1 10 72 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/f687bd39c36f89fc0a14b0167b62edec.pdf 733451a71bd5de23c109aad11e591573 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-793.mp3 This is tape number ET52 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one, entitled, "Response to Life." Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. I'm continuing how thinking together on certain aspects of the 139th Psalm. And today, how precious are thy thoughts unto me oh, god? How precious are thy thoughts? The worth of life abounds in all I see. The kernel of the seed holds in its place a swinging door, through which the boundless energy of living substance flows, forming itself in root and stalk, in branch and fruit. The germ in the egg awaits the fulfilling moment. A gentle tug, a brooding urge, and unhurried push to full creation-- then living form of chick or bird or child. A whisper in the mind like a voice floating in the hills calls to itself kindred thoughts from far off places. Ideas take shape and form, forming within their vital wall their strange insistence. They pull, they push, they drive, command until, at last, they are the master in the house and the whole course of a man's life is channeled into regions he does not know, nor scarcely understand. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, oh, God? The response to goodness, the urge to minister, the quickened willingness to bless, the deep rejection of the evil deed revealed, the pull of the clear thought and the honest desire, an all-embracing tenderness cradling the kindly act, the far flung hope comprising myriad strands of all man's dreaming, the hard rebuff to all that mocks and scorns, the whole surrender of the center of consent to lose life only to find it again. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, oh, God? How great is the sum of them? To be able to think is a miracle. Ideas, invisible things, take their shape in many ways, and many ages, many climbs, and then they land in your mind. And, in your mind, they began to work, grow, develop, until at last, they spill out in acts and deeds. Ideas are very strange things. They come from afar. They are born within. They take possession of the mind and order the body to behave in certain ways. Now, when an idea comes into the mind, it orders all things to be its servant-- if it be a central idea. If it be what is called a hard idea. And, very often, we get these ideas that influence the life in ways that are not deliberate. You may remember in "Faust" when Foust is about to drink the poison potion because he feels that he has exhausted all learning. As he lifts the goblet to his lips, he hears through an open window the songs coming from a chapel hard by. These songs-- or this song, this music is like the music which crept into his mind and spirit when he was a child. He was scarcely aware of the fact that he was exposed to this early music, that it had embedded itself in his mind and spirit, but here it was. And, as soon as he hears the voices singing, a whole flood of memories of earlier experiences-- everything in his past that was related in quality and tone to the insight and the impact of this early music upon him is now activated. And these 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu things stand over against that which is working in his mind causing him to commit suicide. And he drops the goblet and goes on with his life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University How precious, also, are thy thoughts unto me oh, God? What kind of thoughts, what kinds of images are you storing up in your mind? What kind of idea bank do you have? Are they ideas which have to do with the things in life that have irritated you, that have made life difficult-- all the negative experiences that you have had with other human beings-- have you kept a carefully accumulated body of this kind of data so that the things which you store up through the years are all the things that you dislike as you have lived your life? If that is the case, then, it is these things that you have stored up in terms of ideas and images and pictures as you have lived through the years. It is these things that create the inner climate of your life. It is these things that provide the atmosphere through which you look out upon the world. And, if this is the case, then the kind of structuring, ordering of your response to life in general is determined by the quality of these kinds of things which you have accumulated and held fast at the central place in your mind. And this means, you see, that what you think, then, of people-- what you think of situations which you contemplate is not just the result of the particular idea on your mind or the situation on your mind, but it is the quality of all of the atmosphere that has been generated through years of the accumulation of a certain kind of thoughts, a certain body of ideas. Now, if you have made a habit of gathering unto yourself things upon which you may feed with meaning and significance-- great ideas, great and breathless moments of beauty that have been visited upon the human scene through the gifted minds and tongues and pens of poets and dreamers and prophets-- if these are the things upon which you feed, then a climate of that kind is is generated and it is through this kind of climate that you look out upon the world. This is one of the great reasons why, whether a person believes in a daily life of devotion, whether you are a person who believes in prayer as a form of religious experience and expression or not-- if you want to live a full and healthy life so that your outlook will be fresh and full of the distilled wisdom of all the ages, each day of your life you will set aside some moment, some time when you will expose yourself to some of the great images, the great pictures, the great thoughts that have blessed the minds of other men. I will fly in the greatness of God as the Martian flies, filling all the space twixt the marsh and the skies. By so many roots as the marsh grass sends in the sod, behold, I will lay me a hold on the greatness of God. Some such idea as that, and there are many others. Gather unto yourselves those ideas that inspire, that breathe wisdom and tenderness and kindness and love. And these, then, will create in you a climate and an atmosphere through which you will look out upon the world and interpret the things that come into your life from day to day. How precious are thy thoughts unto me, oh, God? Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu This is tape number ET52 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is side two entitled, "Responsibility for Action." Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. Pitts Theology Library Emory University In the morning's mail, I received a Gaelic blessing, which I will share with you before I begin the regular part of the program. May the roads rise with you and the wind be always at your back. And may the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand. This morning, we come to the end of our consideration of the 139th Psalm. We are thinking together about the last stanza. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Judgment seems far removed from act and deed. Trumpets from the past sound warning notes. The day of judgment-- prepare to meet that God. Beyond the gates of modern life, ancient myths couched in dogmas old mold and rot in silent gloom. The end of time-- god on his throne to judge mankind and the man alone stands before the judgment seat. The sky, a canopy above, heavenly hosts, angels, archangels in ceaseless flight bathed forever in eternal light blazing forth from the throne of God-- such is the ancient myth. No man is free to live unmindful of an impending doom-- or so it seems. There is a timeless warning in the far off world. The bitter truth returns in many forms. No deed, no act stands by itself alone. In born and blood and nerve and cell, in all the imagery of mind-- in sound of voice, in wrinkled brow, standing, sitting, waking, sleeping, laughter or tears-- the imprint of thought, the registry of deed remain for all man's days. There is a tight circle in which man moves. Nothing escapes. Soon or late, somewhere some when, the doer and the deed together sit. The ancient myth renews its truth, and the man stands alone before the judgment seat. Try me, oh, God, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me. The idea that life is a pilgrimage in responsibility is an old idea. The notion that to live is to be responsible is a notion that is deeply ingrained in man's experience of life. And yet, there is always the tendency to seek ever devious ways by which one may escape the responsibility for one's own action. This is elemental responsibility. This is primary responsibility. And, in a sense, it is absolute responsibility. I am responsible for my own deeds and, yet, there is something that is so full of awe about the fact that I am always trying to find ways to circumvent the relentless logic of the fact. When I was a boy, I had two sisters-- one was older, one was younger. I was fortunately placed because whenever I was being held accountable for something that I had done, I could always say that I did it because I came to the rescue of my little sister and it really wasn't my fault or responsibility, but hers. Or, I could say that I was acting under the influence of my older sister and, therefore, it was not my responsibility but hers. Always, there is this tendency to shrink from taking responsibility for one's own actions. But it is a mark of maturity, a mark of growth to be willing to do what, in the last analysis, one has no 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu live option except to do-- namely to take responsibility for one's own actions. Now this is a psychological thing. It's a nice phrase to use to describe it, but it is also written in the organism, it is written in the body. The nervous system itself registers the moment by moment encounter of man with the living texture of his experience. Pitts Theology Library Emory University For instance, if you became emotionally disturbed and you went to see a psychiatrist or an analyst, one of the things inherent in the procedures that are used is something which has to do with taking you back very slowly over the whole history of your life. Every single incident as nearly as you are able to sense it is reproduced, because somewhere in the story of your life is the source of the thing which, in the present, is giving you the difficulty or the trouble. This suggests, you see, that in the unfolding of life, in the growing of individuals, everything counts. Nothing walks with aimless feet. As Tennyson places upon the lips of Ulysses-- I am a part of all that I have met, yet all experience is an arch where through gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move. This is a fact of life. And, translated in terms of religious significance, it says that life is a responsibility, and that the living of life is a responsible act. It is a small wonder, then, that a man like Conrad says it was always a serious thing to live and to live life seriously-- to live it responsibly. And this is radically different from taking life seriously. Taking life seriously may result in brooding and all kinds of internal congestions and disorder. But to live life seriously is to be involved at each critical step in the responsibility for what that step initiated in you or what that step set going in the world. Now, there is still another dimension here. Man does not only live his life responsibly. Not only are we responsible for our own actions, but something that is again and again overlooked, and that is that man is responsible for his reactions to life. Now this is different, you see-- the first is a man is responsible for his actions. He must pick up the tab for his action. Or, as the prose poem suggests, there comes a time when the doer and the deed together sit. But there is something more-- man is responsible for his reactions to the experiences and to the events of his life. Now, it is true that again and again, a man may encounter experiences which are not responsive to his will-- however good that will may be. We are always surrounded by forces that seem to be impersonal in character-- forces that mold us and shape us but are not responsive to our will. Forces that do not seem to be quite sensitive enough or capable enough of taking this into account. But, nevertheless, they involve us, they make their impact upon us, and we are responsible for our reactions to the events of our lives. I cannot determine what will befall me. I am a creature of life, I am a creature of my time, I'm a creature of my period. I am involved in processes that do not arise within me and are not responsible to me. But, nevertheless, there is a measure of autonomy that I have-- a margin of integrity. And that is what I shall do with the events of my life-- how I shall react to the raw materials of my experience. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And, as I react to them, this reaction goes into the making of my life. Search me, oh, God, says the Psalmist, 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 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. 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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-793.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Response to Life; Responsibility for Action (ET-52; GC 12-2-71), 1971 Dec 2 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-793 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource "How Precious Are Thy Thoughts..." (1961-01-13); Try Me and Know My Thoughts (1961-03-17) 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-01-13 1961-03-17 Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reflects upon the line "How precious are thy thoughts, O God," found within Psalm 139. Thurman uses this verse in order to poetically wax the miracle that is having a mind. In this recording, Thurman suggests that because the mind orders the body, that it is significant to discern what the mind of God consists of. It is in the discerning of God's mind that one finds the content of devotional posturing: wisdom, tenderness, and love. In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from a Gaelic Blessing, and the concluding stanza in Psalm 139, attempting to make sense of the content of a faithful human existence. He uses these reflections in order to emphasize his understanding of the interrelatedness of life, and the ways in which action and reaction are essential to both human flourishing and human suffering. Here, Thurman places great emphasis on responsibility, indicating that to live a life is to participate in a responsible act. