that I don't I can't relate myself to any cause that will give to me a sense of inner togetherness, that I'm too insignificant and I have no particular talent or no particular gift. I'm just myself. I don't have any things that any cause can use. Or the causes to which I'm exposed are so overwhelming that I am immobilized. I'm rendered completely ineffective because I have a profound sense of being stymied. Now this is one of the tragedies of our time. We have been so separated by all kinds of violences, all kinds of suffering and agonies. I found myself looking at my insides yesterday afternoon while the movie that was a part of our Near East exhibition yesterday, while this movie was being played. And the pictures, well, revealed the plight of some 750,000 refugees. And I found that the mass attack of that upon my emotions thus rendered me with a sense of complete impotence and finally, a kind of devastated deadness. And this is our plight. What would it take to arouse you at the deep place in you so that when you touched this depth, everything in you would be sucked into it? I wish I knew the answer to this. But I have one simple suggestion. I think that one of the things that we must do is to cultivate-- how to say this-- to cultivate our inner, to cultivate our inner life to take time in withdrawal and plumb our own depth. And here, I'm not talking about the things that make for morbidity and inward turning of that sort, but to plumb our own depths until we hit the place in us that is the common ground, not only of human life, but of life. For there is such a thing. And it may be that if day after day after day, we learn how to do this, it is entirely possible that the insight that comes will so renew all of our activities that these activities will become more and more expressive of something that is central in us. And the self will no longer be splintered and fragmented. But it will be a kernel of one piece through which the living energy of the living God pours itself out. And this perhaps is what is meant by being a child of God. It is this discovery of the depth that is available to each of us that makes the difference in the center of focus and integration and community, wholeness, tranquility of the self. I shall always remember this very personal reference. But when I was a boy and having to spend most of my time with my grandmother, who was a young woman at the time of the Civil War-- she was a slave in Tallahassee, Florida. And sometimes when life seemed very so fragmented for me that I didn't know where to take hold and I could not find any authentic way to belong, and she used to talk to me about what it really meant to be a child of God. And I shall always remember one of the things she said to me one Sunday morning. She told me about how she made that discovery as a little girl on this plantation. The minister, who was one of the slaves, was permitted now and then to have a religious service for all the slaves on that plantation and the neighboring plantation. And he always had the same sermon to preach, the essence of which was this. Look at you. Look at you. You, you are not slaves. You, you are God's children. And after the long silence that passed after she'd tell me this, then she would add, nothing else really matters. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now that may seem like a very naive defense mechanism that has no significance beyond the temporary reinforcement of the ego at a moment of attack. But no, it gave to her and to those like her and to their offspring a sense of roots that was watered by the underground river of existence. And this is the discovery that the prodigal son made and the lesson. When he came to himself, when he cut down through all the levels until he hit this hard core, it was at once to him going back to his father. When he came to himself, he came to his father. When you come to yourself, you come to your father. And the tranquility that pervades all the levels of your life announces in everything you do community, wholeness, integration. This, after all, our father, is the deep desire of our hearts. May we never give up the quest until at last we come to ourselves in thee. [CHOIR SINGING] 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community and the Will of God Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, community is the will of God and the intent of life. All of life moves towards a greater sense of wholeness and fulfillment. In this sermon series, Thurman explores the various manifestations of this urge towards community in human life: creation myths, the innocence of childhood, human beings as children of nature, and the utopian dreams of prophets. Ultimately, Thurman illustrates that God is on the side of harmony, and that we as human beings have the opportunity to participate in the will of God. The furthering of life human life indeed depends on it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-644_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Community and Creatureliness (3); Community and the Self (4), 1961 Apr 9, 16, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-644_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Title A name given to the resource Community and the Self, 1961 April 16 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-04-16 Description An account of the resource In this fourth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman talks about the notion of the Self. At some point in our development, we begin to discriminate between ourselves and the rest of the world. When we build the bounds of Self, we also meet the social community in which our Self is embedded. We have a deep, original need for the fulfillment of community. To develop the Self in community is to reclaim this sense of inner wholeness in which we find ourselves as a part of the whole of life. In this, our personalities are brought into focus and all our activities are renewed with purpose and tranquility. