1 10 4 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/ee79f8a622cd0d7d13772946e99b5fc1.pdf 1bb0b730543cc18310ac6112c72170e5 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-639_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Forever. Forever, forever. [MUSIC PLAYING] We're continuing our thinking together about freedom and suffering against the background of the distilled insights of the Judeo-Christian faith. So He died for His faith. That's fine. More than most of us do. But can you add to that line that He lived for it, too? In His death, He bore witness at last as a martyr to truth. Did His life do the same in the past, from the days of His youth? It is easy to die. Men have died for a wish or a whim, from bravado, or passion, or pride. Was it harder for Him? But to live-- to live-- every day to live out all the truth that He dreamt, while His friends met His conduct with doubt, and the world, with contempt. Was it thus that He plodded ahead, never turning aside? Then we'll talk of the life that He led. Never mind how He died. And then this-- it is easy to die amid the world's applause for a noble deed with trumpets blaring. It's the harder part to fight for a cause and inwardly bleed with no one caring. It's easy, perhaps, to die for a dream with banners unfurled and be forgiving. It's the harder path to follow the gleam when scorned by the world and go on living. Now I chose those two because they develop one facet of the thing that is in my heart and mind, without my having to take out of my time the energy to do it. You've had one development of an aspect of the idea in the poetry I read. So I won't have to touch that again. Now we'll go on. Last week, in thinking about suffering, it was suggested that if freedom is fact in man's experience, then suffering must, of necessity, be a part of that experience of freedom. Of course, if man is not free really-- really-- then, of course, suffering is not a fact, really. It was suggested that there is a kind of suffering that belongs to the general category of reward and punishment, of reaping and sowing, of antecedent and consequent, of balance, of a kind of justice-- using a working definition of justice as the artificial equalization of unequal-- justice in that sense. It was suggested, also, that there is a suffering that belongs to man's experience as a victim of circumstances over which he is unable to exercise any control, with reference to which he can only abide. The experience of suffering that man goes through as a victim. Now the degree to which man is a victim in a circumstance may mark, however, the measure of the limitation of his freedom. But we did not have time to develop that aspect of it. It was suggested, further, that man's-- that there is a fundamental distinction between man's fate, which may be the experience through which a man passes as a victim of circumstances in which he is unable to exercise any control, but circumstances that are his by virtue of the fact of his 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu existence at a particular time, and place, and at a given moment in human history. He cannot alter this, in terms of the relentless movement of the events themselves. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Given, then, this definition of fate, in what sense may man maintain the dignity of freedom? He may maintain it by brooding over the stubborn and unyielding and recalcitrant aspects of his experience until he is able to make of these experiences something that is more in keeping with his dream and his aspiration and his hope. In other words, the man can determine, to a large extent, what is the nature-- what may be the nature of his destiny, even though he is helpless in the hands of his fate. Now today, I'd like to take this a step further. There is the kind of suffering that-- No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. That's not right. No. There is an aspect-- that's right-- there is an aspect of suffering that belongs, essentially, to man's estimate of himself. Oh. Be very patient with me while I try to get at this thing. We must learn how to be worthy of our suffering. That's what I'm trying to get at. Sometimes, it seems very clear to me that life deliberately places its hand upon a human being and releases upon that life some of its most violent moods. As if life decided that here is a human being who is worthy of the most powerful diatribes of violences that I can release upon the human being. And if he is worthy of it, there will be revealed in his encounter with the raw elements of the violences, reaches of meaning and depth of being that could be revealed in no other way. It's like the seed of the jack pine up in British Columbia. The seed of the jack pine can only sprout or what is-- sprout, yes, that's it-- the seed of jack pine can only sprout and develop some other little jack pines if it has been burned. Burned. All the outer cover burned away. It will lie down in this-- under the trees or in the forest. It can rot. It can die. But the only way that it can live, so a ranger in British Columbia told me, is that the seed has to be burned over, so that when the forest burns and the jack pines burn, then the seed now is able-- for the good that is in it-- to have its chance to live and grow and blossom. Now there may be dimensions of meaning and depth in human life that can only become manifest under this kind of oppression. Now please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that we should go around trying to find the most terrible things-- to expose ourselves to them and lay ourselves bare-- just go on attending to your business. Nobody ultimately escapes, anyway. Now when