1 10 72 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/17f51be335b3179524482df959ad9f11.pdf 696ccec48577f8a40f58261902121ffb PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-116_A.mp3 [BELLS] [MUSIC PLAYING] [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. As is my custom each year on the Friday before Lincoln's birthday, I read from Stephen Benét's John Brown's Body, and I will read for as much time as I have. I begin, then. Lincoln is speaking. They come to me and talk about God's will in righteous deputations and platoons, day after day, laymen and ministers. They write me prayers from 20 million souls defining me God's will and Horace Greeley's. God's will is general this and senator that. God's will is those poor colored fellows' will. It is the will of the Chicago churches. It is this man's and his worst enemy's. But all of them are sure they know God's will. I am the only man who does not know it. And yet if it is probable that God should and so very clearly state his will to others on a point of my own duty, it might he thought he would reveal it to me directly, more especially as I so earnestly desire to know His will. The will of God prevails, no doubt. Yet in great contests, each side claims to act in strict accordance with the will of God. Both may. One must be wrong. God could have saved this Union or destroyed it without war if He so wished. And yet this war began and, once begun, goes on though He could give victory at any time to either side. Yet I know this and this only-- while I live and breathe, I mean to save the Union if I can and by whatever means my hands can find under the Constitution. If God reads the hearts of men as clearly as He must to be Himself, then He can read in mine and has for 20 years the old, scarred wish that the last slave should be forever free here in this country. I do not go back from that scarred wish and have not. But I put the Union first, the Union first and last, before the slave. If freeing slaves will bring the Union back, then I will free them. If by freeing some and leaving some enslaved I help my cause, I will do that. But should such freedom mean the wreckage of the Union that I serve, I would not free a slave. O will of God, I am a patient man. And I can wait like an old gunflint buried in the ground while the slow years pile up like moldering leaves above me underneath the reek of time and turn in time to the dark, fruitful mold that smells of Sangamon apples, till at last there is no sleep left 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu there, and the steel event descends to strike the live coal out of me and light the powder that was always there. Pitts Theology Library Emory University This is my only virtue as I see it, ability to wait and hold my own and keep my own resolves once they are made in spite of what the smarter people say. I can't be smart the way they're smart. I've known that since I was an ugly child. It teaches you, to be an ugly child. It teaches you, to lose a thing you love. It sticks your roots down into Sangamon ground and makes you grow when you don't want to grow and makes you tough enough to wait life out, wait like the fields under the rain and snow. Then this-- I've never found a church that I could join, although I've prayed in churches in my time and listened to all sorts of ministers. Well, they were good men, most of them. And yet the thing behind the words, it's hard to find. I used to think it wasn't there at all, couldn't be there. I cannot say that now. And now I pray to You and You alone. Teach me to know Your will. Teach me to read Your difficult purpose here, which must be plain if I had eyes to see it. Make me just. There was a man I knew near Pigeon Creek who kept a kennel full of hunting dogs, young dogs and old, smart hounds and silly hounds. He'd sell the young ones every now and then, smart as they were and slick as they could run. But the one dog he'd never sell or lend was an old halfdead foolish-looking hound you wouldn't think had sense to scratch a flea unless the flea were old and sickly too. Most days he used to lie beside the stove or sleeping in a piece of sun outside. Folks used to plague the man about that dog, and he'd agree to everything they said. No, he ain't much on looks or much on speed. A young dog can outrun him any time, outlook him and outeat him and outleap him. But Mister, that dog is hell on a cold scent. And once he gets his teeth in what he's after, he don't let go until he knows it's dead. I am that old, deaf hunting dog, O Lord. And the world's kennel holds 10,000 hounds smarter and faster with finer coats to hunt Your hidden purpose up the wind and bell upon the trace You leave behind. And when they fail and lose the scent, I will keep on, because I must keep on until You utterly reveal Yourself and sink my teeth in justice, soon or late. There is no more to ask of earth or fire, and water only runs between my hands. But in the air, I'll look, in the blue air, the old dog, muzzle down to the cold scent day after day until the tired years crackle beneath his feet like broken sticks and the last barren bush consumes with peace. I should have tried the course with younger legs. This hunting ground is stiff enough to pull the metal heart out of a dog of steel. I should have started back at Pigeon Creek from scratch, not 40 years behind the mark. But you can't change yourself. And if you could, you might fetch the wrong jackknife in the swap. It's up to you to whittle what you can with what you've got. And what I am, I am, for what it's worth, hypo and legs and all. I can't complain. I'm ready to admit You could have made a betterlooking dog from the same raw material, no doubt. But since You didn't, this will have to do. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Therefore, I utterly lift up my hands to You and here and now beseech Your aid. I have held back when others tugged me on. I have gone on when others pulled me back, striving to read Your will, striving to find the justice and expedience of this case, hunting an arrow down the chilly airs until my eyes are blind with the great wind and my heart sick with running after peace. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And now I stand and tremble on the last edge of the last blue cliff, a hound beat out, tail down and belly flattened to the ground. My lungs are breathless, and my legs are whipped. Everything in me is whipped except my will. I can't go on, and yet I must go on. [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] 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/394-116_A.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Lincoln's Birthday; reading from Stephen Benet, "John Brown's Body," 1964 Feb 7 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 394-116_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Lincoln's Birthday; Reading from Stephen Benet's "John Brown's Body" (1964-02-07) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-02-07 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 an excerpt from Stephen Vincent Benet's book, "John Brown's Body." According to Thurman, he reads this text every year the Friday before Abraham Lincoln's birthday. The quotation that is read comes from the perspective of Abraham Lincoln. In it, Lincoln ponders God's will for black bodies in America, pledges his allegiance to the union, and likens himself to an old hunting dog when reflecting upon his tenacity while fighting in the Civil War. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman Abraham Lincoln civil war God residue God's will John Brown's Body slavery Stephen Benet https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/134329b902ce41ccaee59cf10ec977c0.pdf 3c202758eb974bb46a4e1d2da539b643 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-167_A.