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/86a4f82727e230216faf780d893d16c8.pdf e6e48df8bfeaa8718ae8ad26b0a84058 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-645_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University I want to take just a moment to extend our welcome to the parents and the children in the children's chapel who are worshipping with us this morning and will remain through the period of meditation. There are about 40 children in the children's chapel. And the groups are from the preschool levels up to junior high school. There are eight teachers. The children have as a special project the support of a high school girl in South India. It is very important I think for us to share this period of worship with the children and have them share it with us. In thinking about what I should say in the moments that are at my disposal, it occurs to me that it is very important, not only for those of you who are children, but for those of us who are adults to learn how to control many things that go on inside of us. I'm sure that your parents are experts in this matter. But you are not. [CHILD SOUNDS] Well, someone has answered. [LAUGHS] So on behalf of what may be something into which you may grow sometime and something that your parents that which have already achieved, I want to tell you a very simple story. It's an experience which I had many years ago in India, because-- and it's appropriate, because you are interested in India. It was in the city of Allahabad. A young Indian friend of mine and I were walking along the shores of the river, the Ganges. And we noticed in the distance a holy man. That is, he was described to me as being a holy man. He was tall. His body was covered with holy ash. He had simply a loin cloth around his waist. His hair was long and somewhat matted. But these were not the attractive things about him. The thing that attracted me was the fact that he was walking along with a large animal. It looked like a-- it was belonged to the cat family. It may have been a wildcat or a lion or something. And of course, I did not get close enough to find out. But he stopped. And as he stopped, this big cat sat on his haunches. And then a group gathered respect-- at a respectful distance around. And the holy man delivered a little sermon. And this is what he said as translated to me. Behold this animal. I have lived with him. And I have taught him how to control all of the animal impulses in his body so that he is gentle. Any little child can come up and stroke his ears or rub his nose without any danger. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And then he stopped. And his eyes crawled over every face that stood around just like that. And then he said, you go and do likewise with all of the unrestrained impulses in your own natures. What I have taught this animal can be taught you if you believe it and try it. (SINGING) Be on our journey, Lord of grace. [INAUDIBLE] grace. [INAUDIBLE] Pitts Theology Library Emory University [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] meditating [INAUDIBLE] bringing all of us together-- parents, children, and congregation-- pray the Lord's Prayer. Our father whom art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. [MUSIC PLAYING] Most of my sermon this morning will be reading largely. The subject as a part of the series on which we are working the community of fear is taken from the title of a very significant study that has been released and concerning which you will hear more. But as a background for our reading and the little thinking together, I want to read a paragraph from the last thing that Olive Schreiner wrote before her death in the second decade of this century. It is an article that appeared in the London Nation and Athenaeum in 1922. It is a rather stimulating study of her attitude towards war and peace, something to which she was dedicated in many ways. The last paragraph is all that I shall read. In my native land-- and here she is talking about South Africa, for although she was an English woman, she was born in South Africa. And she regarded it as her native land. In my native land, I have seen the horrors of a great war. Smoke has risen from burning homesteads. Women and children by thousands have been thrown into great camps to perish there. Men whom I have known have been tied in chairs and executed for fighting against strangers in the land of their own birth. In the world's great cities, I have seen how everywhere the upper stone grinds hard on the nether. And men and women feed upon the toil of their fellow men without any increase of spiritual beauty or joy for themselves-- only a heavy congestion, while those who are fed upon grow bitter and narrow from the loss of the life that is sucked from them. Within my own soul, I have perceived elements militating against all I hungered for, for which the young child knew nothing. I have watched closely the great terrible world of public life, of politics, diplomacy, and international relations, whereas under terrible magnifying glass, the greed, the ambition, the cruelty and falsehood of the individual soul are seen in so hideously enlarged and wholly unrestrained of form, that it might be forgiven to one