the moving finger touches you, and in that touch, there is the wild manifestation of the unrestrained violences of existence, don't cry out. Sit with it. Live with it. And get your clue to your own self-estimate from what this thing reveals. That's what I'm trying to say. Now this is a terrible insight. It has some other ramifications. I just put into one of them, because I can't spend all the time on this. Again and again, an individual has the opportunity to get an estimate of himself from the things that he experiences that try to destroy him. Sometimes I've said to myself, as I have wrestled with some of the violences of human beings-- as these violences have been focused on me, for instance-- I've said, well, now, there are many things I 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu could do about this. But one thing that I am going to do-- I'm going to see what there is in this that can clue me in to the meaning of my own life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University I remember the story of Goliath and David. Do you remember that story? The Philistines on one side, David's people on the other. And they selected one-- the leader of each-- to stand out here and fight. It's a wonderful way to have war. Just select the one able representative, and let them fight it out while all the people be the cheering galleries. It'd be a very interesting way to handle the wars which we seem to be anxious to have. So here they were. David, in a little undershirt with a slingshot and a stone in it. Goliath, with his sharp sword and his long sword, with his head gear, his breastplate, his kneecaps, towering over David. And then Goliath looked at David, and he thought, this is-- and saw how David was equipped-- no shoes, just a little shirt, slingshot, and Goliath realized that this is all David thought of him. He had a stroke. [LAUGHTER] And the only thing David needed to do was to cut his head off at leisure. This is the estimate that life places upon me, that it does not ever place upon my shoulders any burdens greater than I can bear. Life thinks I'm weak. I'm of no account. It does not ask of me anything. All that I might have something to weight me down, that I might measure the height and depths of my being by it. Now this is what suffering does if you can be worthy of it-- worthy of your pain. Now, there is another aspect of suffering that is crucial. We have been thinking about it almost always-- certainly these two mornings-- in terms of situations and circumstances that are external to us, even though we may be involved in them. But there is this suffering that belongs to the nature of personality. Now, let's see. It is a suffering that man can only experience because he is capable of loving. Now this is another kind of suffering. It is one of the dimensions of personality-- to be able to identify with another person's experience. Now, weigh the words carefully. To identify with another person's experience, without, at the same time, being able to enter into the thing that provoked the experience. Now, you have to think carefully with me right here. It is possible for one human being to put himself into another human being and identify with that human beings experience or experiences, without at the same time being able to enter into the thing that caused the experience in the other person with whom he's identifying. Now you'll have to take that and chew on it. When you love somebody, you identify with that person's suffering, let us say. You enter into it, even as you remain yourself. But what you cannot enter into is the thing that brought that experience of suffering onto this individual. Here you cannot go. And because you cannot enter into the thing that provoked the experience of suffering, there is, on your part, a certain sense of impotency-- of helplessness-- and the measure of your helplessness in being able to enter completely into the suffering of another person marks the 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu measure of the pain that is always inherent in love. For will I love. The logic of the experience is the projection of my personality into the other person's personality, utterly and completely. And I can't do it. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And the degree to which I can't do it marks the measure of my pain. Haven't you said-- haven't you heard a mother say, or a husband, or a wife, or a friend say-- if I could take this off of your shoulders and put it completely on my shoulders. If I could limit the pain which you are bearing so that you do not have it, and let me take it on-- if I could do this, then I would be happy, even if it cost me my life. But you can't do it. All the time, however, the tutoring of the pain guides you in finding new and fresh ways to approximate it. You become sensitive to little things that you might do to ease the pain here, or to lift a little here. You get fresh insights into the other person's life and meaning, so that you can pick up on wavelengths that flow from them, of which you were not aware until you entered into the pain. But what you want to do, with all of your passionate endeavor, is to identify totally, and you can't do it. And this tension between the measure of the meaning of the act that I would perform that would redeem those I love from their pain and their suffering and what I'm actually and literally able to do about it-- this marks the height and depth of my own pain. And it is for this reason, then, that in all of the religions-- all of the religions-- there is an effort on the part of the religious insight to bridge this gap. So in Hinduism, somewhere along the way, one of the gods actually becomes