2 10 11 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/afb9bb6b83c50a82aba05df10bb65d5b.pdf 6c8f7c3f3b4fae8a3736cd918052a569 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-013_A.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University We have turned aside from the tasks and the duties and the responsibilities which involve us day after day to present ourselves with as much confidence and faith as we can muster-- hoping that in Thy presence and in the great quietness of this waiting moment, we might find the measure of deepened inner peace, without which the enterprise of our private lives cannot be fulfilled. We share with Thy all of the meaning that we have been able to garner out of the days of our living. We see as if by a flash of blinding light, the meaning of some things which we have done since last we were here together-- the hasty word the careless utterance, the deliberate act by which another was injured or confused, the decision to do what, even at the time of the decision, we felt was not either the right thing or the thing which we were willing to back with our lives. All of these things crowding upon us our Father to be sure that what we say in Thy presence and what we feel and in Thy presence will be honest and clear and sincere. As we look at this aspect of our lives, there is only one moving request which we make. And that is for forgiveness, forgiveness for the sin, for the wrong act, for the bad deed, forgiveness our Father. We do not know all together what it is that we want beyond this. We see our lives, the goals which we have set for ourselves, and as we wait now in the quietness, and these goals are weighted and held in tender balance before Thy scrutiny and Thy caring, we see them in a new light. And we trust that somehow as we move into the tasks that await us, the radiance which we sense now will cast a long glow to guide us in tomorrow's darkness. We're mindful also of all kinds need in the world, those needs which are close at hand and about which we have had some superficial concern. We have met them casually out of the richness of our own sense of surplus. There are those other needs at which we have not dared to look, our Father, because we fear what our response to such needs might make us do or become. We might find all of the careful plans of our lives upset and the goals which we have put in focus thrown out of line or discarded. Because as we look into the depths of certain needs, we cannot ever be ourselves in happiness and peace again. And this is too costly for us. And yet, our Father, as we wait here, these needs move before us. We hear the cry anguish of the destitute, of the hungry, of the hopeless, of the despairing. And we cannot be deaf. But we don't know what to do. We don't know how to give and not destroy ourselves. Oh God, deal with our disorder with redemptive tenderness so that we as we live tomorrow and tomorrow may not be ashamed of Thy grace that has made our lives move in such tranquil places These are all the words we have. Take them, and let them say to Thy the words of our heart and our spirit. Oh God, merciful God, merciful God. [MUSIC PLAYING] 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Quests of the human spirit as background for laying foundation for our thinking together for the next few weeks. Will you listen to these words? "A ceaseless search like the ebb and flow of oceans marks all man's days. For him, no rest, no rest. The fever in the blood is answer to the temper of the mind. When time was young, just learning how to walk, it placed its stamp on a single cell, which gave a slant to all that lives today or yesterday, no matter when. Pitts Theology Library Emory University A ceaseless search like the ebb and flow of oceans marks all man's day. Is there some point, some place of rest to bring an end to all man's quest? Something that does not feel? Something that lasts beyond all things that pass when the shadows thicken and the lights grow dim? Some worldly hope that gives retreat from all the winds that beat upon the world? Some sured attachment to another's life that stands secure against all change of mind or heart? Some private dream where only dwells the purest secrets of desire? All these must fade. All these must pass away. There is a sense of wholeness at the core of man that must abound in all he does, that marks with reverences his every step, that has its sway when all else fails, that wearies out all evil things, that warms the depths of frozen fears, making friends of foe, making love of hate, and last beyond the living and the dead, beyond the goals of peace and the ends of war. This man seeks through all these years to be complete and of one piece within, without." And then this from Robert Bridges. "Man born of desire cometh out of the night, a wondering spark of fire. He's striveth to know, to unravel the mind. He wills to adore. He dreameth of beauty. He seek to create fair and fair to vanquish his fate, such is man." I begin this morning by undertaking to lay the foundation for our thinking about the quests of the human spirit. To quest is to seek out, to try, to find. It is to search. It is to bring into focus a goal or a purpose and to put at the disposal of such a goal or purpose, the cumulative resources of one's life. It is in the very nature then of the case that a quest is a creative act. It began there. It is creative because when it is initiated, the individual has to adjudicate between possible alternatives. He has to make up his mind by a series of efforts, which result in the elimination of those things which present themselves as worthy of the questing. But for reasons that may be personal and private and intimate, they