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University You're thinking this morning about the ancient song-- We are climbing Jacob's ladder. Every round goes higher and higher. This song is built upon the story of the struggle between Jacob and Esau. After separating one from the other and Jacob's leaving, going to a far country to seek a wife, he becomes very tired, goes to sleep with his head resting on a stone. As he sleeps, he dreams. And in his dream, it seems as if there is a ladder that stretches from the Earth to the heaven. Angels are going up and down this ladder, while at the top of the ladder is Jehovah. When Jacob awakes in the morning, he is convinced that he has had a religious experience. And he says, this is a holy place because it is here that I had an encounter with eternal. So he marks the place by a stone, so that any other persons who come that way might see this stone and know that here is a place where a man met God. And he will cast another stone to add to this stone as a tribute to this kind of religious experience. Now, what did these early singers do with this story? They took it and wove it into a pattern of great meaning and significance. To them, it summarized the fact that the whole experience of man on the Earth is in essence the experience of a pilgrim, of someone who is journeying. It suggested to them that there is what seems to be in other language a Gothic principle inherent in the structure of man's experience-- a principle that says that there is an aspect of human life that is rooted and grounded in the Earth like the pillars of the Gothic cathedral. And yet, there is the vault that extends into the heavens, the vault that represents the timeless, the spaceless, the eternal-- the vault that represents the universal while the pillars that are grounded and rooted in the Earth represent the particular, represent the thisness and thatness of life. Now, this Gothic principle is very universal in human experience. We find it in the first instance dramatized in ordinary human life. Every man knows that he has the body that has much in common with an animal. He has the face of a man. These are the Earth-bound, body-bound dimensions of his life. And yet, every man knows that he has something in him always that is trying to fly, something that is trying to spill over beyond anything that he knows or experiences in the present. There is a sense of the beyond in man, so that he isn't ever quite able to contain all that he thinks or all that he feels in any particular moment of experience or in any particular aspect of his life. Even the words that we use-- you take a simple word, like a phrase, like I love you-- a man says that when he is a little boy. He says it to his mother perhaps, or to his father, or to his sister, or his aunt. When he is 15 years old, he may use the same phrase. When he is 20, 25, 30, 35, 40-when he wants to express this deeply moving sense of affinity with another human being, he uses the same words. But all the time, he is very, very conscious of the fact that he can't quite crowd into these words or that he means. So he repeats the words over, and over, and over again. He may say to his wife on their wedding day, I love you. Five years after, 10 years after, 15, 20-all the time if he refers to this, he uses the same word. But there is a difference, a qualitative difference in the meaning that is used because as he lives more deeply into life, as he experiences 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu more widely and more comprehensively, he tries to put into the same few words this overwhelming content that crowds it, and spills over, and says always more than he is able to express at any given moment. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, this concept of the Gothic principle that tries to take the universal and express it in a particular is seen best in a religion like Christianity, for instance, in the doctrine of the incarnation. Here, the doctrine says that the great God himself, after trying in 1,000 different dimensions to give a full-orbed, time-space expression of his life, decides that He can put all of what He means, by His identity with human life, into the time interval that marks the career and the life of one Jesus of Nazareth. And here, all that God means to human life tries to be crowded into the living experience of a single living person. And what happens? Always more and more is found in the content of this because what is spoken by the word is so much more than can be contained in the word. Now, this principle suggests something else in human life. It says that there is always inherent in any living situation. What may be called a riding sense of alternatives, a riding sense of auction, the contradictions of life are never final contradictions. This is the basis of all the optimism that we know, not a shallow, superficial, Pollyanna kind of optimism-- but an optimism which says that whatever may be the nature of the event with which I am wrestling, whatever may be the tyrannical character of the moment in human history with which my life is involved, whatever may be the nature of the event that holds my life in its agonizing grapple, I do not have to say a complete and final yes to this event, or this moment, or this experience. This has been characteristic of the spirit of man, hasn't it? Whether we look at life in its smallest context or in its widest context-- why is it that wherever people have been under the terrorizing pressure of dictators or tyrants, what do we see happening? It doesn't matter how tightly held the reins may be, how many informers there may be that circulate through the common lives, or the man is afraid to think his own thoughts, perhaps-- whatever may be the picture, always inherent in man's experience with tyranny is this sense that the tyranny is not final, that there is a sense of option, a sense of alternative. And if I can find the alternative, if I can believe in the sense of option, then whatever may be the binding character of the social, or political, or economic situation in which my life may be lived, I can find a way out. And the same is true in our private experiences. Whatever may be your predicament this morning, however absolutely barren may be all of the creative possibilities for change in your living situation or in the structure of your particular predicament and context, you know that unless you decide that all the options are zero, there lives in you a hope which hope finally fulfills itself in one way or another that makes for a change. We are climbing Jacob's ladder. Every round goes higher and higher. I am on the make. It doth not yet appear what I shall be or what I shall become. This is the word of this great song of pilgrimage. We are climbing Jacob's ladder. Every round does go higher and higher. 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/394-167_A.html" ></iframe> 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 394-167_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Jacob's Ladder (1958-11-07) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-11-07 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 message, Thurman discusses the song "Jacob's Ladder" and how it has been taken to represent human experience as a journey. He also describes a Gothic principle in which human life is Earth-bound, but also involves a sense of the beyond that provides opportunity for alternatives and choices in every aspect of life. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Spencer Roberts https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/60113eeb439021cf7b70558e21465bd4.pdf 767aad9519844d67dc64f2375be4938a PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-168_A.mp3 [BELLS RINGING] [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 month that marks the birthday anniversary of Abraham Lincoln, I want to read two or three selections from Stephen Benét's John Brown's Body. Abraham Lincoln is in the midst of his struggle for spiritual wisdom as he seeks to find what, for him and in his language, is the will of God, with reference to the great issues by which he is surrounded and which the nation confronts. This is Abraham Lincoln speaking. "I've never found a church that I could join. Although I have prayed in churches in my time and listened to all sorts of ministers. Well, they were good men, most of them. And yet, the thing behind the words is hard to find. I used to think it wasn't there at all-- couldn't be there. I cannot say that now. And now I pray to You and You alone. Teach me to know Your will. Teach me to read your difficult purpose here, which must be plain if I had eyes to see it. Make me just. There was a man I knew near Pigeon Creek who kept a kennel full of hunting dogs, young dogs and old, smart hounds and silly hounds. He'd sell the young ones every now and then, smart as they were and slick as they could run. But the one dog he'd never sell or lend was an old half-dead, foolish-looking hound you wouldn't think had sense to scratch a flea unless the flea were old and sickly too. Most days he used to lie beside the stove or sleeping in a piece of sun outside. Folks used to plague the man about that dog and he'd agree to everything they said. No, he ain't much on looks, much on speed, a young dog can outrun him any time, out look him, and out eat him, and out leap him. But, Mister, that dog's hell on a cold scent and once he gets his teeth in what he's after he don't let go until he knows he's dead. I am that old, deaf hunting dog, Oh Lord. And the world's kennel holds 10,000 hounds smarter and faster with finer coats to hunt your hidden purpose up the wind and bell upon the trace you leave behind. But when they fail and lose the scent, I will keep on because I must keep on until You utterly reveal yourself and sink my teeth in justice, soon or late. There is no more to ask of earth or fire, and water only runs between my hands, but in the air I'll look, yes, in the blue air, the old dog, muzzle down to the cold scent, day after day until the tired years crackle beneath his feet like broken sticks and the last barren bush consumes with peace. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I should have tried the cause with younger legs. This hunting ground is stiff enough to pull the metal heart out of a dog of steel. I should have started back at Pigeon Creek from scratch, not 40 years behind the mark. But you can't change yourself. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And if you could you might fetch the wrong jackknife in the swap. It's up to you to whittle what you can with what you've got. And what I am, I am. For what it's worth, hypo and legs and all. I can't complain. I'm ready to admit you could have made a better looking dog from the same raw material, no doubt. But since you didn't, that'll have to do. Therefore, I utterly lift up my hands to You. And here and now beseech Your aid. I have held back when others tugged me on. I've gone on when others pulled me back striving to read Your will, striving to find the justice and expedience of this case, hunting an arrow down the chilly airs until my eyes are blind with the great wind and my heart sick with running after peace. And now I stand and tremble on the last edge of the last blue cliff, a hound beat out, tail down and belly flattened to the ground. My lungs are breathless and my legs are whipped. Everything in me is whipped except my will. I can't go on. And yet, I must go on. I will say this. Two months ago I read my proclamation setting these men free to Seward and the rest. I told them then I was not calling on them for advice but to hear something that I meant to do. We talked about it. Most of them approved the thing, if not the time. Then Seward said something I hadn't thought of, 'I approve the proclamation, but if issued now with our defeats in everybody's mouth, it may be viewed as a last shriek for help from an exhausted, beaten government. Put it aside until victory comes, then issue it with victory.' He was right." "I'm not a general, but I promise this, here at the end of every ounce of strength that I can muster, here in the dark pit of ignorance that is not quite despair and doubt that does but must not break the mind. The pit I have inhabited so long at various times and seasons that my soul has taken color in its very grains from the blind darkness, from the lonely cove that never hears a footstep but my own or ever will while I am a man alive to keep my prison locked from visitors. What if I heard another footstep there? What if some day there is no one but God, no one but God who could descend that stair and ring his heavy footfalls on the stone? And if God came, what would we say to Him? That prison is ourselves that we have built and, being so, its loneliness is just, and, being so, its loneliness endures. But if another came, what would we say? No, it must be as it always has been. We are all prisoners in that degree and will remain so. But I think I know this, God is not a jailer." "What is it, Hay? Yes, yes, I'm glad of that. I'm very glad. There's no mistake this time? We have the best of them? They're in retreat? This is a great day, Stanton. If McClellan can only follow up the victory now. Lord, I will keep my promise and go on. Your will and much still being dark to me, but in this one thing as I see it plain. And yet, if Lee slips through my hands again, and as he well may from all those last reports and the war still goes on and still there is no end even after this Antietam, 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu not for years and years. I cannot read it, but I will go on. Old dog, old dog, but settled to the scent and with fresh breath now from this breathing space, Almighty God. Pitts Theology Library Emory University At best, we never seem to know you wholly, but there's something left a strange, new courage. We can fail and fail and fail, but deep against the failure something wars, something goes forward, something lights a match, something gets up from Sangamon County ground, armed with a bitten and blunted ax. And after twenty thousand wasted strokes, brings the tall hemlock crashing to the ground." Against the failure, something wars. This is the great way. A man may be mistaken and this is just part of Earth's failure. But always, the sensitive, mature man must make a distinction between being mistaken in the thing that he undertakes and failing to achieve it. Always against the failure, even though the failure may come again and again and again and work out what seems to be its endless rhythm against the background of our arch despair. Nevertheless, always against the failure something wars. Something is always coming on. There is a deeper level of vitality that is available to us. And if we do not accept the failure as final then we are open to this upward push of something more that works against the failure. Always against the failure, something wars. And after ten thousand wasted strokes, the tall hemlock will come crashing to the ground. This is the word from this man whose life means so much to so many for so long a time. [MUSIC PLAYING] --words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord, my rock, 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/394-168_A.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette John Brown's Body [Side A], 1960 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 394-168_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource John Brown's Body (1960-02-05) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-02-05 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe Series, Howard Thurman reads an excerpt from Stephen Vincent Benet's book, "John Brown's Body." According to Thurman, he reads this text every year the Friday before Abraham Lincoln's birthday. The quotation that is read comes from the perspective of Abraham Lincoln. In it, Lincoln ponders God's will for America, likens himself to an old hunting dog when reflecting upon his tenacity while fighting in the Civil War, and attempts to find spiritual grounding in the midst of unrest and war. Abraham Lincoln civil war God residue God's will Isolation John Brown's Body slavery Stephen Benet https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/12bae53ad40e903893dc885f17144fee.pdf b6f32a7745a867caa1d0b114af55e6fa PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-168_B.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] [BELLS TOLLING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable. And I cite, oh Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer. Because next week is the birthday anniversary of Abraham Lincoln, I am going to do as I did last year, read some of the sections from "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Benet. The section which I shall be reading has to do with the religious insight and religious experience and sense of religious commitment of Abraham Lincoln as he saw it in the midst of the fearful and fateful experiences by which he was surrounded to find a clue that would give him a sense of being a living instrument in the hands of the will of God. What is God's will, he asks. They come to me and talk about God's will in righteous deputations and platoons. Day after day, laymen and ministers, they write me prayers from 20 million souls, defining me God's will and Horace Greeley's. God's will is general this senator that. God's will is those poor colored fellows' will. It is the will of the Chicago churches. It is this man's and his wife's enemies. But all of them are sure they know God's will. I am the only man who does not know it. And yet, if it is probable that God should and so very clearly state his will to others on the point of my own duty, it might he thought he would reveal it to me, directly, more especially, as I so earnestly desire to know his will. The will of God prevails-- no doubt, no doubt. Yet in great contests, each side claims to act in strict accordance with the will of God. Both may, one must be wrong. God could