who cried out to the 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu powers that lie behind life. Is it not possible to put out a sponge and wipe up humanity from the Earth? It is stained. Pitts Theology Library Emory University I have realized that the struggle against the primitive, self-seeking instincts in human nature, whether by the individual or in the larger social organism, is a life and death struggle to be renewed by the individual and then by the race through the ages. I've tried to wear no blinkers, I have not held a veil before my eyes that I might profess that cruelty, injustice, and mental and physical anguish were not. I've tried to look nakedly in the face those facts which make most against all hope. And yet in the darkest hour, the consciousness which I carried back with me that morning has never wholly deserted me, even as a man who clings with one hand to a rock, though the waves pass over his hand yet knows what his hand touches. In the long course of the years which have passed, something else has happened to me, that which was for the young child only a vision, a flash of almost blinding light which it could hardly even to itself translate has in the course of a long life's experience become a hope, which I think the cool reason can find grounds to justify and which a growing knowledge of human nature and human life does endorse somewhere, sometime even on Earth. Now the title of this little study-- this little tremendous study is the community of fear. It is a study that is-- that was made by two men on behalf of the Fund for the Republic at the Center of the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara. I ordered a few of these. We have some. And as long as they last, if you are interested, you may secure one. The foreword is by [INAUDIBLE]. And he sounds a very important and urgent note. And it is not from within the context of what may be regarded ordinarily as a kind of weak or soft pacifism, for as those of you who are acquainted with [INAUDIBLE] know-- Dr. [INAUDIBLE] know that he is not in that particular category. He talks about the common danger that this book points up. And then he says that the minimal community that will give us some measure of security has been established through the sense of an involvement and a common predicament and peril. The reality of this minimal community is incidentally underlined by the growing differences between the Russians who are aware of the common peril and the Chinese who are not. And then he says more. But I need not read more of it. The first chapter-- section in this is called "The Arms Race." And I want to read a little of that to you. And I hope you will not be bored. It is better-- it is better to-- well, for 15 years, we have been in the largest and most frantic arms race that the world has ever known. During this period, the Soviet Union and the United States have recognized that war between them is a possibility. Under the circumstances, each nation has attempted to put itself in the position of winning the war should it come. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Actions have brought reactions, which in turn have brought new reactions. Military expenditures in both nations have increased to staggering size. With the mobilization of science and technology, capabilities for destruction have increased explosively. When World War II came to an end, the United States alone possessed the atomic bomb. Pitts Theology Library Emory University This new weapon had come into existence as quickly as it did because of the fear that Germany, with many competent scientists and engineers available might get there first. The atomic bomb created an imbalance in military capability, which the Soviet Union was quick to appreciate. It is likely that the discussions of the Baruch proposals failed in 1948 in large measure, because the Soviet leaders foresaw that were they to enter into such an agreement, the imbalance in nuclear military technology might be perpetuated. The Russians pursued the new technology. And by 1951, they had tested three nuclear weapons. We, in turn, pursued the possibility of thermonuclear devices and carried out our first test on such a device in 1952. By 1956, our own thermonuclear bomb had passed into the third generation. And the Russians were manufacturing their own variety. During this period, nuclear devices were not only made larger, but they were made smaller as well. A variety of flexible efficient fission bombs were developed for tactical use. And the United States announced that it intended to utilize such weapons should a war start. The Soviet Union followed suit. By 1956, a revolution was taking place in the means of delivery. In the United States, the B-47, with its severe range limitation, had given first line place to the B-52 series. The Russians had substantial numbers of long and medium range bombers, badgers, bears, and bisons. But even more important, a variety of missiles had entered the picture. Soviet successes in the missile field led to the establishment of intensive programs in the United States on the Atlas, the Titan, and the Thor. The development of the Soviets' ICBMs led to the use of the U-2 in order to ferret out Soviet bases to the establishment of a late and displaced site operations and to the development of the Polaris missile designed to be carried by the nuclear powered submarines. Improved missile capabilities led to the development of Earth satellites, first launched successfully by the Russians, then by the United States. Realization of the vulnerability of our second missile bases to a first