a man so that he can enter into the experience, and enter into that which provokes the experience. In Christianity, God becomes a man. All of the doctrines of the incarnations, wherever they turn up, in the midst of man striving to find a way by which he can love another human being who is not himself utterly and completely-- all of the doctrines of the incarnations, wherever we find them, undertake to give a rationale for this experience that we cannot have. And every time you find such a doctrine, there is brooding over it. A notion that the God who becomes incarnate has to know how to suffer. Because with His suffering, He builds the bridge over which the human race can move in its effort to enter completely and utterly into another human being while he remains himself. And whether this is really accomplished in any other face of the world depends somewhat upon the degree to which the simplest devotee of the faith feels that he is able to accomplish it. Without suffering, there can be no freedom. Without suffering, there can be no ultimate dignity for the human spirit. Walk beside us, oh God. And leave us not alone, even in our experiences of most complete isolation and desolation, that we may not be afraid of life, either by day or by night. Our Father. [MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) 4 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston, MA) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959 Description An account of the resource In the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman explores the woven-together tapestry of freedom, death, grace, and more. The sermon series paints a picture of human beings as both free and fallible. However, even in our imperfection and failure, we are not without the mysterious support of God, who judges us beyond our account of wins and losses. Thurman ultimately suggests that freedom, and the suffering that comes with it, brings texture and adventure to our lives, and is the way by which we discover meaning and dignity for ourselves. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-639_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Freedom and Suffering, parts 1 and 2, 1959 Nov 22, 29, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-639_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering, Part 4, 1959 November 29 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959-11-29 Description An account of the resource In the fourth and final sermon of the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman takes his exploration of suffering a step further. Thurman suggests that we must learn to be worthy of our suffering. We should not seek out suffering, but when it comes to us, we must search for the meaning and dignity in it. Thurman also considers that human beings can only suffer because we are capable of loving. To love is to identify with another's suffering, to enter into it and yet remain as ourselves. Religion, he says, is our wrestling with the pain and helplessness of love. Thurman ends on the doctrine of incarnation, in which God learns how to suffer with human beings, so as to teach us how to move into another's suffering. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/fb51bbb86ad2fa4ba6849311304a8f11.pdf 6851e68acb337ef73e061ed1f74dc093 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-639_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University We are buffeted about by so rich a variety of circumstances that it is often very difficult for us to find our own ways. We are creatures of pain and hurt, of joy and ecstasy, of despair and hope. All around us, we see, in many ways, great stretches of unrelieved human misery, a hunger of body, with all the wasting away of the flesh that comes in its wake, upheaval of minds, with all of the inward torture for which the skill of man finds no way to deal. We are surrounded by so much that casts doubt, and often so little that uplifts and inspires. And when we think about our own selves, each within the tight circle of his little life, the same picture presents itself. We have found no satisfying answer for the pain of our lives. And at such a time as this, our Father, as we sit together in the fellowship of the congregation, enveloped by the great quietness, and stilled by Thy presence, we want to offer to Thee the part of us that is clear, unsullied, fresh, clean, untainted, unmiseried, and to hold back, under the shadow of our own feelings, the things that are tainted, and painful, and tragic. Teach us, our Father, how we may be so worthy of our living experience, that we may, even know in the quietness of the sanctuary, offer to Thee our pain, our suffering, our miseries, all the stains of our lives, even as we offer to be our best. And what a relief it is, oh, God, to have somewhere to pour it all out, our Father. Our Father, accept us totally. [REVERENT MUSIC] W.W. Story has written a poem, the background-- that will provide the background for our thinking about suffering and freedom, or freedom and suffering, or just suffering. "I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life; the hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife; not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wear the chaplet of fame; but the hymn of the low, and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart, who strove and who failed, acting bravely, a silent and desperate part; whose youth bore no flowers in its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes away, from whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at, who stood at the dying of day with the wreck of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone, with Death swooping down o'er their failure, and all but their faith overthrown, while the voice of the world shouts its chorus, its paean for those who have won; while the trumpet is sounding triumphant; and high to the breeze and the sun, glad banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet thronging after the laurel-crowned victors. I stand on the field of defeat in the shadow with those who have fallen, and wounded, and dying, and there chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knitted brows, breathe a prayer, hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, 'They only the victory win, who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts us within; who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds on high; who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight-- if need be, to die.' 