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dustin Mailman action birth Conrad ecology egg experience fact of life Faust freedom germ imagination interconnectivity Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe judgement memory mind myth new life Psalm 139 psychiatrist reaction responsibility salvation Tennyson Ulysses wind https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/5d00eaa327fde950241ccf0eed1945d0.pdf 598f06775d623b1f24b59d9bf01d738a PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-186_B.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] And continuing our theme on love, I'm reading first a paragraph from Deep is the Hunger. "A little act of kindness at a moment of great need makes all the difference between sunshine and shadows. A smile at the right moment to make an intolerable burden lighter. Just a note bearing a message of simple interest, or concern, or affection may give to another the radically needed assurance. A simple thank you has softened many a hard situation or punctured the crust of many a hard-boiled person. There is always a place for the graceful gesture, the thoughtful remark, the sensitive response. It is what may be called living flexibly. There is often confusion between formality and ungraciousness, or informality and graciousness. One may be gracious without fawning and affectation. There is no greater compliment to be given than to say, you are very kind. To know you is to make life itself a more satisfying experience. This means that such a person has learned, or developed, or been born with the fine art of gracious living. It is the antidote to much of the crudeness and coarseness of modern life. The derogatory names that we use to tag other peoples, the supercilious flippancy used as the common coin of daily intercourse, all these things reflect a carelessness in living that hurts and bruises, often where there is no intent to hurt and no intent to bruise." And then one translation from 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians-- "The love of which I speak is slow to lose patience. It looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive. It is neither anxious to impress, nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. Love is not touchy. It does not compile statistics of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad that all good men, when truth prevails. Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to it trust, no fading of its hope. Love can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen." The working definition that we are using is that love is the experience of being dealt with at a point in one's self that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. To love is to deal with another person at a point in that person that is beyond all the good and all the evil. There are two elements that I would emphasize today. One is a very simple thing-- the place for trust, the need for trust, the need that each of us has not only for trusting ourselves, but for trusting other people. This is the foundation stone upon which all of the relationships, the creative relationships between human beings, can be built. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu If I may illustrate in a very simple way, some years ago, we had a dog whose name was [? Kropotkin. ?] He was a boxer. He was rather slow to learn the simple things about controlling himself on the street. Often I would take him for a walk down Bay State Road and across to the river. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And finally, it was decided that the dog needed to go to school. So we arranged for him to go to a certain dog institute, or a kennel, or whatever you call it. And then we carried [? Kropotkin ?] there. The owner of the kennel said, why do you bring this dog here? And I said, I wanted him to learn how to heel, and how to come when he's called, and how to recognize his name under pressure. He said, I think it's very important then that I tell you what my philosophy is. For 16 years, I have been working with dogs. And I these years have given myself an inner attitude towards all dogs so that anytime I see a dog, he is at once taken into a climate of understanding and acceptance. But my experience is, it takes me two weeks to teach the dog to trust me. If I cannot teach him to trust me, then I cannot teach him anything else. But if I can teach him to trust me, I can take the most indrawn, and the tamest kind of dog and in six additional weeks, develop him into a vicious attack dog. But I must teach the dog to trust me because it is this trust that lays the foundation for all of the meaningful relationships that would exist between me and the dog in the future. Now, this is a very simple illustration of what I mean in our relationships with each other. If there is no trust, no simple confidence that informs the will and gives meaning to the intent and the desire then there can be no creative friendly relationships existing between one human being and the other. The phrase then is the necessity for trust, just simple confidence moving from oneself out to another which becomes the basis for the constructive relationship. Now, there's a second thing that should be emphasized this morning. We need each other. And we need each other in a way that is so very specific and concrete. And this is due, I think, to the fact that the human spirit cannot abide, cannot stand a sense of isolation, a sense of being cut off. We must have free and relatively easy access to each other so that we will not feel that in the living of our own lives, we are isolated, we are stranded, we are cut off. Now, this is very important. We see it in certain kinds of disturbed mental situations with people. Here is a person who feels that, for reasons that are based on past experiences, that he or she has been rejected. And more and more, the person withdraws from life and gets out of contact with people and with reality, as they say, technically. But what happens to such a person? Over and over again, this is the experience. When the isolation from others seems to be absolute and the individual is so trapped that he cannot break over or through the barrier to relate himself effectively and creatively to other human beings, then the psyche deep within the person who has withdrawn begins to work. And how does it work? Trying to redeem the situation. The individual begins to hear voices. And what is this? It is another way by which the spirit says that even though I am cut off from all other contacts, yet, because this sense of isolation is something that cannot be abided by the human spirit, then voices are generated so that the individual will have a sense of being in touch with something other than itself. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, this is why forgiveness is so important. Any relationship that exists between two human beings, a relationship which, once upon a time, provided free and easy access to each other, when some deed has done, when some overt act is perpetrated so that a wall arises and these individuals are isolated from each other, this is what we mean by the unforgiveness. Now, forgiveness obtains when the individual is able to get beyond the thing that blocks and that makes for isolation so the community can be re-established. In Bojer's Great Hunger, he talks about a man whose daughter had been killed by a rather vicious dog. And the neighbors decided that they would not give this man any grain with which to plant his field so that he and his wife could starve to death during the long winter night. This took place way up in the northern part of Europe. But the hero of Bojer's story could not sleep during the night. He said, it's too bad that this man will not have any grain with which to plant his field. I cannot stand to have him starve. So he dressed, found some grain and put it in a basket, climbed his enemy's fence, sowed his enemy's field with grain. And then he looked up. Behold, his wife was standing by his side. He didn't notice. And she said, what are you doing here? Why are you planting your enemy's field with grain? And he said, I am planting my enemy's field with grain that between me and him God might exist. For if there is any relationship between you and the human being that spells isolation so that you do not have a sense of access to the other person, then between you and that person, God does not exist. And to love means you deal with another at the point in the other that is beyond all good and all evil. And to be loved is the sense of being dealt with at a point in oneself that is beyond all good and beyond all evil. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] 3 � 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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-186_B.html" ></iframe> Internal Notes Notes for project team Edit: Kropotkin - GL 5/22/19 Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Canal, Reservoir, Swamp? May 2, 1958 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-186_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource "My Need — Your Need" (1958-03-14) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-03-14 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> 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. Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reads from his text, Deep is the Hunger, speaking to his understanding of love. He defines love as "the experience of being dealt with at a point in one's self that is beyond all good and evil." Embedded in this definition are notions of trust and forgiveness. He indicates that love is the antithesis of isolation, with isolation being the very essence of having a lack of access to another person. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dustin Mailman 1 Corinthians Bay State Road community deep is the hunger dog experience forgiveness Great Hunger Isolation Johan Bojer kindness Kropotkin love relationship trust withdraw https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/cabbe20a68eb450506dd430404fff71d.pdf 7be2a1e95758eb74f7c09c848e71e5ef PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-768.mp3 This is tape number ET6 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one entitled "The Crucifixion." Pitts Theology Library Emory University [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] Practically all over the world today, there are groups large and small observing Good Friday. I want to read two paragraphs from the hand of God by McCall, and make one or two comments about the significance of this day in terms of the personal experience of Jesus of Nazareth. "And you said hanging there, man is a fearful contradiction against himself. I should rather be here with my faith in Him than elsewhere sharing His unbelief. By this fidelity to the God in me, man may yet hear me calling to God in Him. God is everything to man, everything. To the measure that he does not know it he has nothing. And then the silence came down again. Sitting there, I watched you a little while longer, Galilean. Then I said, you dreamed a dream that was resented. And rather than betray it, you bore right onward and received the shock of man's resentment in yourself. You are killed by men's sin. And as I said that, I noticed how a leafless shrub, growing gaunt from the stones shuddered in the bleak wind that of a sudden moaned and passed. I rose up and I walked over to you. And I said Galilean, God wins when men believe in Him and in man like this. This is God's victory. This is how God is mediated into the world. This is how the sin of the world will be taken away. But how much of himself should a man give? How much of himself should a man give? You did not answer me. And in the awful stillness, I saw your head was sunken on your breast. There was no more for you to give." There are many significant and far reaching interpretations, theological and philosophical in character, that are given to the meaning of the crucifixion of Jesus, the cross, and the whole drama of Christianity as it confronts the human spirit. But the comments that I would make to you are very simple and very human comments. The first is that we see in the crucifixion of Jesus the logic of the kind of life he had lived. Step by relentless step, following the full orbed implications of the religious experience which he had following the fall orbed implication of his commitment to his father and to the Kingdom of God, he landed outside the city wall between two fields. The event of his death cannot be separated from the logic of his life. It is of one piece, following the sort of life that he followed, 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu given his kind of life. It was, but a consistent part of the logic of that life that he would run counter to the forces that stood for the things against which he stood with his life. So that the cross the crucifixion belongs to the pedestrian movement of the life of the master. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The second thing it is interesting and significant to me personally, in the whole experience is that here it seems that he made one of the profound discoveries of the human spirit. And that is that death is not the worst thing in the world. There are some things in life that are worse than death. As soon as a man is brought to the point that he places the highest possible premium upon his own physical existence, he is for sale. Dictators know this. Why is it that they surround the climate in which their people live with an atmosphere which says that your physical existence is a great moment? It is after all, a transcendent moment. It is the most important thing so that you must guard your physical existence with all of the resources of your personality. Now once this is settled in the mind so that death becomes the monster, then all men need to do who wish to control you is to threaten to kill you. If they threaten to take your physical life, and you have placed a transcendent premium upon your physical life, then anyone who is able to bring an end to your physical life, you will give to that person any hostage, principles, character, morality, values, everything. But if on the other hand, a man recognizes that death is an experience in life, it is not something that happens too life, then this means you see, that death is one of the events in life. It is episodic in character. It is eventful in character. And then as much then as it is the common experience of man, that no event is ever able to contain all that you mean by your deed, all that you mean by your life. There is no experience that you ever had that is quite able to contain all of you. Some margin of you is leftover so that with reference to all experience, you are both a participant in the experience and an observer of yourself as a participant. Participant, observer-- this is how we deal with the raw materials of our experience. Now if death then is one of the events in life, if it is one of the experiences of life, then why should man's encounter with death be other than his encounter with any other experience which is eventful and experiential in life? It is for this reason I think that many times men can be aware of the fact that they are dying right up to the end, because the observer dimension of their personality is aware of the participant aspect of their life. Now Jesus discovered this so that when he had to face the hard choice of going straight through to the fulfillment of the will of God in his life and heart and mind and spirit, death became a little thing. This is not to suggest that he did not want to live, no, no. But it is to say that given the commitment of his life, rather than to betray it, rather than to lose the grounds of his integrity so that with reference to the quality of his own living, he would not have an attitude that was negative and meaningless. He died. Some things in life that are worse than death, this is the second thing. Now the third and final comment that I wish to make is this, that very often, it is in the midst of the suffering and the midst of the pain, and in the midst of the tragedy, in the midst of that which is so excruciatingly devastating in the impact upon the lives that it seems as if there is no release or [INAUDIBLE] from the relentless pressure. In the midst of such circumstances, the human 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu spirit has a wonderful dimension. It is able to deal with the pain of life with the tragic consequence of life, with all of the misery and the pathos and the ache of life with creativity. Now what do I mean? Simply this, that the pain of life, the peace, that passes understanding very often is the peace that comes when the pain of life is not relieved. [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University It is the peace that comes shimmering on the crest of a wave of pain. It is the spear of frustration transformed into a shaft of light. This is his discovery. And I speak with great reverence because of it. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight or Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is tape number ET6 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust this is side two entitled Good Friday. [MUSIC PLAYING] Now the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] There is still something to me almost incredible in the idea of a young Galilean peasant. Imagining that he could bear on his own shoulders the burden of the entire world, all that had already been done, and suffered and all that was yet to be done and suffered, the sins of Nero, of Alexander VI, and of him who was Emperor of Rome and priest of the sun, the sufferings of those whose names are legion, and whose dwelling is among the tombs, oppressed nationalities, factory children, thieves, people in prison, outcasts, those who are dumb under oppression and whose silence is heard only of God. And not merely imagining this, but actually achieving it, so that at the present moment all who come in contact with his personality, even though they may neither bowed to his altar or kneel before his priest, in some way find that the ugliness of their sin is taken away and the beauty of their sorrow revealed to them. These are the words of Oscar Wilde from Dr. Fundus. And then these words from a British poet. They are words that are placed upon the lips of the brothers of Jesus. Going from Nazareth, where? To the Jordan Valley. Leaving your home and your trade, your own kinfolk. For what? For an unwashed preacher, a ranting hermit who sacrificed family and wealth, and a seat in the priesthood for locusts and prophecies. Why? You are mad, insane, selling your life for a whim, for a religious frenzy. Yes, you're mad. Will you share his faith and his filth? Outcasts like him, rejected by brother and friend? A life of 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu rebellion hunger, a shameful death? If the thought of that leaves you unmoved, then remember us, your brothers and sisters, the mother who gave you birth. See her there standing in tears forsaken, bewildered, left by her first born, you the head of the household. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Think of her neighbors looks, the humiliation, her fears and her griefs. What? What do you say? Whoever obeys the will of my father in heaven is my brother, my sister, my mother. By the God of Israel, would you preach at us? Your ministry start at home? Better recall if you can, your father in Nazareth. Your pledge to him, your promise of filial care. You shall honor your father and mother. Remember that when you mouthed your texts. Remember that and carry forever the shame of your father's children. It is no accident of human history that Good Friday or Holy Week, as it is known in the Christian faith and tradition, must forever be a part of the mood and the time interval of Passover. For it must always be remembered that whatever may have become the great and transcending meaning of the life and the teachings and the whole integrated fullness of the life of Jesus of Nazareth as he lived and functioned in the world of time and space on this planet, he was a Jew, and therefore, Christianity is is rooted and grounded in this basic monotheistic approach to the meaning of life and the meaning of existence, the meaning of grace, and the meaning of redemption. Today is Good Friday. And always on this day I am reminded not merely of the drama of this occasion, the death, the crucifixion, all the extended agony of that timeless interval, but also I am reminded of the life of which this crucifixion was a part. The crucifixion was the logic of the life that the master lived. There are two or three very simple things which seem to me we might gather for our own meditation and reflection as we contemplate the events of this day. And the first to which I would call your attention is the tremendous discovery of which it seems to me he made. And the discovery which he manifested in the manner by which he entered into the encounter with death. And that discovery is an ancient one. But it stands in his experience and in a strange and wonderfully magnificent light. And what is that discovery? The discovery is that death is not the worst thing in the world. I repeat that. That death is not the worst thing in the world. That there are some things in life that are worse than death. This idea that to live and to regard living as the extension of the time interval of a man's existence, and to live without dignity, without integrity, without any deep sense of the integrity of the self, to accept life on any terms that life may offer. And to say yes to whatever life hands one. This is what I'm talking about. The discovery that death is not after all the worst thing in the world, that there comes a time-there may come a time in a man's life when he must cast his vote either to live with the dignity and the strength and the character and the insight of a man with convictions, with a sense of the dignity of his life, or to die. And when this choice is before one, then one may reflect upon the meaning of the events of this day. The tremendously universal disclosure that a man's physical 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu life does not represent that upon which he should place the highest premium, the integrity of his spirit, the integrity of his soul, the meaning of his route. Pitts Theology Library Emory University This is the thing that abides. Now the second rather significant discovery that is made here belongs to the whole panorama of man's dealing with frustration and pain and suffering. And there are two aspects to this insight. And the first aspect is that whatever may be the contradictions of life, of your life or my life, at any particular moment in time, these contradictions must not be regarded as final, as ultimate things, that there is no absolute and thoroughgoing dichotomy between the things that we regard as working against life and the things that we regard as working for life, that life is contained in a vast creative continuum. And the conflict between the contradictions of life is of necessity, a limited and a temporary one. And the second thing that follows is that there is a dimension of the human spirit that is capable of absorbing all of the violences of existence. One of the earlier men wrote about it in this way. He talks about the difference between the peace that one can understand and the peace that passes understanding. He says in substance that if a man is hungry and gets food to eat or is alone then finds a friend, he can understand the sense of physical well-being that comes over him. This is a peace that makes sense. It belongs to a rational pattern. But the peace that passes understanding is the peace that comes when the pain of life is not relieved. It is the peace that comes shimmering on the crest of a wave of pain. It is the spear of frustration transformed into a shaft of light. Here the master discovers the peace that transcends the pain and conflict, because that which spoke to his condition and which he reflected, is something that is as eternal as God. It is his discovery. And it may be yours and mine. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and thy sight oh Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. [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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-768.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette The Crucifixion; Good Friday (ET-6; GC 11-16-71), 1971 Nov 16 Internal Notes Notes for project team In the first meditation, where it says "Inaudible," the word that Thurman uses is "surcease." In the second meditation, the name of the Oscar Wilde reading that Thurman presents is "De Profundis." Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s 1950s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-768 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource "The Crucifixion" (1959-03-27); Good Friday (1964-03-27) 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959-03-27 1964-03-27 Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman uses Oswald W.S. McCall's "Hand of God" to reflect upon Good Friday. Thurman utilizes a historical interpretation to makes sense of the life and death of Jesus, stating that "the event of his death cannot be separated from the logic of his life." In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman uses Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis" to make sense of Good Friday. He again dwells upon the historical Jesus, the implications that following Jesus would have upon one who was living in the first century, and the significance of Jesus' death. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dustin Mailman agony crucifixion De Profundis death experience God Good Friday Hand of God historical Jesus holiday Holy Week human spirit interpretation Jesus Jesus of Nazareth Jordan Valley legion logic oppression Oscar Wilde Oswald W.S. McCall participation Passover personality reverence sovereignty suffering theodicy transcendence https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/fcf44da8a6dbe0725da31d9f98f7d625.pdf d49c17fc6f670089e3babc564b0f817a PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-810.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. For as much time as I have this morning, I want to read two things which have to do with the celebration of Christmas day. The first is a clipping which comes from McCall's magazine. It appeared as the Christmas editorial in that magazine last year written by the editors. Could you spare five minutes of Christmas? Now Christmas comes, solstice in the long year, a chiming of fleet hours. The verdant wreath adorns the snowy door of winter. And the evergreen bears unaccustomed fruit. It is the day of days. For 24 blessed and embellished hours, the flood gates of affection and generosity are opened and the thoughts of men turn kind. For 24 hours, some special [? denizen ?] descends on fellow hearts. For eyes that will see, the sometimes gloomy landscape of the material world makes way for far horizons of the spirit where all things are possible. For ears that will hear, there are voices that speak with the tongue of angels. Of all the gifts of Christmas, the gift of the very day, 1,440 minutes, is at once the most precious and the most common. It is a gift bestowed on all, young and old, high and low, just and unjust, wise and foolish, ill and well. And the use we make of it may enrich us beyond the dreams of avarice or render us poorer, indeed. Could you spare five minutes of Christmas to embrace its honest meaning? Could you spare five minutes to give a soft answer, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would be done by? Could you spare five minutes to protect the weak, defend the persecuted, comfort those who mourn, and love your neighbor as yourself? Could you spare five minutes to feed the hungry, invite the stranger, cherish the child? Could you spare five minutes to tender mercy, give without hope of receiving, and forgive those who know not what they do? Could you spare five minutes to cast out fear, choose between good and evil, and let your light shine? Could you spare five minutes from 1,440 to take the glibness out of peace on Earth, goodwill to men? So now Christmas comes, and with it, again, the age-old opportunity to begin anew, to reach at least slightly beyond , the confining boundaries of self to emerge from concerns determined by greed and prejudice, to depart the cheerless abode of cynicism and disdain, to cease the aimless drifting towards paths of Eve. Could you spare five minutes to care? Whatever disillusion and confusion beset our life, it is ineradicably written that the future belongs to the pure at heart. Five minutes, five minutes, five priceless quickly passing minutes could change the world. Heartily we wish you these five minutes and a merry Christmas. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And now this of my own-- Christmas is a season of intense and feverish activity. The activity begins days, weeks, even months before. This activity is not merely limited to those in merchandising and advertising, but it involves all who have services to sell or to give away. Pitts Theology Library Emory University We are prepared to go all out in what we call the Christmas spirit, making the extra contribution to our favorite charity, putting the extra dollar in the Christmas envelope if we go to a church, giving some money for the Christmas dinner put on by the Salvation Army, getting our old toys or old clothes so that they may be shared with the skinned and cast down. Christmas is a season of intense and feverish activity. The contagion of the season extends in other ways more personal and intimate. We are reminded of unanswered letters, for instance, and unacknowledged courtesies that have accumulated through the year. Christmas is the time to say thank you and to make the gracious gesture. Whatever it may be the prevailing quality or character of our relationships, something special must be done during the Christmas season to highlight a more favorable and generous side of our lives. Such activity takes on the characteristics of an inventory of our personal relationships. And this is good. There is a strange irony in the fact that Christmas has become identified with mass production, exploitation for profit, profit for profit, crowds, hurry, whipped-up emotions, and collective hysteria. These are followed by exhaustion, physical and spiritual weariness, more drives on goods, bargain counters, and bills, bills, bills. All of these things are far removed from the simple setting that means for millions in our world the moment of truth for the world. Now, what was the setting? Of course, according to the traditional story, there was the announcement of the angels. There must be always remaining in every man's life some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which is breathlessly beautiful, and by an inherent prerogative, throwing all the rest of life into new and creative relatedness, something that gathers up in itself all the freshness of experience, from drab and commonplace areas of living, and places, and one bright light, a penetrating beauty and meaning, then passes. The commonplace now is shot through with new glory. Old burdens become lighter. Deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads, that for the rest of our lives, we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all the coarseness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels. May this Christmas season, then, this Christmas day be for each of you, a time when you may gather together in some moment of creative focus and meaning, something that is precious to you. And hold it, and finger , it and lay it alongside your heart, that it's pulse beat may be your pulse beat. And then some of the kindness, and the joy, and the magic that is to be found in the pure in heart as they share this will come to you. And yours will be a good day, a unique day, a wonderful day, whether you bow your knee before an altar or not. [MUSIC PLAYING] 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord my strength and my redeemer. 3 � 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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-810.html" ></iframe> Internal Notes Notes for project team Edited - GL 7/29 Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Salutation to Christmas (WB-1B), 1961 Dec 22 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-810 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource A Salutation to Christmas (1961-12-22) 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-12-22 Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe Series, Howard Thurman reads two reflections on the Christmas season. The first is from "McCall's Magazine," and reflects upon the implications Christmas day has in relation to the Christian life. Though Christmas day is filled with generosity and affection, Thurman asks the question if those celebrating Christmas could take five minutes to protect the weak, feed the hungry, love thy neighbor, etc. The second excerpt is written by Thurman, himself. In it, Thurman works with the tension between gratitude and critique during the Christmas season. He asks the question of how one can both show gratitude while also resisting materialism and hyper-industrialism. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman angels Christmas contagion creativity crown ethics gifts Golden Rule holidays Jesus ethic materialism potential Relatedness values https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/5478ee2f2a229df176cfdc3a1e97c103.pdf c7b31f56eaef923b43dd616591a58979 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-171_A.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, lord, my strength, and my redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] Because this is the season of Thanksgiving, I want to stray from the theme on which we have been working during these Friday mornings and read a litany of Thanksgiving and make a few comments about the meaning of that kind of experience in human life. Today I make my sacrament of Thanksgiving. I begin with the simple things of my days-- fresh air to breathe, cool water to drink, the taste of food, the protection of houses and clothes, the comforts of home. For all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day. I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known-- my mother's arms, the strength of my father, the playmates of my childhood, the wonderful stories brought to me from the lives of many who talked of days gone by when pharaohs and giants and all kinds of magic held sway, the tears I have shed, the tears I have seen, the excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the eye with its reminder that life is good. For all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day. I finger one by one the messages of hope that awaited me at the crossroads-- the smile of approval from those who held in their hands the reins of my security, the tightening of the grip in a simple shake when I feared the step before me in the darkness, the whisper in my heart when the temptation was fiercest and the claims of appetite were not to be denied, the crucial word said, the simple sentence from an open page when my decision hung in the balance. For all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day. I passed before me the mainsprings of my heritage, the fruits of the labels of countless generations who lived before me without whom my own life would have no meaning, the seers who saw visions and dreamed dreams, the prophets who sensed truth greater than the mind could grasp and whose words would only find fulfillment in the years which they would never see, the workers whose sweat has watered the trees, the leaves of which I for the healing of the nations, the pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons, whose courage made powers into new worlds and far off places, the saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness that only a dream could inspire and a god could command. For all this, I make an active Thanksgiving this day. I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment to which I give the loyalty of my heart and mind-- the literal purposes in which I have shared with my loves and my desires and my gifts, the restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence that I have never done my best-- I have never dared to reach for the highest-- the big hope that never quite deserts me that I and my kind will study war or more, that love and tenderness and all the inner graces of all my affection will cover the light of the children of God as the waters cover of the sea. All these and more than mind can think and the heart can feel, I make as my sacrament of Thanksgiving to thee, our father in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Are you a grateful person? Think about it a little. There are so many things in your own life. As hard as your life may seem to you to be, as rough as the going may be as the saying says, nevertheless, if you examine your life very carefully, you will discover that there are many, many things for which you should be grateful but things perhaps which you take for granted-- the food that you eat. Pitts Theology Library Emory University For instance, suppose you had a strip of bacon for breakfast this morning. Once upon a time, the hog from which that bacon came was a living, breathing animal enjoying his life at the level of his hogness, grunting his way into fulfillment in simple ways. And then without any announcement from anyone, without any wish or will or desire on his part, assuming that he's capable of having all of these things, he was summoned to a place at which he was slaughtered. And because of his dying and his processing, you were able to have a slice of bacon this morning. Now this suggests something which may seem to you to be rather crude. But it is this, that all of the life that has died in order that your life may be guaranteed places upon you a very searching demand that suggests to me that your life or my life are not ours to do with as we please. Our life in the first instance belongs to all the life that has been consumed by us through all the years of our living. So it is literally true that I do not have the right to do with my life as I please because there is a very striking sense in which my life has to be an atonement for all the life that has been yielded in order that my life might continue to be. So that if I am a courteous human being, if I am a gentle human being, even though I may not regard myself as a religious human being, when I sit to eat as an act of courtesy as an act of silent appreciation and gratitude to all the life that has died that my dinner might be mine, I should bow my head in a silent if not spoken contribute of gratitude for the life that is no longer itself because of me. Now, of course, if I am a religious person, I will do more than this. I would express my gratitude to God for all of the ways by which my life is sustained in the little and simple graces of life like fresh air to breathe and cool water to drink and the miracle of my body. All of these things I would express my-- through all of these things, I would express my gratitude to God. But be I religious or irreligious, if I am a gentle human being, I will pause and give a quiet thank you to life for sustaining me. Now there's another level at which this works it seems to me. I was cared for as a baby. You will care for a baby and as a child at a time when you were unable to care for yourself. This mean that for a long period of your life, you were sustained and cradled, nourished, guarded, tutored all by someone or some ones who had to do this by an act of will and desire on their part. This means that deliberately other people's lives have entered into the sustaining and the tutoring and the guaranteeing of your own life. Now this means that for many of us, we were so protected that as children, we were not forced to deal with our environment as if we were adults. This means that somebody built a wind break between us and the adult pressures of life so that we were able behind that wind break to let our little bodies grow, to let our nervous systems become centered and focused and tracked as it were so that as we grew older it would be possible for us to deal with our environment as adults. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now if we are-- were not protected in this way, if no one stood between us and the adult pressures of life and we were forced to deal with our environment as if we were adults, it means that our whole nervous system became enraged and angry, and this perhaps is one of the reasons why we speak of delinquents in terms that we do when we refer to certain kinds of youth. To know that your life is nurtured in God and to experience this every day and to acknowledge it, this is the mood and the meaning and the substance of Thanksgiving. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, lord, my strength, and my redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] 3 � 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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-171_A.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Thanksgiving Meditation, 1958 Nov 14 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-171_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource A Thanksgiving Meditation (1958-11-14) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-11-14 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> 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. Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reflects upon the Thanksgiving season. He lists a litany of feelings, emotions, materials, and states of being that he is thankful for: air to breath, food to eat, shelter, love, etc. He then discerns the way in which humanity may overlook many of the things that humanity should be grateful for: the ability to have food, all that dies in order for us to live, etc. He then concludes this meditation by discerning the ways in which one could understand their own gratitude for God: God's care, God's protection, etc. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman ancestors care crossroad darkness examine gratitude holidays litany love magic nostalgia temptation thanksgiving https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/33ed6cd120f54c272607406839df6a36.pdf a34e101111a25546f6d7bc6fc890b33d PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-813.mp3 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. Pitts Theology Library Emory University A friend of mine from England sent me something that I want to share. It is a poem, and it is written in the first person as if it came from the mind of Philip in the New Testament. And it is based upon an incident in the sixth chapter of Mark. When we returned and told him all we had done, I, for one, was emptied out like a husk that has scattered its seed upon hard ground. We had not had time even to eat-- always the open hand, always the blind eyes, always the deaf ears, always the wound to be healed. My thoughts were like wild birds beating the bars of the cage for empty skies. Even now, the smell of the people clung to my hair and clothes-- oil and musk and sandalwood, it hung in my hair. Their voices went on and on in my head-- monotonous wails wearing my mind away. Rock is worn by the waves to sand. I wanted to shut my mind that my thoughts close on my peace. I wanted to close the peace of my love in my heart like dew on a dark rose. But he told us to rest. We went in a small ship-- the wind and water moving in her. She lives in their sweetness of life-a bride, her sail a white wing, unmoving, moves with the tide. She lay to the wind, and we gave our hearts with a sigh to the breath of the spirit of love. But, when we came to the shore, the people were there. They had found us out-- always the open hand, always the blind eyes, always the deaf ears, always the wounds to be healed. They were there everywhere-- insects there in the sun when someone has lifted a stone. I knew they would drain him and ring him out-- ring him out to the last drop of the fountain water of life. I was sick of it all with a dry husk for a heart. But, he saw the flocks wanting shepherd and fold. Pity in him rose a clear spring for the world's thirst, and love was a pasture land. So, it went all day-- always the open hand, always the dull mind, always the slow heart, always the nameless fears, and self-pity-- self-pity and tears until the sun went up in the blaze of the day's heat. And with red wine burning through thin gold, it was lowered slowly onto the altar stone of a darkening world, where the sheep were in fold. We thought, now it is night, he will send them away. They are always late, we said, this is a desert please. Send them away, Lord, to buy food and be fed. But he, you give them to eat. The grass in that place shown exceedingly green-- I remember, because when the brain is dust, the cool greenness of grass is absurdly sweet. Then, let us go with what money we have and buy them bread. Bid them sit down on the grass and give them to eat, the Lord said. Matthew, and Mark, and Luke have written these things. They tell of the boy who brought us two little fish and some loaves of bread. The boy was one of the crowd. He went as he came. As long as a world lasts, the world will remember him, but no one will know his name. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu They sat down on the grass. My heart contracted. My mind was withered up. But Christ poured out his tenderness like wine poured out into a lifted cup-- always the open hands, always the blind eyes, always the mouth to be fed. And I, for one, was emptied out like a husk that had scattered its seed upon hard ground. Pitts Theology Library Emory University But, he saw the flocks wanting shepherd and fold. Pity in him a rose and a clear spring, for the world's thirst and love was a pasture land. The Lord blessed the bread. He put it into our hands, and it multiplied-- not in his hands but in mine. Even now remembering this, my thoughts shocked like a folding wing. My mind is a blank sheet of light in the mystery of the thing. I gave and my hands were full again and again and again. Pity in him fell on my dried dust. It was summer rain, and the husk of my heart expanded and filled again-- and was large with grain. For me, the miracle was this-that a clear stream of large love-- not mine-- flowed out of my soul-- a shining wave over my fellow man. These things I have told you happened a long while since. Our cherished Lord is dead-- he was crucified. Now, as then, we go about in the crowd telling his love and how he rose from the dead. And, risen in us, he lives in the least of men. But, I think nobody understands until I touch their wounds and they know the healing of his hands. On the night of the pass, before he died, he blessed the bread and put in to our hands to increase and be multiplied to the end of time. Now, if I turned my face away from the marketplace, I should be haunted-- hearing the rustle of heat in the darkness, striving, pushing up to the light. I should hear his words falling like slow tears in the supper room when he prayed that all may be one-- the father and son, even as they are one-- falling like slow tears over the sown fields. And I should see the world like a young field of wheat growing up for the grain, watered by his tears-- always the open hands, always the blind eyes, always the slow mind, always the deaf ears, and always Christ our Lord crowned with the following thorn and ring the spears. I know now that I never see the predator's feet in the dust where the son of man trod-- that in every man forever, I meet the Son of God. It is a slow truth-- a forbearing truth-- that human need is infinite. And, if a man devotes all of his time, all of the distilled essence of his wisdom and all of the manifold complex of his resources to the meeting of human need and devotes himself exclusively to it, every hour of every day of every year for 1,000 years without eating or sleeping or resting-- at the end of the 1,000 years, human need would still be infinite. Therefore, the wise man learns that since he cannot make a quantitative impression on infinity, he can make a qualitative impression on infinity. So, he puts at the disposal of human need the best that he can give, knowing that when he does this, the great god of life pours through this opening and multiplies his energies and his gifts. Always the open hand, always a teary eye. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. 2 � 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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-813.html" ></iframe> Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-813 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Always the Open Hand (1964-02-21) 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-02-21 Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reads a poem sent to him from a friend. This poem speaks from the perspective of Phillip, one of Jesus' disciples. The content of this poem wrestles with the demands of the people upon Jesus, and Jesus' willingness to pour himself out to benefit those who are in need. In the author's engagement with Jesus' life, work, death, and resurrection, we are asked to ponder the human quest of making sense of God's open, relational, and creative nature. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman christology communion disciples Feeding of the Five Thousand healing Incarnation Jesus kenosis Last Supper miracles Phillip poem Spirit of Love https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/8acbe81e4411467b3b2ba2de31e02bde.pdf ae37bca0eda89c75a665dc9946d0f787 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-798.mp3 This is tape number ET66 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Balm in Gilead, Part 1. Pitts Theology Library Emory University [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] As a tribute to a very great world religious leader, Pope Pius the XII, who has passed, I am reading at the beginning of my period, the 23rd Psalm. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me and the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Continuing our thinking together about Satan of the basic and fundamental insights of the ancient songs, I'm thinking this morning about the spiritual, there is a balm in Gilead to make the spirit whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. The reference is taken from a text in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah had reached a very hard place in his life, a place that may be regarded as the Dead Sea place in his life. The national life was corrupt. And there were many, many aspects of it that were disillusioning. His private life, apparently, was increasingly bankrupt. He could not find the key to the solution of his private enterprise as a part of his overall commitment to Jehovah. And he raises a question, is there a balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? It is not a question that is addressed to anyone in particular. It is a question that the total predicament of Jeremiah raises about the meaning of life, and his part in that meaning. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? There must be a balm in Gilead. There must be a physician there. This is really what the prophet is saying. Now, the early singers did a rather extraordinary thing with this song. What is a question in the book of Jeremiah becomes an exclamation point and a word and note and utterance of triumph, they said. There is a balm in Gilead. This is a very interesting and significant interpretation of the meaning of optimism in a world in which the relentless pressures of life, by which the individuals were surrounded, would indicate that pessimism is the only rational answer to the human predicament. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University There are many times when the tragic fact of life would indicate that any note of optimism is unrealistic, unless-- unless-- the note of optimism is distilled out of the raw materials, out of the stuff of pessimism itself. It is suggested then, here, that one of the sound grounds for optimism, even in the midst of the most pessimistic experiences, or pessimistic moments, or pessimistic predicaments to which the individual would be exposed, is that life is its own restraint-- that there is a quality, what I may even call a built-in quality in life that contains, within itself, a very searching kind of logic. The logic is that life is its own restraint. And because life is its own restraint, life itself is bound in its inward parts by a relentless logic, by what may be called the swinging of the pendulum between antecedent and consequence, between reaping and sowing. There is an underground pulse beat that is rhythmic in character, that always insists that all who are involved in the context of life-- all who are living, forever may be the nature of their pretentions or predicaments-- ideas, concepts, experiences, or philosophy, or faiths-- all are bound by what may be called the operation of moral law. This is the fact that men do reap what they sow. This is another way of stating the fact that life is its own restraint. Now there is something very disturbing and yet very inspiring about this idea, this notion, this aspect of experience. For it says that there is no way by which the individual can juggle life at the point that he lives it, so as to defeat his involvement in the logic of the moral law. Now, sometimes, individuals feel that they are so strong, they are so secure, they are so welleducated, or they are so powerful in times that are economic, or political, or what have you-- that they, themselves, are not involved in the kind of logic about which I am talking and thinking. You may very easily feel that there is something so utterly unique about you and about your own life, that what involves other people who may not be as fortunate as you are, or as privileged as you are, what involves them does not touch you at all-- that life somehow stacks itself on your side because of some particular or special advantage or privilege, which incidentally, may be yours at a particular moment in time. Now this is a delusion, for the total experience of man indicates that no one escapes. Soon, or late, the doer and the deed meet and sit down together and face each other. This is what is meant here, that life is its own restraint. Sometimes, we are so situated in our common life, or in our national life-- for instance, it is one of our perils as a nation just in passing to comment on this-- we are advantaged. And we are privileged. And we are wealthy. And we are well-fed and overweight, while vast multitude of human beings scattered all over the world are hungry and are broken, like sheep without shepherds. And it is entirely possible for us in our smugness to feel that we are privileged because we are exceptions to the rule, that we are not bound by the kind of moral law that binds people who are hungry, and people who are weak, and people who are destitute. But the concept that is at work here is that life is its own restraint. And that any person who feels that his life is an exception to the rule is doomed to destruction by the relentless logic of life itself. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. And what is that balm? The recognition, in the first place, that life is its own restraint, and no one escapes. We shall begin at this point next Friday. [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is tape number ET 66 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is side 2, entitled Balm in Gilead Part 2. [MUSIC PLAYING] Words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight oh, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm beginning this morning at the point at which I left off last week, discussing the insight from the old song, "There is a Balm in Gilead." To make the wounded whole, there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. It was pointed out that this song was built on an insight as found in the prophet Jeremiah, in which he raises the question at a moment of great despair and pessimism, is there a balm in Gilead? Is no physician there, he cries out? This insight suggests, in the first place, that life is its own restraint. It is this notion that was developed last week. Today, we go on to suggest the second insight that comes from this song, and that is that life not only is its own restraint, but also that the contradictions of life are not final and ultimate. This, I think, is the striking difference between pessimism and optimism. For a man fundamentally believes, with reference to the structure of life itself, that life is fixed, is finished, is completed, is unyielding. Or, that life is unfinished. Life is dynamic. Life is growing. Life is open-end. Now, if a man's position is that that life is fixed and finished, then deep within himself-whatever his professions may be-- deep within himself, he is sure that in the last analysis, there isn't anything that any man can do about anything. Life is readymade. It is frozen. And whatever may be a man's particular position, status, location, this is his, as long as he lives. He is the prisoner of the event, the prisoner of the circumstance. Now this robs the life of all alternatives and options. If, however, his position is that life is dynamic, is open end, then one of its most persistent characteristics is an ever-effective sense of options and alternatives. This means, in practical terms, that whatever may confront a man at any particular moment-- whatever may be his predicament at any particular moment-- he always has 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu a sense of alternative, a sense of option, so that he can bring to bear-- upon the gritty facts of his experience-- a live option which may alter the circumstance, which may change the picture, which may give to him, a sense of meaning and significance that spills over-- goes beyond the event by which he may be temporarily caught. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, this is what is meant by the fact that the contradictions of life are not final contradictions. Now this is very important, for it says that there is always available to the individual, some additional resource-- some additional insight, some additional strength-- that goes beyond whatever he may be experiencing at a particular moment. Now we see this in simple circumstances again and again. Sometimes, when you are involved in something that seems to be more than you can manage-- it seems to be overwhelming, and you have exhausted all of your resources, all of the strength which seems to be available to you is taxed-- then again and again, we experience a second wind-- a new release of energy and strength that enables us to go beyond the thing which we may be experiencing at a particular time. This is noted particularly in the life of a man like Abraham Lincoln in connection with his struggling to bring peace to the country and the emancipation of the slaves. He speaks in some of his letters and in some of his other utterances, about the way in which his life is like the life of a hound dog who has been running on a trail. And the trail is cold. And he doesn't give up the scent. He exhausts himself in the effort. And finally, he discovers that a new increment of energy is his. Even though he says, to quote him directly, "I can't go on. Yet, I must go on." Now this is noted as the sound and authentic basis for optimism. For optimism suggests that there is more available of energy and strength than the individual may be using at a particular moment. This says that the characteristic of all life and all living experience is what may be called the growing edge, the peripheral element of vitality that creeps along the outer edges of what seems to be that which has exhausted itself, that which is dead. This is the ground of hope at times when there seems to be no sound basis for hope. We see this operative, for instance, with reference to the way men think and feel about peace. There never has been a time when peace among men was complete, was whole, was the total experience of the race. But nevertheless, there has been on the horizon of man, this riding hope-this goal, this upward thrust of faith and optimism-- that the normal relationship between man is one of trust and peace. This, despite the fact that as a complete experience, the race has never experienced peace. Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that it is precisely during the times of war, times when the whole nation is caught in the agonizing grapple of struggle for its survival. And violence as an instrument of protection is the order of the day. Precisely, at such moments, what happens? There always stirs, deep within the soul of a people, a dream and a hope for peace. Even though, at the time, men are caught in a life and death struggle summarized by the word that we call war. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, this suggest something further, that there is a notion-- more than a notion-- a conviction that because the contradictions of life are not final, because the struggle between good and evil or between that which makes for turbulence and that which makes for tranquility is not a final struggle, that there is present in what we call goodness-- an element of triumph-- goodness as distinguished from innocence. Pitts Theology Library Emory University A child, for instance, is innocent. But a man is not innocent. A man may be good, but he is never innocent. For goodness suggests an element of triumph that means that a man has been able to distill out the evil of life, to winnow out of the tempests and struggles and turbulences of life, a quality of wholeness and a quality of tranquility. There's something triumphant about goodness. And what is that something? It says always, that the contradictions of life are not final contradictions, that the ultimate destiny of man is a good destiny. And a man holds to this as a point of constant and persistent referral, while he struggles with the agonizing dimensions of testing and tempest by which his life is surrounded. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord. My rock and my redeemer. [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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-798.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Balm in Gilead: Parts 1 and 2 (ET-66; GC 12-7-71), 1971 Dec 7 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-798 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Balm in Gilead, Part 1 (1958-10-10); Balm in Gilead, Part 2 (1958-10-17) 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-10-10 1958-10-17 Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon the negro spiritual, "There is a Balm in Gilead." Rather than echoing the moan of the prophet Jeremiah, this song provides an answer to the prophet's cries. Rather than asking," Is there a balm in Gilead," Thurman notes that the early singers of this spiritual are affirming that there is indeed a balm in Gilead. From Thurman's perspective, this balm is the moral law which rests within all of humanity. Moral law is the restraint one has in themselves to take the raw material of pessimism and transform it into optimism. In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman builds upon his previous reflection upon the negro spiritual, "There is a Balm in Gilead." Here, he echoes the words from his professor and mentor, George Cross, when he remarks, "The contradictions in life are not final and ultimate." Here, Thurman is asserting that when one conceptualizes life as static, one is imprisoning oneself; however, when one conceptualizes life as dynamic, one is pursuing a life of freedom and fullness. Thurman explains to the listener that in this dynamistic perspective, one finds the energy and strength that is associated with optimism; thus, one is able to find tools to heal. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dustin Mailman Abraham Lincoln actualization contradictions dynamic energy experience fluidity George Cross healing Jeremiah moral law optimism pessimism Pope Pius XII privilege Psalm 23 raw material restraint Satan spirituals strength There is a Balm in Gilead https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/dfa5f1fb3468e0e982aa3426441ca050.pdf 8efd2ffaa99bbea6c8e38a77ebfa3a02 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-794.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University This is tape number ET-54 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled "Boundaries of the Self." Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Dean Thurman, Dean of Marsh Chapel, Boston University. James Lane Allen's "The Choir Invisible" has a paragraph which reads as follows. "There are people in the world-- some of us may have discovered them in the sweep of our experience-- to whom the joy and the sorrow come alike with quietness. For them there is neither the cry of sudden delight, nor the cry of sudden anguish. Gazing deep into their eyes, we are reminded of the light of dim churches. Hearing their voices, we dream of some minstrel whose murmurs reach us imperfectly through his fortress wall. Beholding the sweetness of their faces, we are touched as by the appeal of mute flowers. Merely meeting them in the street, we recall the long vanished image of the divine goodness. For many of us, there is such a preoccupation with ourselves, our problems, our dreams, our hopes, that there is little or no margin available for the awareness of those whom we encounter in the way. For such any demand that pulls away from the central self-regard is a personal assault or an impertinent invasion." Many years ago, I sought to interest a mother and working with a committee of women who were helping to pilot unfortunate girls into safe havens of rehabilitation and redemption. She heard me all the way to the end, then she said, "It takes all of my time to be a good mother to my own children. And if every mother did the same thing there would be no such girls. I'm sorry but that is my answer." We are surrounded by people, some of whom we know only casually. Others we know quite intimately, but we are not aware of them except at the points of their relevancy to our purposes and our friends. The cultivation of the spirit of discernment as we share in the common life about us is to rekindle in ourselves the image of the divine goodness. It is to become alive to those about us. It is not only to know when and how to give the crucial lift to another, but it is also to gather into ourselves that which is necessary to our own peace. This is a goal worthy of us all. It is a very insistent aspect of our common experience to be so concerned, so bothered as it were, about ourselves, our problems, our needs, our own lives, our responsibilities, our interests, that we can very easily become unmindful of the fact that we are a part of the whole human family. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu That we ourselves have certain acknowledged and unacknowledged responsibilities, not only to life, but to those who walk the way with us. Pitts Theology Library Emory University I remember some years ago visiting with a friend who showed me a series of pictures which he had taken on a trip around the world. For instance, he said, "Here am I, standing in front of the Sphinx." Or, "Here am I, in front of the Parthenon." Or, "Here am I, in front of St. Peter's." Always, these tremendous monuments of art, these expressions of the magic of man's genius and imagination, served merely as backgrounds for his own egocentric interests, his own egocentric concerns. This idea of being preoccupied with one's self and one's needs can very easily be a full time preoccupation. For it is true that one's needs are always pressing. One's responsibilities seem always to be on the increase, that there is always something that needs to be done that involves the full-orbed exercise of the self-regarding impulse. But this is not all of life. There is around us all kinds of magic that is available to us if we are sensitive to it. Some years ago, I was doing a series of addresses on a certain state college campus. And every day at the chapel time, a crippled man came in and sat on the front seats at the end of about four days, the end of my series. He came up on the platform and he said to me, "When are you leaving, Mr. Thurman?" I said, "I'm leaving tonight." He said, "Well, will you come by my cottage before you go? Because I have something I want to give to you. You've been very kind to me during these days." Meanwhile, I asked some of the fellows about the man, and no one of them even knew his name. They called him Crip. And he ran a little cobbler shop on the edge of the campus and earned his living by half-soling shoes and repairing heels for the college fellows. So that night when I rapped at his door, he told me to come in. And he was standing, supporting himself by the back of a chair. His crutches were down on the floor. And he pointed me to a seat. And then he said, "Mr. Thurman, do you like Shakespeare?" And I said, "Oh, yes I do." "What is your favorite play?" I said, "Hamlet." And you know what he did? He read to me from memory the whole first act of Hamlet. And then at my dictation he went through tragedy after tragedy of Shakespeare's, reading with feeling and interpretation, and all from memory. He had garnered all of this through the years. Now he was just an elderly crippled man swinging his way through life suspended on two huge crutches. And as far as these students were concerned, he was just that and nothing more. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu But instead of just being this, he was literally full of magic. And we are reminded of those striking lines of outward noise. "There is magic all around us, in the rocks, in the trees, in the minds of men. Deep, hidden springs of magic. And he who strikes the rock aright may find them where he will." Pitts Theology Library Emory University Not this suggests, you see, that it doesn't matter how commonplace, how drab, how ordinary is one's own life. Or how monumental may seem to be the demands that close in upon one, so that it seems as if it is necessary to give all of one's powers to one's own interest. If one can push the boundaries beyond one's self, then one will discover all the magic from all of these other manysided exposures and expressions of life that will feed one's own concerns and give to one a sense of strength and creativity and ability in dealing with one's own problem. "There is magic all around us, in the rocks, in the trees, and in the minds of men. Deep, hidden springs of magic. And he who strikes the rock aright may find them where he will." [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is tape number ET-54 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is side 2, entitled "Confidence in God." [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in They sight, oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is the final service that I shall be taking for the rest of the summer. But in the fall, I shall return and begin the series over again. During the summer months, there are three guests who will be carrying the program as associates of Marsh Chapel of Boston University. Dr. Lavely, Professor of Philosophy, and the congregational minister Dr. Edwin Prince Booth, who is a Professor of Historical Christianity and School of Theology at Boston University. And Dr. Sam Headrick, who is a Professor of Practical Theology in the Graduate School of Theology at Boston University. These three gentlemen will take the full responsibility for the Friday broadcasts until early in September. I wish to say also my simple appreciation to all of you who have been kind enough to write letters and postal cards, and to make telephone calls expressing your appreciation for the services which began last November. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu One of the most searching statements in the Old Testament was written many years ago by the prophet Jeremiah. And this is the statement. Pitts Theology Library Emory University "A curse on him who relies on man, who depends upon mere human aid. For he is like some desert scrub that never thrives, set in a salt solitary place in the steppes. But happy is he who relies on God, who has God for his confidence. For he is like a tree planted beside a stream, sending his roots down to the water. He has no fear of scorching heat. His leaves are always green. He goes on bearing fruit when all around him is barren. And he looks out on life with quiet eyes." It is a very sobering thought, when we reflect upon it, that things seem to be more permanent than people. Long after I am no longer living, the possibilities are that my watch will be carrying on. It will be used. It will remain. There is something about the tangibleness of things which seems to indicate that there is a quality of permanence in them, that there is a substantial element that transcends all of the moods and the passing aspects of life. I think this is a reason why we tend, again and again, to try to identify ourselves with things, try to put our imprimatur or our face or our stamp on things. Because we sense this quality which seems to be very real, very authentic, very true. Sometimes we say to ourselves, if we can find a memorial that will remain after we are no longer living, this then would be a constant, tangible, practical for-instance of all that our life meant and all that we were trying to accomplish or say in the living of our days. thought, however, reveals that there is an element in our lives that is not contingent upon things. There is a dimension of us which cannot ever be satisfied by anything that is material, anything that has to do with the demands of our lives as creatures. There are hungers of the heart and the mind and the spirit that cannot ever be satisfied by things, of whatever importance these things may be. Perhaps you had relationships with other human beings in which the thing that you most wanted from them was understanding and sympathy, a kind of warmth of heart that could reaffirm your spirit and give a dimension of meaning to your inner life and to your whole, to the total structure of your purposes. And what you received was gifts of one kind or another, tangible things, things that were useful in their place, that were very important, that were valuable in terms of money. But things that were irrelevant, really, in terms of what you were seeking most deeply and what you felt that you needed most deeply. I think this is what the prophet has in mind when he says that a man is not blessed who places confidence in man, in the sense that confidence and the things that man is able to give, or confidence in the more tangible expressions of life. Now this is not to suggest that life is not practical and that it is not down to Earth. But it is to say that there must be a full-orbed recognition of the practical demands of life, the practical and tangible needs that men have. But the bias, the accent, the emphasis of a man's life must not be placed upon these things that, after all, cannot address themselves to the deepest needs of the spirit, of the deepest needs of the 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University mind. Therefore he suggests that if a man places his confidence in God, in that which transcends all of the passing aspects of life, that which transcends even the vicissitudes of life. That which is, in a sense, involved in the struggle of life, but also is beyond the struggle. A man must have something to which he can refer that will give a meaning to his life and a validation to his aspirations and his hopes in a manner that transcends whatever may be the particular moment in which he is living. And this, after all, is what we are seeking. And the prophet says that this is what God gives to human life. I remember many years ago reading in an old copy of the "National Geographic" magazine an article about the Sahara Desert. Here, the article described how once upon a time many, many, many years ago, what is now the Sahara Desert was a great, dank, damp, fertile jungle growth with huge primeval trees growing there. Some of these trees, said the article, sent their roots so far down into the bowels of the Earth that they made primary contact with the underground rivers flowing there, rivers in which there were large concentrates of minerals and all of the other things needful for the sustaining of the tree. So that when the weather changed, when the whole climate picture shifted, and the vegetation began to dry up and disintegrate, and finally the only thing that was left was a desert waste, parched sands, here and there a vestigial reminder of the far-off time in the past when the desert were different, as expressed in oases. But something else remained. Here and there may be found giant trees standing out in the desert surrounded by no oasis. These trees have their roots so far down into the heart of the earth that their roots are in primary contact with the underground rivers sustaining and keeping them. So that despite the temperature by which they are surrounded, despite all of the external conditions of climate and what have you, the leaves remain green. Now this is the thing. It seems to me that the individual has to find for himself. Send his roots down so deep into the heart of life that he makes primary contact with that which sustains and gives ultimate meaning to life. Thus the prophet says, a curse on a man who depends upon things, upon man, who relies upon mere human aid. For he is like some desert scrub that never thrives, set and a salt solitary place in the steppes. But happy is he who relies on God, who has God for his confidence. For he is like a tree planted beside a stream, sending his roots down to the water. His leaves are always green. He goes on bearing fruit when all around him is barren. And in the midst of all vicissitudes of life, he looks out upon life with quiet eyes. This is my wish for you as well as for me. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-794.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Boundaries of the Self; Confidence in God (ET-54; GC 12-3-71), 1971 Dec 3 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s 1950s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-794 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Boundaries of the Self (1961-11-24); Confidence in God (1958-06-13) 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-11-24 1958-06-13 Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from James Cane Allen's "The Choir Invisible," in order to reflect upon the ways in which one can come to understand community. He notes that in one's own quest for identity, that relationships can become utilitarian, only being aware of community "at points of relevancy to our purposes." What Thurman is insisting in this recording, is that when one pushes past the superficial boundaries of separateness, that one can find the "deep, hidden springs of magic" which informs one's understanding of the divine. In this recording within the We Believe series: Howard Thurman reflects upon a passage from the prophet Jeremiah. From the reading, Thurman ponders what it means to have complete confidence in God. He notes that there are longings of the heart that are much deeper than any desire for material possessions. For Thurman, it is in the places of "the deepest needs of the spirit," that one discovers what it can mean for one to understand these needs of the spirit. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dustin Mailman community curse ecology ego existentialism experience heart interconnectivity James Cane Allen Jeremiah magic materiality National Geographic oasis parthenon permanence redemption responsibility Sahara Desert sphinx temporality The Choir Invisible https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/f211f3d4843d2cafe4696f1d71f863e8.pdf 2e0e21c72671e79629f316b7b521589f PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-186_A.mp3 [BELLS] [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] I begin this morning by reading from "Meditations of the Heart." Are you a reservoir or are you a canal or a swamp? The distinction is literal. The function of a canal is to channel water. It is a device by which water may move from one place to another in an orderly and direct manner. It holds water in a temporary sense only. It holds it in transit from one point to another. The function of the reservoir is to contain, to hold water. It is a large receptacle designed for that purpose, whether it is merely an excavation in the earth or some vessel especially designed. It is a place in which water is stored in order that it may be available when needed. In it, provisions are made for outflow and inflow. A swamp differs from either. A swamp has an inlet but no outlet. Water flows into it, but there is no provision made for water to flow out of it. The result? The water rots, and many living things die. Often there is a strange and death-like odor that pervades the atmosphere. The water is alive, but apt to be rotten. There is life in a swamp, but it is stale. The dominant trend of a man's life may take on the characteristics of a canal, a reservoir, or a swamp. The important accent is on the dominant trend. There are some lives that seem ever to be channels, canals through which things flow. They are connecting links between other people, movements, purposes. They make the network by which all kinds of communications are possible. They seem to be adept at relating needs to sources of help, friendlessness to friendliness. Of course, the peddler of gossip is also a channel. If you are a canal, what kind of things do you connect? Or are you a reservoir? Are you a resource which may be drawn upon in times of other needs and your own as well? Have you developed a method for keeping your inlet and your outlet in good working order so that the cup which you give is never empty? As a reservoir, you are a trustee of all the gifts God has shared with you. You know they are not your own. Are you a swamp? Are you always reaching for more and more, hoarding whatever comes your way as your special belongings? If so, do you wonder why you are friendless, why the things you touch seem ever to decay? A swamp is a place where living things often sicken and die. The water in a swamp has no outlet. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Canal, reservoir, or swamp? Which is it? Do you think that your life belongs to you, that you may do with your life whatever you please? Or is there some riding sense of overall responsibility, which you hold towards life for the life that is your particular and your private portion? Pitts Theology Library Emory University If your life is like a swamp, it means that you are always reaching and grasping and trying to pull into your place everything. You do not regard your life in any sense as a trustee. But it is a place that is your private domain into which you bring all the things with no responsibility beyond the getting of them. It is like a friend of mine who took a trip around the world, and when he came back, he had two albums full of snapshots. And the refrain was something like this. Here is a picture of me standing in front of the Sphinx. Here is a picture of me in front of Notre Dame. Here is a picture of me on a canal in Italy. Always me, me, me, me. Is your life like that, so that you are grasping, always pulling into yourself, hoarding everything so that all of your friends, all of the people by whom you are surrounded recognize that whenever they see you coming, they know they had better lay hold with a tight grasp on anything that is movable because you are reaching to take everything for yourself? And if this is the way your life is, then it means that more and more things begin to go stale inside of you. A swamp is a place where things die and rot, where the birds move away because their young ones die, where the mist hangs heavy during moonlit nights so that the moon never shines there, where, in the long days, the sun never reaches. Everything smothers and dies. Is your life like that? Or is your life a reservoir, a kind of cistern that brings into it all kinds of things that are part of the living fabric of your living experience from day to day? And these things, in some sense, are sorted, are arranged, are ordered in order that in your other context, you may be outgoing, there may be flowing from your life things that bless and help and heal? Now this cannot be true for you unless you have found a key to be the renewing of your life, some means, techniques, devices by which you are capable of tapping resources. And you draw from these resources into yourself. When I was a boy I kept my bicycle in repair, and the two most important tools I had was what we called a Stillson wrench, a kind of wrench that the opening could be graduated to fit various kinds of bolts. And the other was a spoke wrench. The rim of the wheels were made out of wood in that far-off moment so that often, in the sun and the rain, the rim would warp. And it became necessary often to take the spoke wrench and tighten some spokes and loosen others. We called it truing the rim. Now if your life is to move in the sense of which I'm thinking, that there is the movement, the creative intaking and outgoing of the reservoir, there must be something available to you by which you true your life, by which you regulate your life. And one of the most important devices, means, experiences through which we pass in order to do this is to take time to cultivate resources. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University One of these resources is quiet and meditation, taking time out from the traffic of your days, from the involvements of your life, to be quiet, to be alone, to be still and experience in the stillness the rising of the living waters in your own spirit. Another is to acquaint yourself with some of the great ideas and the great concepts and the great words that have been useful in the history of the race in calling attention to a deeper dimension of man's life than his little days and his little years. The Bible is full of such material. Those who find strength there may turn to some of the great psalms. He prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. He anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. All those great prayers of the Bible or prayers of the great religions. In other words, each of us must find a resource that we can tap, that we can draw upon, to fill our lives with Living Water so that there will be an outgoing from us to irrigate many parched places so that all who know us will find in us a benediction breathing peace. Are you a canal, a reservoir, or are you a swamp? [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] 3 � 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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-186_A.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette My Need, Your Need, 1958 Mar 14 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-186_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Canal, Reservoir, Swamp? (1958-05-02) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-03-14 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> 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. Description An account of the resource In this recording, Thurman asks whether our lives are canals, reservoirs, or swamps. Lives like canals connect people, movements, and purposes. Reservoirs have inlets and outlets in order to store up resources and provide them to others when needed. Swamps are without outlet, only taking in and becoming stagnant and rotted. Thurman asks what form our lives take, and suggests that we become reservoirs, finding ways to replenish our resources "so that there will be an outgoing from us to irrigate many parched places so that all who know us will find in us a benediction breathing peace." Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Spencer Roberts https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/126feedc34953a5d951582c730b8dd5d.pdf e4d4199999472f1adc9e4c468349d50d PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-781.mp3 This is tape number ET28, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Creative Order in Life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University [BELLS RINGING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm continuing from Jane Steger, Leaves from a Secret Journal. About the tree, what I want to know is why the sap ever started to run up the tree, up the trunk, along the limbs into the buds to spread them out into leaves. Perhaps the way to find out would be to get inside the tree one's self-- a nebulous personality to run with the sap up the trunk, out the limbs, into the leaves and maple keys. And there, hear the command to stop. The end is as amazing as the beginning. Why does the urge of life cease with leaves and seed vessels? How does it know when to stop when its type is completed? If this command to halt didn't come at the right moment, the breath of life that is in the tree might go on beyond leaves and bloom into all sorts of green, fantastic abortions that would spoil the type. The beginning is a marvel. The ending is an amazement. And I suppose that was, in the mind of God, the finished thought of a maple tree, as definite and complete as its spark of life in the seed, although He no doubt sent the thought forth in several types before the present one was achieved. It is a miracle that trees stop with themselves, that maple trees are only apple trees-- that maple trees are only maple trees, that apple trees are only apple trees, and oak trees are only oak trees. The urge of life might so easily have flowed on into a green maelstrom of confusion-- a sort of wild, crazy quilt of creation. The same, of course, is true of every type. Why do pigs stop at pigs and human beings at human beings? Of course, we human beings still have animal tendencies, and no doubt we are potential angels, but in spite of what we have, then, or may be, we are human beings. Each type may have come up from something else and be slowly drifting on to another development. Nevertheless, at each stage, it is itself and not a confused medley. As I sit writing, I am surrounded by numberless finished articles-- books, chairs, tables, desks-- all of which were conceived by the mind of man. Then, as I look out into the garden, I see infinitely more things. An innumerable company-- grass, trees, flowers, bushes-- all of which the mind of God created and all of which are separate, distinct, and finished, with no confusion, no intermixing of forms. Truly, the finished type is an astonishment. I never really thought of it before. The urge of life always amazed me, but I never until now realized the marvel of it stopping when each creation is 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu completed. It might so easily go on into confusion or shatter the type as a child breaks his bubble by blowing too much breath into it. Pitts Theology Library Emory University It might, that is, if at the back of creation was nothing but a blind force. How can anyone believe that? One might possibly if one thought only of the initial urge of life, but surely not when one sees it always stopping in definite forms and definite types. Look at that fat dictionary over there on the shelf, so solemn and well-informed. Do I think that it was created out of chaos? No, I don't think so. Did anyone ever see a trumpet vine forget its type and try to overflow into something else-- into a maple tree, for instance? Or a maple tree forget that its urge to life should stop with sharply pointed leaves rather than with round edges of an oak? Nobody ever did unless the types had been crossed by outside interference. What keeps them all so loyally true to their own plan? Surely, if there were nothing but a blind urge at the back of them, they would long ago have lost their way in the maze of life and gone off into a confusion of all kind of chaos. This is a rather extraordinary and exciting notion to my mind, and it is well worth our reflecting upon. It is true that the beginning of life is quite miraculous. As a matter of fact, the big the idea of beginning is itself as a concept almost beyond the grasp of the mind. But as fundamentally exciting as may be the notion of beginning, it is even more astonishing-this built in quality that seems to be inherent in any particular form of life that tells that form of life how it is to shape itself and when it is to stop developing. Suppose your foot did not ever stop growing, that there wasn't anything that you could do to stop it. It would be quite a fantastic arrangement. But there is built in the very life structure of the body something which, in recent times, biologists, or cytologists more specifically, have discovered. And they call it a certain quality in the cell. A coding, C-O-D-I-N-G-- a coding in the cell that determines what the development of the organism will be-- which cells will become eyes and legs and feet and hair and what the dimensions are. This is a part of the Constitution that is inherent in the cell itself. And in reading some time ago about the growth and development of eels, I was amazed at the discovery that some of the investigators were trying to determine, why was it that certain eels that came up from the Sargasso sea, born there, five miles below the surface of the sea, found their way all the way up to the Atlantic? And some of the eels moved to the right and went to Europe. Some of the other eels came to the United States-- to Virginia and North Carolina, to the fresh waters there. What determined which way the eel should go? What determined the European eel and the American eel, as it were? Well, these scientists discovered that the eels that had 11 or fewer vertebrae always came to Virginia and North Carolina. If they had 12 or more vertebrae, they always went to Europe. The 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu ticket-- the ticket-- was in the vertebrae. Now, this means that all of life is fundamentally structured and grounded in order, that there is inherent in the creative process that which when life realizes itself, its potential has been actualized. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, this gives to us-- it should give to us a very simple but profound confidence in the life process itself. And in my language, it should give us the confidence in the Creator, confidence in God, for it would seem to me that if all other manifestations of life, including my own body, have this order built into it, why should not the experiences of my life, the growth of my life, all of the things would have to do with my mind and spirit, why should not they then be in accordance with what to me is the will and the purpose-- and for my mind-- the creative dream of God? [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is tape number ET28, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is side 2, entitled, The Great Exposure. [BELLS RINGING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart. Sometimes, there's only a 60 second divide between youth and maturity, childhood and adulthood, strength and weakness, life and death. That life is vulnerable is the key to its longevity. We are surrounded every day by the exposure to sudden and devastating calamity. Despite all efforts to the contrary, there is no device by which we may get immunity from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Here is a man in the full prime of active life, with all the strength and vigor of a rounded maturity. Disease strikes. He withers and dies quickly, without warning and often without premonition. Here is a carefree, happy child, surrounded by all the love that wise devotion and careless rapture can give. A plane crash. Both parents perish. And what at 10 o'clock was a child becomes at 10:01 a desolate creature shunted across the great divide that separates hope from hopelessness, dependence from independence. Thus it goes in one vein. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Or here is a person from whom all the lights had long since gone out. The way ahead is no way. A sharp, sudden turn in the road or a chance encounter in the darkness and everything's changed. Life is vulnerable. Always, there is the exposed flank. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Sometimes much energy is spent in a vain attempt to protect oneself. We try to harden our fiber, to render ourselves safe from exposure. We refuse to love anyone, for instance, because we cannot risk being hurt. We withdraw from participation and the struggles of our fellows because we must not get caught in the communal agony of those around us. We take no stand where fateful issues are at stake because we dare not run the risk of exposure to attack. But all this, at long last, is of no avail. The attack from without is missed. And we escape only to find that the life we have protected has slowly and quietly sickened deep within because it was cut off from the nourishment of the great exposure. It is the way of life that it be nourished and sustained by the constant threat, the sudden rending, than welcome each rebuff that makes life's smoothness rough. It is a very commonplace observation to say that as we live, our lives are caught up in a pattern of logic and order, reward and punishment, reaping and sowing. So fundamental is this kind of rhythmic balance in the very grain of our feeling tones and our thought patterns that automatically we elect, as it were, to project this generalization in to an allinclusive way of life, so that when we do something, we expect it to balance itself in something else. I remember when I was a little boy, I broke my arm. It was in the summer. The doctor put my arm in splints, as it were. And for three or four weeks, I was unable to participate in the things that ordinarily engaged my time and attention. And I wondered why, if I had to break my arm, it would not happen during the school year when I could get mileage out of it. But it happened at the time when school was out and all the wonderful things were going on in the summer. And then I began to go over in my mind-tutored, you see, by this balance about which I'm talking, reward and punishment, action and reaction, antecedent and consequence-- and I wondered, what deed had I committed that was of such enormous consequence that it had to be balanced by a broken arm at the peak of the summer time? This notion, you see, that we are in a rhythm of reward and punishment, and it operates sometimes in our working philosophy. We say that if we are very good, then good things will come to us as a result of it; that a good man, a worthy man, a man who has integrity and who lives up to the most far reaching demands of his integrity, that man would not be subject to the great exposure as a man who pays no attention to these things. Now, this is one of the aspects of our experience, but it does not exhaust the possibilities. It is true that there is reward and punishment, that the law of antecedent and consequence does operate. But as it would seem to me, that over and above this kind of balance or this kind of order, this kind of moral structure, there is what may be called a random movement in existence- 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu - a movement which does not seem to take into account the private predicament, the situation of the individual as an individual, but it involves him because he happens to be present and available at the critical moment. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The Master talks about this when someone ask him concerning a child that was born blind. His disciples said, was this child born blind because of the sins of his parents? And the Master countered with a very interesting comment. He said, the people on whom the tower at Siloam fell and were killed, were they any more guilty than the people on whom the tower didn't fall? And the inference is, no, they were not more guilty, but they were under the tower and the others were not. This is an extraordinary something with which you are dealing. There is no protection against the great exposure. We as living beings in this world, again and again, are exposed to the operation of impersonal forces over which we are unable to exercise any control-- forces that are not responsive to our wills, however good and insistent those wills are. Given this situation, which is a part of the human predicament, it is within the resources of the individual and it is one of the tremendous insight of religion that there is always available in God strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be. And this is not some Pollyanna remark, but it is the studied wisdom and the garnered experience of generations of men that the test of life is often found in the degree to which we are able to absorb the hammerings of the great exposure without at the same time destroying our joy. There is in God strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] The preceding program was prerecorded. [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 We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965) Description An account of the resource <em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br /> <p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p> <img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" /> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Dustin Mailman 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/394-781.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Creative Order in Life; The Great Exposure (ET-28; GC 11-23-71), 1971 Nov 23 Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1960s Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts 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 394-781 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Creative Order in Life (1963-09-27); The Great Exposure (1963-02-15) 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> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1963-09-27 1963-02-15 Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from Jane Steger's "Leaves from a Secret Journal." He attempts makes sense of the makeup of one's own life through the lens of ecology and biology. Using examples such as trees and DNA, Thurman explores the depths of the "order" of human existence. In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text "Meditations of the Heart." His reading reflects upon the impact of trauma, and how it effects the development of the individual. He develops his ideas based off of personal experience and his own psychological findings. In this recording, Thurman suggests that it is in the exposure to the reality of existence that one can begin to mature. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dustin Mailman angels balance biology chaos childhood coding completion confidence consequence constitution creativity death development ecology epistemology experience Jane Steger journey leaves from a secret journal life maturity meditations of the heart moral structure North Carolina personality pigs Sargasso Sea seasons snakes trauma tree urge of life Virginia