strike is now leading to the development of Atlas bases capable of withstanding explosion pressures of 25 pounds per square inch. A ballistic missile early warning system is now being put into operation. Now a section on the effects-- this section is called "10 Megatons on Los Angeles." I won't read too much of that. The blast effects would exterminate virtually all but the most deeply sheltered living things within a radius of 5 miles. Blast casualties would be severe up to a distance of 10 miles. But the phenomenon that would complete the devastation of life in the entire area would be fire. The area would be one great sea of fire, which would turn-- burn until there was nothing more to consume. A good proportion of the metropolitan area's 3 and 1/2 million cars and trucks would 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu be lifted and thrown like grotesque Molotov cocktails to spew flaming gasoline, oil, and automotive shrapnel onto and into everything in their path. Pitts Theology Library Emory University In an instant, most underground gasoline and oil tanks would rupture and explode within the blast area. And a large proportion of the remainder within the firestorm radius would follow each in its own particular manner-- pumps and pipes sheared and finally high and higher ambient temperatures, which would soon expand, rupture, and explode the remainder. Beyond the blast radius, the remaining area of Los Angeles is occupied by relatively few first class concrete and steel buildings. A much greater proportion is the debris of an industrial society-- auto junkyards, lumber yards, row upon row of cheap and flammable commercial structures. But most important, this remaining area is comprised of over 50% brush covered hills and scrub forests. Anyone who has participated in the fighting of a California brush-- brush fire and who is acquainted with the remarkable explosive nature of the oil carrying Greasewood Sumac and Scrub Pine is surprised and frightened by the volatility of the material even when it is wet. The novel aspect of a thermo-- thermonuclear conflagration is that most of these highly inflammable materials would break into intense flames simultaneously, a phenomenon never before achieved either by man or by natural causes. Now I will skip to a discussion on the spread of nuclear military technology. In thinking of deterrence systems, we usually think in terms of the two major powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet, nuclear technology is spreading. England conducted nuclear tests several years ago. More recently, France tested their first nuclear device. It is probable that nuclear military technology will spread to a number of additional nations in the course of the next 20 years. Now that's enough of all that. Now accidental and catalytic war-- even with only two nuclear powers and four nuclear nations in the world, there is a finite chance that an all out nuclear war could be triggered accidentally. This could be brought about as a result of either mechanical or human failure. No machine is perfect. No human being is free from the possibility of making errors of judgment. Already, for example, there have been several accidents involving American aircraft carrying nuclear bombs and so forth. Now finally near the end there is a discussion on factors preventing agreement on arms control and disarmament. And then there is a section on defense and recovery and a thermonuclear war and then a final section on is war obsolete. And that section is the quotation on the back of the bulletin. Now I'd like to read one other thing and make one comment. This that I want to read now is by Sir Charles Snow, who has been talking a great deal in our country and writing. And his-- is his-well, you know who he is. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now this is what he has to say. I want-- I want to read it to you, because this is no sentimental half-cocked emotional reaction, someone on a kind of sentimental binge of anxiety. But-- but this is another kind of man who is looking and talking and thinking about this. Pitts Theology Library Emory University All physical scientists know that it is relatively easy to make plutonium. We know this not as a journalistic fact at second hand, but as a fact in our own experience. We can work out the number of scientific and engineering personnel it needs for a nation state to equip itself with fission and fusion bombs. We know that for a dozen or more states, it will only take perhaps six years, perhaps fewer. Even the best informed of us always exaggerates these periods. This we know with a certainty of-- what shall I call it-- engineering truth. We also know that most of us are familiar with statistics and the nature of odds. We know with the certainty of statistical truth that if enough of these patterns are made by enough different states, some of them are going to blow up through accident or folly or madness. The motive doesn't matter. All this we know. We genuinely know the risks. We are faced with an either/or. And we haven't much time. Either we accept a restriction, says he, of nuclear armaments-- this is going to begin just as a token with an agreement on the stopping of nuclear tests. The United States is not going to get the 99 9/10% security that it's been asking for. It is unobtainable, though there are other bargains that the United States could probably secure. That is the either. Now the or is not a risk, but a certainty. It is this. There is no agreement on tests. The nuclear arms race between the USA and the USSR not only continues, but accelerates. Other