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Speak, History! Who are Life's victors? Unroll thy long annals and say. Are they those whom the world call the victors-- who won the success of the day? The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylae's tryst, or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges or Socrates? Pilate or Christ?" Pitts Theology Library Emory University Suffering is the common experience of man. Perhaps suffering is the common experience of all living things. Every religion, if it addresses itself in any sense to the condition of man, has to address itself to suffering and its meaning, if meaning is to be found in it. It is the peculiar circumstance, historically considered, of a religion like Christianity, that it was born in pain and suffering. It is, in a sense, a religion that springs out of man's effort to squeeze optimism out of the pessimism of life. This is very good because it means that, inherent in the religion, there is a kind of insistent realism, so that anytime the religion takes off to the hills, leaving man with his miseries and pains, there is something that rises up within the religion that indicts that kind of behavior. And the mother of Christianity also comes out of the same kind of matrix of misery. I refer to Judaism. Now, let's work at this a little. Suffering is the experience of pain through which an individual passes. This pain may be physical pain or its equivalent. But it is the kind of experience with which the mind and the spirit of man may somehow deal. And there are circumstances under which it is entirely possible for the mind and the spirit of man, so to encompass the height and depths of the agony itself, that the power of the agony is relaxed. Now, this is the overall working concept that's back of the place, I think, that suffering, and all the things that surround it, hold in the tradition, the formal tradition, of the organized faiths of mankind. No. There is a kind of suffering that belongs to the general category of reward and punishment. This we understand. When I was 11 years old, I-- about the middle of June, or the end of July, or end of June, I had an accident. I fell. And I broke two little bones, or big bones, anyway, bones in my wrist. And I had to carry my arm in a sling. And it was all braced up with things. And it came at the peak of my season. It was summer. The river was full of fish. The wild grapes were ripe. Everything was happening at once. And here I was immunized against the joy that surrounded me. And I had to find comfort in some way. I tried to remember what I had done that rated this kind of activity on the part of the universe. I went over all of my life up to that time, and not a great distance, just 10 years of it. And I couldn't think of a thing that I had done that merited this kind of activity. And I, as was my custom, I carried my question and my burden to my grandmother. And she didn't answer the metaphysical and the theological problem. She simply said, you broke your arm because you fell on it. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu [LAUGHTER] Pitts Theology Library Emory University But always, you see, we are trying to-- we are involved in a notion of balance, of equilibrium. And it is expressed in more formal terms as the doctrine of antecedent and consequence, of reaping and sowing, of reward and punishment. And if we can deal with our suffering in a manner that makes it fit into that kind of category, then it becomes possible for us, somehow, to absorb its violence. I have a friend who was telling me the other day about how she was reared in this doctrine. And in her household, all behavior of the children was equated in certain definite ways. If you did this, then you got this. And you did the other-- and one of the things that she was forbidden to do was to go to the circus in the afternoon, after school. And if she did, she was told the nature of the punishment. It would be a rather violent affair. So walking home from school, she weighed it. Now, is it worth what it will cost me? I want to ride the merry-go-round. I have the nickel. But if I ride the merry-go-round, then the price I pay for it is so and so and so. And when she decided that, in the light of that kind of rule of justice, of balancing, that the joy of riding on the merry-go-round without permission would absorb the violence of the whipping that she would get, she decided to go to the circus. Now, life would be very simple if this is-- if all suffering could be worked out that way-- reward, punish. But there's another dimension at work here. Some suffering does not seem to be involved in any kind of scheme of reward and punishment, certainly, as far as the individual's life and responsibility are concerned. There seems to be-- and mark my words. I say, there seems to be at work in human experience, what