have saved this union or destroyed it without war, if he so wished. And yet, this war began. And once begun, goes on, though he could give victory at any time to either side. Yet I know this and this only. While I live and breathe, I mean to save the union, if I can, and by whatever means my hands can find under the Constitution. If God reads the hearts of men as clearly as he must to be himself, then he can read in mine and has for 20 years the old, scarred wish that the last slave should be forever free here in this country. I do not go back from that scarred wish and have not. But I put the union first and last before the slave. If freeing slaves will bring the union back, then I will free them. If by freeing some and leaving some enslaved I helped my cause, I will do that. But should such freedom mean the wreckage of the union that I serve, I would not free a slave. All will of God, I am a patient man. And I can wait like an old gunflint buried in the ground while the slow years pile up like moldering leaves above me underneath the rake of time and turn in time to the dark, fruitful mold that smells of Hangman apples till at last, there is no sleep left 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu there, and the steel event descends to strike the live coal out of me and light the powder that was always there. Pitts Theology Library Emory University That is my only virtue, as I see it-- ability to wait and hold my own and keep my own resolves once they are made in spite of what the smarter people say. I can't be smart the way that they are smart. I have known that since I was an ugly child. It teaches you to be an ugly child. It teaches you to lose a thing you love. It sticks your writs down into Sangamon ground and makes you grow when you don't want to grow and makes you tough enough to wait life out-- wait like the fields under the rain and snow. Therefore, at last, I lift my hands to you who were and are and must be, if our world is anything but a lost, iron-clad shipped with a crew of fools and mutineers to drift between the cold forts of the stars. I've never found a church that I could join. Although I prayed in churches in my time and listened to all sorts of ministers. Well, they were good men-- most of them. And yet the thing behind the words, it's hard to find. I used to think it wasn't there at all-couldn't be there. I cannot say that now. And now, I pray to you and you alone. Teach me to know your will. Teach me to read your difficult purpose here, which must be clean, if I had eyes to see. Make me just. I should have tried this course with younger legs. This hunting ground is stiff enough to pull the metal heart out of a dog of steel. I should have started back at Pigeon Creek from scratch, not 40 years behind the mark. But you can't change yourself. And if you could, you might fetch the wrong jackknife in the swamp. It's up to you to whittle what you can with what you've got. And what I am, I am, for what it's worth-- [? hip pull ?] and legs and all. I can't complain. I'm ready to admit you could have made a better looking dog from the same raw material, no doubt. But since you didn't, this will have to do. Therefore, I utterly lift up my hands to you and here and now, beseech your aid. I have held back when others told me on. I have gone on when others pulled me back. Striving to read your will, striving to find the justice and experience of this case, hunting an arrow down the chilly airs until my eyes are blinded with the great wind and my heart sick with running after peace. And now, I stand and tremble on the last edge of the last blue cliff, a hound beat out, tail down, and belly flattened to the ground. My lungs are breathless, and my legs are whipped. Everything in me is whipped, except my will. I can't go on. And yet I must go on. We can fail and fail, but deep against the failure, something was. Something goes forward. Something lights a match. Something gets up from the Sangamon county ground, armed with a bitten and blunted axe and after 20,000 wasted strokes, brings the tall hemlock crashing to the ground. And now, let me pull just one other line out. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Everything in me is whipped, except my will. I can't go on. And yet, I must go on. In one way or another, every man has stood at that same spot with reference to the contradictions and the problems and the paradoxes of his own life. May we say also with him, I can't go on, and yet, I must go on. 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 Rock, 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/394-168_B.html" ></iframe> Internal Notes Notes for project team hip pull? - GL 5/22/19 Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette John Brown's Body [Side B], 1960 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 394-168_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource John Brown's Body (1960-02-09) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1962-02-09 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 an excerpt from Stephen Vincent Benet's book, "John Brown's Body." According to Thurman, he reads this text every year the Friday before Abraham Lincoln's birthday. The quotation that is read comes from the perspective of Abraham Lincoln. In it, Lincoln ponders God's will for black bodies in America, pledges his allegiance to the union, and likens himself to an old hunting dog when reflecting upon his tenacity while fighting in the Civil War. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman Abraham Lincoln civil war God residue God's will John Brown's Body slavery Stephen Benet https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/cc3c9f12c903b259dcf8eb96e4b1eb99.pdf fa0cadd1402088b055d98ac2d5fe3f2f PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-169_A.mp3 I'm continuing today our thinking together about certain of the insights from the ancient sorrow songs that were sung many, many years ago by the slaves in America. Today, we thinking together about deep river. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Deep river, my own home is over Jordan. Oh, don't you want to go to that gospel feast, that land of promise where all is peace. Deep river, my home is over Jordan. A contemporary point has expressed the same basic insight in other words. He says, I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has gone deep like the rivers. I bathed in Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo, and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Mississippi and saw Abe Lincoln going down to New Orleans. And I've seen it's muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers, ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. The flowing streams have had a profound influence on the thoughts and the dreams and the hopes and the aspirations of mankind throughout all the ages. It is not unusual that these early singers would seize upon the raw materials of their own experiences with streams, with rivers and incorporate this experience-- or these experiences into their interpretation of the meaning of life and the destiny of man. For the rivers meant freedom for many of them, and it is altogether fitting that the rivers should influence their thoughts and their reactions and their interpretations. To think of life in terms of a river is always a fresh and stimulating and creative point of view. A river has a very simple beginning. The Mississippi River, for instance, begins way up in the northern part of our country, a very simple stream or a child could step across it at its source. But as it moves down across the broad expanse of the American continent, it deepens and widens, becomes turbulent and restless and churning until at last it emptiness itself into the Gulf of Mexico, whose far off waters and call it always hears. Life is like that, your life and my life. I have a very simple beginning. As a matter of fact, the scientists tell us that life on this planet has a very simple beginning. And as the evolutionary process developed, life became more complex and differentiated until at last creatures such as we appeared on the scene. And the individual life begins in a very simple way. For a period of nine months, the germ forms, and at last, there is a great spasm and the child is born. And then the process starts over again. Life is very simple for the child, but as the child develops and grows, life becomes more involved, more complicated, more churning, more turbulent until at last it gives itself up at the end. It is the nature of the river to flow, always moving, always in haste. As a boy, very often I sat beside a stream watching the waters flow by and wondered what made the river flow in this way. There was no wind blowing, but it seemed as if the very nature of the stream itself was to flow. This has been a thing upon which the mind of man has seized with a wide variety of creative interpretations. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu It was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who reminds us that no man bathes in the same stream. One of the great world religions thinks of the meaning of life in terms of flux, in terms of change, in terms of process. One of our great contemporary American philosophers thinks of God himself as creative process, this notion of movement, of a process, of change. This seems to be characteristic of life even as it is of the river. Pitts Theology Library Emory University It is true in your life and in my life. When you were very small, you were sure that when you were a little older, perhaps when you were nine or 10 years old, the thing that you sought would come to pass. And then when you were 10 you said, oh, no. I can't experience this until I'm in my teens. And then when you were in your teens, some of the things which you sought you could not find you were sure until you were in your 20s. And life moves like that, a coaxing cat always calling us to come to the thing that is just on the horizon. I said that the fight would be over when I arrived, but when I got there, I found that the fight was not over. The fight will never be over. No, not even in death. This is the nature of life. Life is on the side of that which is on the make. That which has arrived, that which has fulfilled itself has no future. It has only a pass. I shall arrive. What time? What circuit first? I ask not, but unless God send his hail, his sleet, his blinding fireballs, or stifling snow, in his good time, I shall arrive. He guides me and the bird. The analogy is complete in the second sense because it seems that it is of the very nature of life to be in process never to remain fixed. We cannot arrive at QED because life represents that which is essentially dynamic, that which is full of change so that we-- if we are to be alive to its meaning and its significance, we must be sensitive to the growing edges to that which has not come to pass but that for which the individual stands in immediate candidacy for fulfillment. The analogy is complete in the third place because of the relationship that the river holds to its banks. It is the nature of the river to demand from the banks that they give of themselves to the water. It is an automatic relationship. If, for instance, I wanted to understand the story of the Mississippi River to refer to it again, I do not have to follow it through all of its circuitous rounds across the country. I do not need to examine all of its tributaries and the ways by which it touches this state or that state or this area or that area. All I need do is go down to the delta where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf and there take a handful or a shovel full of delta sand and analyze it. And there I will find the whole story of the history of the river's journey from its beginning to its fulfillment in the Gulf of Mexico. Your life and my life are like that. Every experience that we have, every thought that we think, every primary encounter that we have with all of the raw materials of our living, these things leave their deposit so that the history of a man's life is in essence the judgment that life passes upon that individual. This is the relationship that life has to the living experience. It is the relationship that the river has to the banks. The analogy is complete in the last instance because a river has a goal. The goal of the river is the sea. It is very interesting that all the waters in all the land, in all the rivers, rivulets, streams, 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu all of this water comes out of the sea. And all the waters in all the lands go back into the sea that out of which the river comes is that into which the river goes. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The goal of the river and the source of the river are one. Your life and my life are like that. The goal of life is God. The source of life is God. That out of life comes and that out of which life goes is God. I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown to deep like the rivers. I've bathed in Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo, and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Mississippi and saw it's muddy bosom turn all golden the sunset. I've known rivers, ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. 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/394-169_A.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Deep River; Nature of Life, 1958 Sep 26 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 394-169_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Deep River; Nature of Life (1958-09-26) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-09-26 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> 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 "sorrow songs" of those who were enslaved in America. His remarks speak specifically to the songs that reflect upon the self in relation to a river, such as, "My soul has gone deep like the rivers." The voices of these singers relate their lives to that of a river from a place of deep experientiality. Thurman continues, by relating the unfolding of life to that of a river: a simplistic origin which grows into a complex system, which eventually returns to a wider body, one is able to understand the ways in which humanity is intertwined and shares a common trajectory. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman Abraham Lincoln creativity Deep River evolution experience interconnectivity Jordan River process river slavery spirituals https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/4c112cdf85cdaaa41eff7b2e9a7ac435.pdf a83b90879639de3ec70e8f1e7097f265 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-169_B.mp3 [MUSIC PLAYING] Pitts Theology Library Emory University We are continuing today our thinking together about certain of the important insights from the rather ancient but very revealing sorrow songs or spirituals that were a part of the common life of our land many years ago. This morning, the song is built around a very familiar experience to those persons who are acquainted with the new testament. The blind man stood on the way and cried, cried that he may receive his sight. This is the theme of the melody. The song goes through many stanzas dealing with intimate nuances of desiring and aspiration, moving from the heart and the hopes of the blind man, thinking always that perhaps he might receive his sight. The setting is simple. The blind man, who has always longed for his sight, he is the coming of Jesus and his disciples. The word has reached him that this man, this Jewish teacher, is a great healer, in fact, that he has healed men who were sick. So all of the hopes of the blind man center around each footstep as the little company approached him. When they all were within hearing distance, the blind man shouted that he might be healed. He wanted help, and he was sure that help was available. He was ready for this moment. All of his life, he'd been preparing for this great moment, and now it was upon him. And in the story, as found in the new testament, the blind man receives his sight. It is a rather interesting and exciting thing to be ready for your great moment when it comes. Sara Teasdale has a poem about this. She describes how a lady was climbing a hill. And she was sure that if she could get to the top of the hill, she would get a view in many directions. She would be able to get her lungs full of fresh air. She could stand on top of the world, as it were, taking in the landscape in many, many directions. But, Sara Teasdale says, the briars were always pulling in her gown. And then, she suddenly realized that she had crossed over the crest of the hill and didn't know it. The briars were always pulling on her gown. And now, she says, all of the rest of the way will be only going down. Her moment had come. And she was so involved in other things, that the moment had passed without any fulfillment. This is a part of a picture that is given here in the simple story of healing as found in the New Testament. But these early singers did a rather extraordinary thing with this song. You may recall that in the story, the blind man receives his sight. But in the song, the blind man does not receive his sight. The song begins with a cry that he might receive his sight. And it ends with the same cry. This suggests something that is very meaningful for us. What does one do with frustrations for which there seems to be no answer in the environment? This was the experience of the people who first sung this song. They had longed for freedom, but freedom hadn't come. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Their lives were long nightmares of pain and frustration and disorder and longing. They wanted something with all of their passionate endeavor. They needed it. All of their life screamed, as it were, for it, but it did not come. Pitts Theology Library Emory University What does one do with frustration under one's own circumstance in the light of one's own tragic fight? This was the problem. Now, there are many options here. One is that sometimes a person who wrestles with frustration in this dimension becomes deeply embittered by life. He broods until at last, all of his bitterness becomes something that causes him to strike out blindly, as it were, against everything in his environment. As a boy living in Florida, one of the cautions which we observed during the month of August, for instance, was to be very careful as we moved around in the woods picking huckleberries or doing other things that boys would do in the woods. Because the rattlesnakes during that particular month were changing their skins. They would find a quiet place under a bush, perhaps even under a huckleberry bush. And as the old skin peeled away, and the new skin was being formed, they were very vulnerable. And anything that touched them, excited them, and they would strike out. So that black snakes, for instance, who seemed to have a running battle with rattlesnakes, would run across the body of the rattlesnake very quickly. And the rattlesnake, then, would strike out in his blind fury and puncture his own body with his poison fang and kill himself. Now, this is the sort of thing that happens to us. If deep within ourselves, we gather all of the poison, and then it embitters our life to the point that we strike out against everything and everybody, each person stands in candidacy to threaten us and to undermine us, we are embittered. This is how we deal with the frustration in our environment. We say that life has it against us. That all of the resources of life have conspired to trap us and to make our lives miserable. And therefore, we will not spare anyone else. Any person who come within the kin of our environment is liable to our vindictiveness and our poison. We make everybody pay for what we think life has done to us. Now, this is one way by which we deal with the frustrations that seem to have no outlet and no release for us. There's a second way. We may retire, detach ourselves from all involvements as nearly as we can. We may let all of the light go out in our eyes, all of the quality, of vitality, and meaning. Even integrity exhausts itself. We will just become ciphers, as it were. There is a picture that comes to mind of St. Gordon's statue in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington. It is a statue that St. Gordon built over the grave of the wife of Henry Adams. You may have seen it. It is the figure of a woman. Her whole body is draped in a kind of green, bronze caulk that covers her head and all her arms. She is resting her right arm on the right arm of the chair. Her chin is resting in her hands, and she looks out steadily in front of you. As you sit on the circle bench about 20 feet away, looking into her face, you see that her face is without emotion. Her eyes are open, but in a sense, they are unseeing. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu It seems as if all the tears of which she is capable she has already shed. She is living but not alive. She has exhausted herself in dealing with the problems of her life, and nothing is left but an echo of what she was before. We may do this with our frustrations. We may burn ourselves out so that nothing is left but the ember of what we were. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, there is a third thing, and this is what was done with it in the song and subsequently in the lives of these people as they wrestled with the overwhelming aspects of their own environment. We may take the raw materials of our environment and bring to bear upon them the kind of creative vitality, and power, hope, dream, aspiration, yearning, yield, even spiritual conviction so that we can reduce our environment and the things that frustrate us to manageable units of control. We may, to use a phrase taken from the book of the man who was the founder of the Ethical Culture Society, there is a peace that we can understand. The peace that comes when we are sick and get well, when we are hungry and get food to eat, are lonely and find a friend. But the peace- the path is 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. This is what these early singers did with the aspects of their environment that would not yield immediately to their demands and to their agencies. The blind man stood on the way and cried, cried that he might receive his sight. And life's answer to him, finally, was yes, as it will be to you and to me. 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/394-169_B.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette The Blind Man, 1958 Oct 3 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 394-169_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource The Blind Man (1958-10-03) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-10-03 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 message about how we deal with frustrations in life, Thurman discusses the song of the blind man and the Biblical story on which it was based. He points out that there are three ways of dealing with frustration. First, we might strike out against everything around us in bitterness, injuring ourselves and others. Second, we might withdraw and detach ourselves from life, losing our vitality and burning out. But Thurman encourages us to take the third option, "to take the raw materials of our environment and bring to bear upon them the kind of creative vitality, and power, hope, dream, aspiration, yearning, yield, even spiritual conviction so that we can reduce our environment and the things that frustrate us to manageable units of control." Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Spencer Roberts 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/24bec75f5215fc2f606221a1b16d2783.pdf 7a2c622b53d46a7b7dfa034679cfb5a0 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-171_B.mp3 [BELL TOLLING] [ORCHESTRAL MUSIC] 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. There is a spirit about which I spoke last week and concerning which I shall be speaking from time to time. One sonnet that belongs with this idea today. "My Lord, Thou art in every breath I take. And every bite and sup taste firm of Thee. With buoyant mercy, Thou enfold'st me and hold'st up my foot each step I make. Thy touch is all around me when I wake. Thy sound I hear. And by Thy light, I see the world is fresh with Thy divinity. And all Thy creatures flourish for Thy sake. For I have looked upon a little child and seen forgiveness and have seen the day with eastern fire cleanse the foul light away. So cleanse'st Thou this house I have defiled. And if I should be merciful, I know it is Thy mercy, Lord, in overflow." There is an element of gratuitousness always in the mood of Thanksgiving, the mood of appreciation. And that gratuitous element, as I think of it, has this important fact working for it all the time. And that is that when I am thoughtful about life, when I reflect upon my experiences of living, always there is an element present that I do not deserve, an element that is there because I am standing at this particular moment in time. And I inherit, by the very fact of my existence, a whole bounteous flow of things that arose at another time in human history, at another period in the past. And these things become available to me in the present merely by the fact that I am living in the present, so that the first element of gratuitousness is there because I am existing now rather than having existed 10 years from now. And then there is always an element of grace that has to do with the present, that somebody, somewhere-- somebody who is my contemporary, someone whose name I may know or whose name I may not know-- because of what he does or what she does, or because of what she may be doing this afternoon or tonight or tomorrow, I am the recipient. The overflow from the act that this person performs somehow manages to be caught up in that which I am using. And I think that this is one of the reasons why it is so important in one's own personal struggles with ideas or with convictions-- it is important to lay hold on the insight not to give up, to persist in working away, even against all odds. Because if you do this, if you wrestle with your problem and your issue until at last light comes or solution may be found, when the light comes, or when the solution breaks into your mind, there is so much more insight than you can manage that it spills out and it moves in all directions. And wherever anyone who may be passing has an empty vessel, a bit of the insight which came because you struggled will be available to him. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So I ask you, as we approach Thanksgiving Day, what is the nature of your own gratitude? And how many times have you said, with quietness in your own heart, "Thank you, life, for all of the graces that have come to me," or "Thank you, God, because Thou has not dealt with me after my sin, nor according to my iniquity"? Pitts Theology Library Emory University [ORCHESTRAL MUSIC] 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/394-171_B.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Thankful for What?, 1964 Nov 20 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 394-171_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Thankful for What? (1964-11-20) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964-11-20 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, asking the question: "What is the nature of your own gratitude?" He calls the listener to discern whether or not they have paused to look at their life in the present moment and identifies the present moment as a gift. When considering the task of understanding the present moment as a gift, mercy and gratitude function as the means to allow oneself to be present in the moment. Thurman claims that our mercy and gratitude is also God's mercy and gratitude, thus accepting the gift that is the present moment is to accept the gift of God's sovereign providence. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman breath God residue grace graciousness gratitude holidays nature panentheism thanksgiving vessel https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/981f3223e6de9b17dbdf90bdfa351577.pdf 051866189192bd9de2ca88a109c9e8e0 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-173_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 the my redeemer. Our period today will have to do with one of the oldest of the Negro spirituals. Deep river, my home is over Jordan. Oh, don't you want to go to that gospel feast, that land of promise where all is peace. Deep river, my home is over Jordan. A contemporary poet has expressed the same basic idea in this ancient song in words that are as follows. I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood and human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I gazed upon the Euphrates when dawns were young. I looked upon the Nile and reared my pyramids beside it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I have known rivers ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. To think of the drama of man's life in turns the simple analogy of the river is a very common place but a very exciting and creative adventure for the mind and the imagination. In the first place a river has a very simple beginning. Usually the river begins in some crevice in the snowy bed in the mountains. At its beginning, a little child may step across it, for it is scarcely a rivulet or a spring. And then as it moves across the broad expanse of the territory that it drains, it becomes wide and deep and tempestuous, churning, moving, flowing until at last it empties itself into the sea, pools far off, call all the waters here. Life is like that. A man's life, your life, my life begins very simply simple germ, and after a period of time, there is the great creative upward push of vital energy and you and I were born. And then we grew, little children, simple life, and then as the years unfolded, our lives become broad, sometimes deep, almost always set in the tempestuous until at last we come to the end of our days. It is the nature of the river to flow. It is the nature of life to be in movement. When were a little child, you said when I am 15 years old or when I'm in-- when I'm in my teens, I will be able to do this or that. And then when you were in your teens, you discovered that the thing that you sought would not be yours until you were in your 20s. And then in your 20s, you discovered that a little later the thing must come. Life is like a coaxing cat. This is why Tennyson puts on the lips of Ulysses I'm 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. Or as a contemporary as put it, I said when I arrive there, the fight would be over. But when I got there, I found that the fight was not over, that the fight would never be over. No, not even in death. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Life is like that. Life is movement. It is process. We can never say QED, that which is to be demonstrated. We must always say that life represents in our experience that which is changing, is growing, is moving. Pitts Theology Library Emory University The river has banks. And the nature of the relationship between the bank and the river is a very interesting one. For the bank must give of itself to the river. It has no live option about this. It is involved in the nature of bankness, if I may put it that way, that the bank must give of itself to the river. Every bank that is touched by the river registers this fact in the deposit, which the bank must be given to the flowing waters. Life is like that. There is no experience to which you and I are exposed that does not leave its mark. Nothing walks with aimless feet. We are what we are at any particular moment because of what we have been in the past. In other words, we stand on an infinite series of yesterdays to reach into the present moment. And therefore whatever I am at any particular moment can only be understood in the light of all of the raw materials of my experiencing that had gone into the making of me. Therefore in the living of my life at the most commonplace level, the most ordinary experience leaves its imprint. Nothing walks with aimless feet. This is why a man like Conrad suggests that it was always, not occasionally, but it was always a serious thing to live. The analogy is complete in another instance because the river goes through phases. There are times when the water is very low, when there has been very little rainfall. It is a time of drought, a time of dryness. There are other times when the river rises as we have been experiencing in certain parts of New England during this weather. When the water rises, it means that there is a flood time, and flood time means very often destruction that which under normal circumstances is a benediction breathing a kind of peace to all of the surrounding territory, giving moisture, sometimes carrying on its bosom the traffic of man's life that carries with it food and other necessities on barges and ships and boats. This thing which in its most tranquil moments is meaningful and helpful during the time of the rising of the waters, becomes some kind of vicious monster. Blind to good and evil, reckless of all consequences, it tumbles its tempestuous way, on and on carrying destruction in its wake. Life is like that. There are times in your life and my life when we are destitute of inspiration, time of drought when the things upon which we have been drawing for inspiration seem to be devoid of any richness to give us. It is a time of shrinking of the waters. And the analogy moves in the same direction. When we think of the time of storm, the time of flood, you're moving along. Your life is very peaceful, very tranquil. Days move into days. Breathing their own kind of quiet confidence and equilibrium and balance and simple joy and deeply lined satisfaction. And then without any announcement sometimes, the long shadow falls across your path. Illness, death, trouble, disillusionment, broken heart. It is the flood time of the river. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu The analogy is complete in the final instance because the river has a goal, and the goal of the river is the sea. The answer to the drought of the river is a larger opening from the sea. The answer to the flood tide is a larger opening to the sea because all of the water on all the land and all the rivers goes to the sea. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And all the waters on all the lands and all the rivers and lakes comes out of the sea. That out of which the river comes is that into which the river goes. The goal of the river is the sea. The source of the river is the sea life. Is like that. The goal of man's life is God. That out of which life comes and that into which life goes, god. I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human beings. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo, and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation in 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/394-173_A.html" ></iframe> Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Deep River My Home is Over Jordan (negro spiritual) [Side A], 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 394-173_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Deep River, My Home is Over Jordan (1958-01-31) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-01-31 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. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Dustin Mailman Description An account of the resource In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman places the Negro Spiritual "Deep is the River, My Home is Over Jordan," and Langston Hughes' "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" in conversation with one another. He likens the life of a river to the movement of human existence: the river begins as a mere stream, then becomes a river wearing down the riverbanks, then disperses itself into a wider ocean. As the river shifts and bends, Thurman claims, the human life also bends and shifts, participating in a process of changing, growing, giving, and moving through time. Abe Lincoln creative Deep River Deep River My Home is Over Jordan erosion Langston Hughes life Negro Spirituals present process soul spirituals The Negro Speaks of Rivers vital energy https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/859c652de4b68028d11353ed6637f0ec.pdf a7d8100bce1e6c51cdfa136cbb244fe5 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-173_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, oh, Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. [MUSIC PLAYING] The contemporary poet Langston Hughes has written a poem, which he calls "Rivers." I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo, and it lulled me to sleep. I saw the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers, ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. It is a very convenient and, I think, rather universal way of contemplating the meaning of life by thinking of it in terms of a river, in terms of the meaning of a river. Of course, it is not an absolute thing that analogies will be altogether accurate, but there is to be found an insight here if we think of life itself as being like a river. A river has a very simple beginning. The Mississippi River, for instance, begins in some quiet snowy cold in the Northwestern part of the United States. It moves down across the broad expanse of the continent growing in depth and breadth and in turbulence, gathering along its way many tributaries, a wide variety of substances until at last it empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico and then to the sea, the far off call all waters here. This is the way of the river. Human life is the same way. Your life, my life began very simply. And then after a period, there was a great eruption, and we were born. And then the process of simplicity started over again but not quite as elemental as before. And as we grew in years, our lives became more involved in the experiences of living the raw materials by which we were surrounded, beaten upon us, and we brooded over the stuff of these raw materials, shaping always that which will become ourselves until at last we too have come to the end. The depth, the breadth, the turbulence, these are a part of the experience of man even as they are part of the experience and the development and the unfolding of the river. The analogy is complete in the second instance because a river has storms, has times of turbulence, times of drought. There are times when it seems that the tranquil behavior of the river has been forgotten. Winds blow, squalls come, the river becomes one turbulent monster. Reckless of all consequences, blinded to good and evil, it moves on its relentless way. It is the storm of the river. And one watching this behavior of the river would find it hard to remember that the river ordinarily moves along with calmness and with dispatch bearing on its bosom, traffic of ship and boat always working as it would seem for the fulfillment and the nourishment and the sustenance of man. But when the storm comes, all of that is temporarily forgotten. My life and your life are 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu this way. We are moving along day by day quietly attending to our business, going through the established routine or pattern of our days, loving our friends, reacting in various ways to those who are not our friends, pursuing our limited goals, or walking in the light of our far off visions. This is the way of life, and then sometimes without notice, without any warning, a vast shadow crosses the path. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Health becomes sickness suddenly. Death moves in and takes from the circle someone to whom one long and happy adjustment has been made over many years. It is the time of storm and stress of the river. At such times, men wrestle with the depths of their agony and their suffering, and it is then that they are liable to think and to feel that this after all is what life means, that there is no God. There is no such thing as good, but life is a skinning-- a grinning skull and crossbones having no meaning, fulfilling no purpose, involving the individual in its impersonal maneuvering as if the individual were just a puppet in the hands of some kind of monster This is the flood time of the river. And when that comes, one forgets about the more tranquil times. One forgets-- tends to forget about the meanings which one sensed about life when the waters were quiet, when one had a long stretch of time in which to move gently into the process of living and experiencing. But it is of the essence of the flood time in the life of man to remember what he experienced when there was no flood time. It is the sense of peace and tranquility which is a man's when he is not in the flood time that may hold him to his course when the waters rise and overflow the banks. The analogy is complete in the third instance because a river has a goal. And the goal of the river is the sea. It is a matter of extraordinary significance and yet very common place that all the waters in all the rivers in all the land come out of the sea. And all the waters in all the rivers in all the lands go to the sea. That out of which the river comes is that to which the river goes, the source of the river and the goal of the river are the same. This is the way of man. It is inside a religion that man's life comes out of God and that man's life goes to God. God is the source and the goal of life. Thus Augustine says thou has made us for thyself and our souls are restless 'til they find their rest in thee. I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood and human veins. My soul has grown deep like the river. I've bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo, and it lulled me to sleep. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen this muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers, ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. [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] 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/394-173_B.html" ></iframe> Internal Notes Notes for project team Original title was "Life is a River" from the "We Believe" TV series: http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/virtual-listening-room/detail?id=349917 Original Title: Deep River My Home is Over Jordan (negro spiritual) [Side B], 1958 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 394-173_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Life is a River (1961-03-24) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1961-03-24 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 This message was broadcast as part of the "We Believe" television series on March 24, 1961. In the meditation, Thurman discusses the analogy of life as a river, as it flows, and floods, and returns to calm. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Spencer Roberts