are rejected. And the one thing is lifted out above all the rest. It is a creative act then in the first place because it involves a decision of the mind and the will. It is creative act in the second place because once the choice is made, once the object of the quest is selected, then the resources of the individual, slowly sometimes and sometimes dramatically, are organized and made available to the individual as the raw materials of the energy which he needs in order to pursue the quest. And this particular act on the part of the mind, of the personality is important because of what it suggests about how man is put together in the first place. He has memories. And these memories at some far off time in the history of man were not memories as we know them. They were impulses shooting over the nerves, registering their impact as the individual encountered various aspects of his environment, reacting to various situations. And as these became cumulative, the mind then began to how a sense of the history of man's experience with 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu life so that at any particular moment, at levels of which he is aware and at levels of which he is not aware, all the past is present, present. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And this means, you see, that what we are saying when we say that a man is conscious is that he is aware of the past as a part of the living stuff of the present so that when he brings to bear the resources of his personality in an effort to make it possible for him to realize his quest, what he is really doing is actualizing his potential. What he is really doing is putting at the disposal of a specific act or a specific goal, the cumulative resources of all of his life. Now the goals, the objects of our quest very often are not on our own. How can I say this? Sometimes, they are a reflection of what we think we ought to want. Sometimes, they are reflection not of what we really want to see. But there are reflections on our love for someone whose desire for us we embrace and act upon it as if it were our own. We see this very often vocationally. Sometimes you talk with a man who is in the last stages of his personal equipment for the realization of a quest which will be for him an enduring one vocationally. And he says, I don't think I've ever really wanted to be a doctor. I come from a family of doctors. My father is a doctor, my grandfather is a doctor, my great uncle is a doctor. And ever since I was born, I have heard my parents talk about the fact that I would carry on where my father left off. Or I would some day be so equipped that I will be able to join my father in this quest. So that out of love, I react. And I still find that at the end that much of the resources of my life are not at the disposal of that which I have selected as the object of my quest. So I may go on and become, let us say, a very good doctor, a very worthy doctor, an excellent healer of diseases if that is how the vocation is defined. And yet, something deep within me remains untouched. And my mind is in it. But my heart refuses. Now the quest of the human spirit about which I shall be thinking the quests of the human spirit, about which I shall be thinking during these days has to do with those experiences, those goals in which there is the meeting of the mind and the heart so that the total resourcefulness and the total resources of the personality may be available to the quest that has been chosen. Now there's a second aspect of this that belongs in the foundation. And that is that sometimes and individual is so fortunate-- and I think this is the right word-- that he does not have to go through the experience of making up his mind, of making the choice. It is as if something-- I don't quite know how to put this-- but outside of him seems to lay hold on him. And he doesn't know when he knew. The only thing he does know is that he knows that through success and failure, through trial and error, this is the thing that he must do. If I may be personal about this, I remember when I was a high school boy. At the end of my first year in high school, I went to a conference in North Carolina. It was a conference of the student conference of the YMCA. The first night I was there, there was a vesper service. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I sat on the side of a hill. It was an outdoor service. Everybody was sitting on one side of the hill. I said over by myself. I was a stranger, didn't know anyone. So I sat alone in the twilight, the long twilight. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And I listened to a man make a speech. I don't know what he talked about now. I don't know what he said. But as I listened to him, I knew what would be the area and the meaning of my life quest. I did not know in terms of a bill of particulars. I could not spell it out in terms of precise goals. But I knew more deeply than I understood. The three or four months after that I wrote the man a letter telling him about my experience that night. And he answered-- I shall always remember this-- two pages single spaced. It was the first type-written letter that I had ever received. And I carried this letter in my pocket. And you will be embarrassed-- I mean, I should be embarrassed, I suppose, to say it. But I carried it in my pocket to the rest of my school and for four years in college. I changed envelopes I don't know how many times- but the letter was there. It served as a gentle reminder of what I had felt. But it was years after before the feeling that I sensed that night worked itself up into the region of my deliberations and my choosings. And sometimes that happens. All of this is to say