may be called, the operation of a random element, the operation of something that functions without particular responsibility to any individual mind, however good, and perfect, and whole that mind might be. That there is a margin of activity in the experience of man on the planet that exposes man to the operation of forces that are not responsive to that man's condition, nor responsible to his will and his judgment. These have been roughly categorized in man's thinking, sometimes, as fate, fate. In this sense man seems to be a victim, a victim. I recognize at once that when I use the word that man seems to be a victim that there is something that is very, very negative about it, something that seems to discount the morality of the universe. That man is a thing buffeted about by winds that blow without grounding their behavior in any kind of moral responsibility. This is-- we are all caught there. Why was I born as I am born or was born? Why did this happen to me? I was talking with someone the other day about a great man, a man who had spent an entire lifetime in doing, for generations of men, including my own generation, things that were of such significance that the depth to his mind and his genius can never be repaid by any act that we may perform. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And that man, during the last year and a half of his, life seemed to have been the victim of impersonal and ruthless disintegration of body. He had cancer of the stomach, cancer of the brain. And in the middle of these two combined and organized attacks, he had a stroke. Victim. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, I do not pretend to say to you, this morning, that there is, even within the context of the living faith which we know, any completely satisfying answer to the kind of moral problem that this situation creates for the human spirit. Sometimes, this is dealt with by the mind and the spirit. Remember the working definition with which we started about 20 minutes ago. Sometimes, this is dealt with by the mind or by the spirit in ways of complete and utter resignation. This is to confirm, such an attitude, is to confirm the status of man as victim. The classical illustration of it is in Prometheus. You remember in Prometheus Bound? After he has been chained to the rocks on the side of the Caucasus Mountains, and the eagles of Jove, were destined, or forced, or compelled, or decided to eat his liver and his eyeballs every day. Then every night, he grew a new liver and a new set of eyeballs, that they may be eaten all over again, the next day. And what does Prometheus say, expressing, in classic terms, this reaction of the mind of the victim experience of man, in terms of resignation? He says, I must bear what is ordained for me with patience, realizing that necessity doth front, front my universe with an invincible gesture. That's the classical Greek answer. Now, I don't know who or what-- I have some ideas. But I won't go into that at the moment. I do not know who or what is responsible for what we call man's fate. But I do know this-- that there is a fundamental distinction between a man's fate and his destiny. Now, this is where I think the creative working of what seems to me to be the genius of man's freedom is operative. Man may, given a fate-- described as I have been describing it, and as you know better than I, perhaps-- given a fate, a man may use this as raw material out of which he makes new, and fresh, and creative discoveries about the meaning and the worth of life. Now, he doesn't have to do it. He doesn't have to. And this is where the freedom comes. He may do this. He may whimper and cry out against the way in which he is victimized. He may do this. He may take the raw materials of this and, in a manner that the mechanism of which I cannot describe, transform this stuff into something that reveals a meaning, and a worth, and a dignity to his life that was not present in his awareness before he undertook this creative and daring adventure. Now, all around us, we see people who are doing this. There is another sense. I hardly know how to introduce this. But there is another sense in which man is victim. And that is the innocence of man-- the people who suffer innocently, by any standard or judgment of which we are aware. I ran into a fresh idea about this, one that had never crossed my mind before, or I had not encountered it anywhere. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And I want to read just the paragraph which is taken from a novel called The Feast. And this is a paragraph. Before you tear it up in your mind, hear it, and feel it, and then tear it up tomorrow. Pitts Theology Library Emory University "I shouldn't wonder if the entire human race-- I shouldn't wonder if the entire human race isn't tolerated for its innocent minority. I dare say that mankind is protected and sustained by undeserved suffering, by all those millions of helpless people who pay for the evil we do, and who shield us simply by being there, as Lot was in the doomed city. If any community of people were to be purely evil, were to have no element of innocence among them at all, the Earth would probably open and swallow them up. Such a community would split the moral atom. It's the innocent who integrate the whole concern. Their agony is dreadful. But their shoulders hold the sky suspended. They stand, and the Earth's foundations stay. Where you have the suffering innocent, the crucified victim, there you have the Redeemer who secures us all a continual reprieve." Now, this is almost as far as I can go with this, this morning. But I'll have to pick it up next week, I see. One of the reasons why we are never quite