countries join in. Within at most six years, China and other-- several other states will have a stock of nuclear bombs. Within at the most 10 years, some of these bombs are going to go off. I'm saying this as responsibly as I can, said Sir Charles. That is the certainty. On the one side, therefore, we have a definite risk. On the other side, we have a certainty of disaster. Between a risk and a certainty, a sane man does not hesitate. Now I have in the little minutes that's left, two or three things to say. TR Glover suggests that the Roman Empire collapsed, because the individual Roman citizen had lost his sense of responsibility for the empire. Even though we for private or political or social reasons-- we may not identify with those individuals who perhaps from our point of view may be going off half cocked who are holding vigils where the down in Maryland or in Ken-- or in some of the other places where this experimental work is going on, we may laugh at the kind of ridiculous view of those persons in Stockton who were dumped in the water as they tried to offer some puny registration of judgment on the submarine that is based there. We may regard all this is as a kind of sentimentality and with which we cannot identify. That-that may be a judgment which but you can sustain or which I can sustain. But this does not mean that we are not under very serious and critical obligations to do several things. We are under obligation to become acquainted with what is going on as nearly as possible to develop a sense of fact. 6 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And it is-- it is no excuse that we are involved in the private fulfillment of our lives and earning our living and reproducing our kind and enjoying some measure of security for a limited time interval or for an indefinite time interval. Pitts Theology Library Emory University There is a responsibility which we have to get acquainted with the facts of our world and the nature of the kinds of decisions that those who represent us in the arena of world politics are called upon to make, because each decision that is made commits every man, woman, boy, and girl in the country whose representative makes the decision. So this is a first. Now we also, as it would seem to me-- we are under some obligation to deal with the necessity of-- even in our little way-- of trying to think in times of what are the possible alternatives or options available to modern man. What-- what is there that can be distilled, out of all of the wisdom of the religions, the ethics, the philosophy, the futilities of the past that may give to us some measure of insight with reference to the problem, which faces modern man. For the first time in human history, the possibility of the biological discontinuity of the human race is within reach of a single man's hands. And always in the past as we have contemplated the fall of nations, the collapse of governments, the destructions of civilizations-- always there has been riding on the judgment stated explicitly or implicitly or written in the religious tradition and religious faith the creative possibility of a remnant-- some margin left that can pick up the pieces and become the growing edge of the mind of God, for the redemption of the world, of nature and man. But any margin that is left-- any margin that is available, any remnant that is available is contingent upon the continuity of man's biological existence. If there be no biological existence, then even the notion of the possibility-- the redemptive possibility of the remnant, which has been the ground of the naturalistic and the theological optimism about the ultimate destiny of man-- if there is no biological continuity, then this has no significance. Therefore, it is the responsibility not merely of those in power, not merely those who will make certain kinds of fateful decisions. But we are all under obligation, saint or sinner, good man or bad man, educated or uneducated, wise man, stupid-- we are all under obligation to seek as best we may some other possibility. We do not know what the alternative is. We do not know whether there is enough wisdom in man to select a way that will be the source of redemption. We do-- we do not know whether there is enough moral maturity accumulative in man's long journey on the planet to give him the kind of wisdom and character that can float a sense of almost absolute power. But we've got to make soundings of every kind, for who knows? Just as 2,000 years ago as there began to be a collapse of the world as we knew it and the vaunted power and vitality of the Roman Empire began to respond to the termites that had been at work for so long a time, a little Jewish baby was born. 7 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And one politician was smart enough to recognize what this threat meant. And he sought to eliminate him. But he didn't. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Who knows? But somewhere waiting to be born or somewhere some ordinary man with an all mighty dreamy may be waiting for a climate that can only be created by the masses of the human beings on the planet who, within their limitations, are busily at the level of their ordinary common life making soundings in community and announcing to existence that even though the judgment may be against man, I will not accept it. I will affirm the right to seek some other creative way by which the life of man might still have a chance in the world. And no body is exempt from this necessity. As Petrarch said long ago, if at a time of great need those who are in power refuse to act, refuse to speak, then let any man speak that the truth may be given wings. Hermann Hagedorn said in his poem "The Unknown Soldier at the Close of the First World War," these words with which I stop. We died. We died. But you who live must do a harder thing than dying is, for you must think, think, think. And ghosts shall drive you on. You must do a harder thing than dying is, for you must think. And ghosts shall drive you on. May the measure of our desperation, our Father be contained by the depth of our faith. And for this, we offer the commitment of our lives. [MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) Amen. Amen. Amen. 8 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community and the Will of God Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, community is the will of God and the intent of life. All of life moves towards a greater sense of wholeness and fulfillment. In this sermon series, Thurman explores the various manifestations of this urge towards community in human life: creation myths, the innocence of childhood, human beings as children of nature, and the utopian dreams of prophets. Ultimately, Thurman illustrates that God is on the side of harmony, and that we as human beings have the opportunity to participate in the will of God. The furthering of life human life indeed depends on it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-645_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Community of Fear (5), 1961 May 7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-645_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Community of Fear, 1961 May 7 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-05-07 Description An account of the resource In this fifth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman reads from several pieces, each pertaining to the realities of war and the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thurman says that, for the first time in human history, a single man could extinguish the entire human race, even accidentally. Religious tradition has always kept alive the possibility that, even with great destruction, some human remnant would pick up the pieces and continue the redemptive work of God. But if there are no human beings left, then that redemptive possibility is nothing. Thurman ends says that no one is exempt from responsibility: We each must creatively seek a way for human life to still have chance in the world, to participate in the will of God. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/0e492c788988936a353a3aae3ee94467.pdf 9e53597a220e615ad32189f24b8fcfe4 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-643_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University Each of us comes into the quiet time carrying with him his private world of needs and dreams and hopes. Needs that move some of them on the surface of our lives. Needs which have to do with food then drink, with toil and labor. Needs which have to do with health and vigor. Needs which move at a deeper level because they have to do with ends that we seek, but means we cannot find. Dreams that stand within the reach of our hands and yet disappear from our grasp. Needs which have to do with what we would be and am not. Needs that spread themselves around the world. And we wonder how we may give expression to concerns that are not responsive to our wills however good or our hearts however pure. Each of us comes with his private world of needs and dreams and hopes and longings. It is a privilege and a deeply moving joy to make a stop, to come to pause, to wait in solitariness, but not aloneness, in the midst of the congregation, for some empty mission, of the spirit of the living God that brews over all of life and may make itself articulate in us in this waiting moment. Drop thy still dews of quietness till all our striving cease. Take from our souls the strain and the stress and let our ardent lives confess the beauty of thy peace. War and personalities center. There is much learned talk of it. A man becomes inwardly torn between his ideals and his practices, between his ambition and his duty, between what he ought to do and what he wants to do. He tries to end the miserable conflict by rationalizing wrong into right or by making right out to be an obsolescent or else by pushing the whole thing out of consciousness and refusing to think about it. But he cannot escape from himself like that. Deep down, we are assured he knows. He has not cured the division. He has only silenced its speaking. Or perhaps more truly he has not silenced anything. He's only put his hands over his ears that he may not hear. The war storms on, but he declines to listen. His whistles and smiles and jokes and tries to cover up the sad truth that he has become cloven in the hostile camps at war with himself pulled two ways or many ways, self dam. Men's very nerves break down with this more than any other thing. And what is the cure there of but to become complete and all the will of God. All unite my heart to fear thy name. Make me unanimous within lest like a house divided against itself and unable to stand, I be shamed before my soul's enemies and thine are this vulnerable, temporizing, and uncertain heart of mine. Fatally weak because scattered in its loves teach it the master passion that fuses all into one whole strength and one whole harmony. We are continuing our thinking together on the overall idea in which we shall be working perhaps for the rest of the year, on community and the will of God. And we began by thinking of community in terms of the creation myth, the experience as found