that the quest is a creative thing. And sometimes, it is the response of the individual. Sometimes, it is the response of the mind based upon selections. And then there something of the personality are organized and put at the disposal of the thing that is held at dead center in the mind. Now there is something else that needs to be said. This possibility, the possibility of quest, the miracle of being able to seek is writted, it seems to me, in the very nature of life. For you see, if life is fixed, if life is finished, if life is complete, if life is contained in a continuum that is essentially static, then the possibility of seeking, the possibility of bringing to bear upon a goal the resources of the personality so that as the individual begins to actualize his potential and becomes himself more and more, the living embodiment of that for which he is questing, all of this is an impossibility if life itself is not fluid, creative, dynamic. Now if it is true that life is fluid and creative and dynamic, then it becomes a reasonable thing to say that the time and the place of a man's life is time and the place of his body. But the meaning of a man's life is as eternal and as significant. As with all of him, he wills to make it. Now let me repeat this. If life is dynamic, fluid, then it is a reasonable thing to say that the time and the place of a man's life is the time and place of his body. But the significance, the meaning of his life can be as eternal and as creative. As with all of him, he wills choose to make it. Therefore, when a man quests and in his quest he honors a deep and insatiable hunger of his spirit and in response to that hunger, he more and more begins to feed it with all the raw materials of his stuff, then the hunger has to be honored by life, and I think by God. So the Master says if you hunger, hunger, hunger, if you thirst, thirst for righteousness. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu This is the nature of life that you will be filled, that this is the kind of world in which the riding possibility is always present if a man is able to bring to bear upon, even the stubborn and unyielding and recalcitrance stuff and contradictory stuff of life that which will not be denied, he will find. I wonder if you believe this. Pitts Theology Library Emory University I do not mean some casual whim, some impulse that grows out of something that does not reach down deep in me. For you know it may be that I cannot seek for something that I do not have already. This may be it. So a man said to the Master, "will please help my son? There are times when he seems to be possessed. And he throws himself on the floor and he writhes as a madman." And the Master said, do you believe this? Do you mean that anything can happen as a result of what you are asking me to do? Is this the kind of world in which it is possible for a quest like that fundamentally to be honored? If you believe this, then it will be. And the man said, oh yes. I believe. Help Thou, my unbelief. Oh yes, I have faith. And it is the faith in me that keeps pushing me for more of itself. So it may be that seeking and finding, questing and finding are one in the same thing, that what I hunger for grows out of what I am aware of as the most real thing in me already. And it is that multiplies itself, multiplies itself until I am consumed by it, and it is consumed by me. The time and the place of a man's life is the time and place of his body. But the meaning of a man's life is as the eternal and as significant. As with all of him, he wills to make it. And we shall see in the days that follow what this means. Walk beside us, our Father. And leave us not alone either to strength or our weaknesses. But yield to us what we need in order that we may be that which is Thy dream for us. [MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) Amen Amen, Amen, Amen. 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 Quests of the Human Spirit (1962, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA) Description An account of the resource ”Quests for the Human Spirit” is an eleven-part lecture series focused on the creative process of self-actualization. Thurman shows how this process centers and affirms a person’s purpose in life. Discussing pursuits like freedom, stability, values, identity, and integrity, he illuminates the importance of questing in identity formation. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey 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/394-013_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 Quests of the Human Spirit (I), 1962 Feb 4 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 394-013_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962-02-04 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> Description An account of the resource In his introductory lecture to “Quests for the Human Spirit,” Thurman describes the quest as an act of bringing to focus the purpose of one’s life. Thurman notes that this is a creative work wherein one’s mental resources are organized into the raw materials needed to energize and pursue growth within the human spirit. Choosing between alternatives on the life journey is a matter of mind and heart – resources that drive the quest. Thurman argues that questing is essential to life because it is the quest that actualizes the person who becomes the embodiment of one's striving. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. 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)) Title A name given to the resource Quests of the Human Spirit, Part 1, 1962 February 4 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dr. Tim Rainey actualize choice creative act heart mind quest