able to settle for man's interpretation of his experience of suffering, of pain, in terms either of some kind of balance, some kind of artificial equalization of unequals-- [SNEEZES] excuse me-- or in terms of reward and punishment, or in terms of man's experience as a victim of fate, the victim of impersonal forces. One of the reasons why we are unable to accept this as a final answer to man's encounter with suffering is the fact that there seems to be in the constitution of man, a feeling, a notion, an awareness that the world which he knows, the world of his experience, cannot contain all that his life means. Now, this is a very crude thing. But it's inherent in our disposition towards existence. Now, this spills out in little ways. For instance, you are never satisfied with anything that you do. Are you? If I were to say to you, select one expression of your life as the expression that is most completely expressive of you, if I may put it that way, which one would you select? As soon as you selected one, before the sounds died, you would say, oh, no, but that doesn't quite get into it, all the things that I've felt, or seen, or sensed. Another very crude expression of the same thing is that when you were 10 years old, you were sure that the thing that you were really on the scent of, you wouldn't land it until you were in your teens. And then when you got into your teens, you were sure that you wouldn't land it until you were in your-- whatever-- in your-- the next bracket of years. And then when you got into those-- and this is the way. Now, there is something about the human spirit, a kind of constitutional bias, that insists that experience of whatever kind cannot quite contain all that I mean by me. So the judgment that I pass upon the meaning of my life and, therefore, the meaning of existence can never quite be clued by any event that I may be going through. And if I be a religious man, then I say that God cannot ever be exhausted in any aspect of human experience. So always, at the end of the experience, even at the end of man's experience of life 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu itself, there is more to be said, more to be felt, more to be known, then all of my past can possibly conjure up. And ultimately, this is the answer, both to the goodness of life and the suffering of life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University "Who are Life's victors? Unroll thy long annals and say. The martyrs or Nero? His judges or Socrates? Pilate or Christ?" Who? Who? Who? Who? Who? Be in us and about us, oh, God. Leave us not alone in whatever may be our private desolation. Tutor us in the wisdom that whatever may be the lot, Thou hast not exhausted Thy meaning in us, nor Thyself in our spirits. Grant unto us Thy peace, oh, God. [REVERENT MUSIC] (SINGING) Amen. Amen. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston, MA) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959 Description An account of the resource In the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman explores the woven-together tapestry of freedom, death, grace, and more. The sermon series paints a picture of human beings as both free and fallible. However, even in our imperfection and failure, we are not without the mysterious support of God, who judges us beyond our account of wins and losses. Thurman ultimately suggests that freedom, and the suffering that comes with it, brings texture and adventure to our lives, and is the way by which we discover meaning and dignity for ourselves. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-639_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Freedom and Suffering, parts 1 and 2, 1959 Nov 22, 29 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 394-639_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering, Part 3, 1959 November 22 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959-11-22 Description An account of the resource In this third sermon in the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman focuses in on the suffering aspect. Suffering is the common experience of human beings, and perhaps all living beings. Thurman says that the Christian tradition itself was born out of pain and suffering, and represents the human project of squeezing optimism from pessimism. Thurman adds that we are always trying to deduce the logic of our suffering, but even still there are times when the balance of reaping and sowing does not add up. In these moments we may feel like a victim in the world, but Thurman insists that we have the freedom to work with our fate creatively, revealing the meaning, worth, and dignity of our lives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/533421dd6c93275fb14f9e303b35d8e5.pdf 53b28d1f48111051965084599d6cdee6 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-638_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University The ways by which we have come to this place, this day. For some, the journey has been through many paths and bypaths leading sometimes one place and other times to another place. But always the hunger persists that there is a meaning in life that is greater than the meaning which we are experiencing, a depth of feeling profounder than anything that we know, a way of thinking that transcends the furthest realms of our own thoughts. It is good, therefore, to sit together feeling our minds and spirits gentled by a wider circle of meaning and thought than anything that we have known before and to know each after the pattern of his own need that Thou art our Father nearer than breathing, closer than hands and feet. And the thought is too much for us. The assurance is more than we cannot abide. Reach