in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu At the very end of our discussion of this particular aspect of our theme last Sunday, I came to some consideration of innocence and goodness. And from the conversations that I have been privileged to have during this week, that part of it ended in confusion. Pitts Theology Library Emory University So I want to pick it up and see if I cannot work at it a little more with the hope that I will not add to the confusion. We begin then. Innocence is an immediate living, real sense of wholeness. Wholeness. It is unbroken. It gives to the individual the experience of community, of inner togetherness that has never experienced scatteredness. It is perhaps to be regarded as synonymous with ignorance, but not quite. For innocence means that there is no awareness of anything that breaks the experienced wholeness. While ignorance may be the absence of knowledge, it may mean that the individual is deliberately maintaining an absence of knowledge. In other words, sometimes in ignorance, there may be an element that is deliberate that may even verge on that which is deliberate, is consciously so I may elect to ignore. If I am innocent, I do not know that I ignore. Innocence then has a quality of wholeness about it, which may be called a kind of can't help-it-ness. Now, when innocence becomes knowledge, when the pattern of wholeness is broken, then that which was experienced unity becomes conflict. A divisive principle enters in. And there are some who feel that once this takes place, the individual can never be as he was before. "As I walked through the wooded meadows where sweet the thrushes sing." as the way the poet puts it, "I saw on a bed of mosses a bird with a broken wing. I healed its wound, and each morning it sang its same old sweet song. But the bird with the broken pinion never soared as high again." There is this notion, which is not altogether true. But it is a way of affirming the sense of loss and the dilemma of the human spirit as it now must deal with dimensions of its experience that are new to it. Now, when innocence is lost, one of the words that we use to describe the state is guilt. And this is the activity within the spirit of the individual as he seeks to re-establish a sense of inner wholeness, a sense of being intact. And the effort that is put forth on the part of the human spirit to restore a balance does not mean to restore a balance that existed before because this kind of balance can never be restored again. But to find a new level of balance, which gives in the new condition, in the restored condition, the quality of innocence, namely wholeness without the-- how to say this-- what is the word? Without the purity? No, that isn't the word I mean. I'll get the word in a minute-- without the sense or awareness of there being anything else beyond what the individual is now experiencing. In other words, when I'm innocent and I lose my innocence, something which I am calling a sense of the whole, a push that is deep within the spirit of man that moves always towards 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu fulfillment, always towards synthesis, always towards harmony, this begins to push up from the depths of his being, trying to restore a sense of wholeness, a sense of balance. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, when this happens, men say that they are good. No, goodness may be merely that which is contrasted with evil-- good, bad; good, evil. There is a goodness then that has to do with the equalization of unequals, goodness that has to do with working out some balance of function, some order and behavior. But there is another kind of goodness, goodness that is structural. Goodness that is not involved in the contradictions of experience, one positive and the other negative, but a quality of goodness that involves something that includes all the contradictions, the goodness of synthesis. And this is the kind of goodness that is achieved whenever it is. As men work their way from the loss of innocence back into a sense of inner wholeness. In the language of religion, we say they have been redeemed. And all religions that have to do with salvation in any of its dimension confront man with this possibility. Usually there is a formula that is used, and if the formula is accepted, if the faith is there, if the belief is there, then the broken circle will swing back into order. The broken harmony will be relieved. Men will be redeemed. They will become whole again. But the desert poet puts the whole concept that's in my mind in perspective for us, and it is appropriate because of what is going on in this year of celebration, just in passing. The poet is Badger Clark, and he says, "My father prayed when he drew a bead on the grey coats back in those blazing years when the house was divided. Bless his old heart. There never was truer or kinder. My father prayed. Here he is praying and shooting wholeheartedly. Never a doubt." That's a form of innocence. "But what about me and my dear battle? Can I put my prayers behind a slim Springfield bullet? Hardly, except to mutter, Jesus, you and I part company here. My country calls for my body and takes my soul also." "Do you see those humans herded and driven against me? Turn away, Jesus for I must kill them. Why such evils bring some vast vague good to my country. I do not know, but my business is killing, and my gods must be luck and the devil till this thing is over. Turn away, master. Your eyes make me slack in my duty." "My father could mix his prayers with his shooting. My father was a great, good man in his generation. But if I should pray like him, I would spoil it by laughing. Laughing." Now, this suggests that over and above what may be my or your particular experience with innocence and the loss of innocence and the achieving of goodness, new synthesis on a more inclusive, a more informed, a more aware level, it is true that each of us is experiencing both of these all the time. There is a sense in which our innocence is continuous, and a part of our struggle for sanity sometimes in this kind of world is to keep the curtain pulled down so that we cannot lose our sense of innocence with reference to certain grayed areas and issues of the common life. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Because it's hard on our nervous system. We can never know peace again if we become aware of certain things of which we are not aware this morning. And once we become aware, then the process goes on anew, trying to re-establish within ourselves the sense of community, of harmony, of inner wholeness that that is being ripped apart because of some new set of facts to which we have been exposed. Pitts Theology Library Emory University There is a sense then in which we are always losing our innocence, always achieving goodness. And what does it mean to achieve goodness? It is a process. It means to be able to include into one's organized feeling tone all the contradictions. It is the creative push of the personality in an effort to restore a balance that has been lost because of the invasion of awareness that introduced into the wholeness a principle of divisiveness. And the human spirit cannot abide the sense of divisiveness, so it always goes to work at it. And the same thing is true in an entirely different dimension when we get a glimpse of what is the true and authentic potentiality of our lives and then become aware of what it is that we are able to do or achieve at any particular moment. The contrast between what we see whole that represents the fulfillment of the dream, the actualized potential and what we are able to achieve at any particular moment in time or space, the contrast between this measures the depth of our conflict and the depth of our tragedy. If I have never seen the possibility, I would not be under attack by the common place dimensions of my journey. But I have seen the city and that view no darkness can obscure. I'm always then losing my innocence as I increase my sense of fact with reference to an increasingly-wide area of facts. I'm always under the commitment of life to try to integrate these new facts into a new harmony. And as soon as I establish this sense of community, it is laid siege to by a set of facts or a new relationship or a new situation or a new personality that had not been taken into account when I made my synthesis. And I think this is man's fate, and this is man's destiny. I said when I get there, the fight will be over, but when I got there, I found that the fight was not over, that the fight would not be over, no, not even in death. I lose community when I lose innocence. I begin at once to seek community when I lose innocence. This is man's fate. The community which he seeks in himself as goodness, as contrasted with innocence, is also what life itself is seeking wherever life appears, always the achieving of the fulfillment of potential. Always threatened by those things that tend to defeat the potential. And to live abundantly is to take on all the divisiveness and to know that the test of life is often found in the amount of divisiveness that can be absorbed and integrated without losing the scent of wholeness. And what we seek God seeks. And when we fail, in us at that point, God fails. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Search me, oh, God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. Pitts Theology Library Emory University [MUSIC] 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Community and the Will of God Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, community is the will of God and the intent of life. All of life moves towards a greater sense of wholeness and fulfillment. In this sermon series, Thurman explores the various manifestations of this urge towards community in human life: creation myths, the innocence of childhood, human beings as children of nature, and the utopian dreams of prophets. Ultimately, Thurman illustrates that God is on the side of harmony, and that we as human beings have the opportunity to participate in the will of God. The furthering of life human life indeed depends on it. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-643_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Community and Innocence (1); Innocence and Goodness (2), 1961 Feb 26, Mar 5, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-643_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Title A name given to the resource Innocence and Goodness, 1961 March 5 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-03-05 Description An account of the resource In this second sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman delves deeper into innocence. We are born innocent, with a sense of inner wholeness; however we eventually lose this innocence and find ourselves between our highest ideals and the reality of our lives. This tension between who we are and who we strive to be creates an inner need for balance. Thurman says that this is the nature and fate of human beings: to seek the redemption of wholeness after this loss of innocence. In this search for community and wholeness, we seek what God seeks. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III.