to us our Father in our weakness, in our sin, in our failure, and in our pride that we may know that we are Thy children. And that Thou art our Father, our Father. [MUSIC PLAYING] As a background for our thinking together, I'm reading two paragraphs from The Creative Quest by Atkins and one of the [INAUDIBLE] sonnets. "Grace is more vital than our theologies about grace. It cannot be contained in any doctrine. It is a reality in life made manifest in uncounted ways, from the faint green burgeoning of leaves after winter's leaflessness and the resurgence of ruined cities from their dust to the blessedness of those who know their sins forgiven and their future bright with tender hope. Nay, it supplies a hope which lights a road beyond the hills of time and links the pilgrimages of life with their losses, shadows, and fugitive happinesses to immoral issues." Jung has said in a single sentence how all this bears upon any present time and arresting upon our own time. He says, and this is the sentence, "the modern man is completely modern only when he has come to the very edge of the world, leaving behind him all that has been discarded and outgrown and acknowledging that he stands before a void out of which all things must grow." And now, there are no assuring signs that we are ready to lead behind us all that has been discarded and outgrown. But we do seem on the edge of the world and to be looking over into a void. This void is religion's opportunity. Nothing else is in sight to save us, nor will any religion save us which has not itself the sense of having come to the edge of the world and of looking into a void out of which all things may grow. "It may be," says Atkins, "that Christianity itself needs to learn that it cannot save its own life without losing it." And then this. "Small flowers there are beside the stoniest way. And on the seeming endless journeying, some breaths of air are sweet. And some birds sing. And some new goal is reached in every day. Yet for the unknown end, we wait and pray. When the last knot of this world's tangled string is straightened out and every evil thing redeemed and heaven's undisputed sway. We know not how 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu the day is to be born, whether in clouds of glory, tongues of flame, as once that Pentecost the spirit came or whether imperceptibly as dawn. But as the seed must grow into the tree, so life is love and love the end must be." Pitts Theology Library Emory University At one end of our man's experience of freedom is death which instructs and informs the character and the nature of failure as well as freedom. At the other end of man's experience of freedom is grace. For even though man has the freedom to feel, there is a very subtle, and sometimes dramatic, manifestation in the human spirit, which says over and over again that man feels. But he does not feel absolutely. And it is with reference to this margin that grace has to do. The things that are true in religion are in religion because they are true. They are not true because they are in the religion. This is very important. It is the genius of religion to be able to dramatize and, in a religion like Christianity, to personalize that which is valid and true without regard to the context by which the particular statement it may be surrounded. Now, if there is any meaning then in the great doctrine of grace with which we will not have many words to say. But if there is any validity in it, this validity is a universal validity, universal validity. We are all involved in the manifestation of the overflow in life. Now, if I may if I may illustrate it rather crudely, back in 1938 I was going to Los Angeles from Washington District of Columbia. I decided that I would go the southern root down through Memphis, New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Yuma, and on. I had been advised by the person in the world closest to me that it would be a very good thing if I improved my knowledge of American history by stopping at San Antonio to see the Alamo. At the time, I had no particular interest in the Alamo. I had a sense of history. And that was, for me, sufficient. But nevertheless, when we arrived that train arrived at San Antonio, we were there for a half hour at noon. I got off the train, took a look around. And as a matter of fact, it was time to get in a cab and go up to the Alamo and just look at the outside and come back so that the assignment was carried out. And then I got back on the train. And as the train started moving out of the station, suddenly without any preparation, I reached for my bag and for my topcoat and jumped off the train while it was moving. At midnight, the next train came along. And I got this train. And when the train arrived on the outskirts of Yuma, Arizona, we stopped. And there to the left, we saw great steel cars twisted as if a giant had been at work, two huge locomotives as two prehistoric monsters were up like this, sides in the coaches where an acetylene torch had been used to cut an opening to pull the dead bodies out. And that was the train off of which I had jumped. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu On the other hand-- and I will not pursue this. I leave it for you. There were some people who decided at the last minute to take the train. Now, grace is man's experience of that which is beyond the balance, beyond the accounting, beyond the merit and the demerit. Pitts Theology Library Emory University It is the extra something that seems always to be relating to man's life out of an initiative that is its own and that is not relating to man's life because of something which, in the nature of the case, the individual life demands. It is like an aroma that surrounds the life of man, impinging upon it, dealing with it, structuring it, cradling it, sustaining it, redeeming it, reassuring it, giving comfort to it. But its movement is not contingent upon what is going on in the individual mind and heart. Now, one of the ways, it seems to me, by which we experience this most effectively is in our struggle, our individual and private struggle, with good and evil. The thing that always impresses me about my own struggle with good and evil and the observation that I make with reference to other individuals' struggle with good and evil is that the thing that defines the meaning of man's struggle with good and evil is what may be called a backdrop, a background of innocence, in which neither good nor evil participates. It is this memory-- what shall I call it? This racial memory of innocence that provides the background against which the sharp lines of the meaning of good as contrasted with evil takes on a significance. And outside of all that we mean by good and evil but that gives a background and a context to it is this sense of innocence, this thing that is wrapped up in the myth about the innocence of man that which predated man's experience with conflict, man's experience with good and evil. And on the other end-- on the other end of man's struggle with good and evil, there is something else that is of the same quality as is the racial memory of innocence. And that is a notion of good that is beyond good and evil. That this is, in my thought, a manifestation of the way the life of man is girded and supported and sustained. But within the area between these two things, the racial sense of innocence, which is the vast backdrop of all man's experience with good and evil and the great is staggering boundless reach of the mind and the spirit of man in terms of a good that is beyond good and evil, in that arena, man's struggle takes place. And always in the struggle, there are moments when light from that transcendent future or light from that transcendent past breaks in upon man's struggle with his darkness. So when the world is going to pieces and everywhere there seems to be nothing but violence with the smell of death riding on the every breeze, nestled right in the heart of this kind of collapse of the worldly hopes men set their hearts upon stirs a dream about peace, about a kind of existence for man in which all of the madness of war and violence will have passed away. Now, this he thinks of, he feels, he dreams about while he is dying on the battlefield. While he is exposed to the utmost of violence and destruction, breaking into it like a shaft of transcended glory is something else. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, this is not all for we experience it in other ways, in the human transaction that we have with each other all the time in our experience with love. And we see that, as we love, it is something that has some element of measurement in it, some aspect of merit and demerit, some limiting qualitative something. But all the time, what we are trying to do, what we hope that some time at last we shall be able to do is to experience unmotivated love that is sheer. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And that is why, when as individuals we reflect upon the wonder and the miracle which is ours when we are aware that we are loved by someone, what is it that comes back to us over and over again as the quality of our experience becomes invaded by this new dimension of integrity? What do we say? We say to ourselves, I cannot possibly be worthy of this. So that the only way by which it can mean something to me that finally penetrates is that it is the outpouring of something that is without merit, something that is unmotivated, even as religion insists is the way God loves us. So the Master says, he has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our inequities. God caused the sun to shine on the good man and the bad man, the just and the unjust. And in the drama of the incarnation in Christianity, this is what is being said about the grace of God. That there is no state of man, no condition of man that is beyond the reach of the redemptive manifestation of the love of God. Now, whether or not we from the vantage point of our orientation to life, whether or not we from the vantage point of our thoughts about the nature of religion and the nature of existence or the nature of God or the nature of ourselves are willing to accept as a part of our context any doctrine that has to do with the way in which, according to the Christian religion, God spoke in human history through a man. Whether or not we are in a position to deal with this intellectually, or even emotionally, the simple fact remains. That in the language of the living texture of our days, we are always finally seeing that there is at last no validity in a notion that causes one man to give up another man. To say that you are so bad that for you there is no margin. Now, this expresses itself in another way. And the way by which we hold to our own sense of infinite worth. This is another very close and psychological manifestation in my judgment of the working of grace through what, for me, is the goodness of God. I know, for instance, that I am not as good as someone may think I am nor as bad as someone may think I am. I have an inside track that enables me to behold all the movements of my own life and to work assiduously at the details of unraveling the threads of my motivations. There is no word, no judgment that can come from the lips of another that has not been predated in my own mind and thoughts and observations concerning myself. But nevertheless, I don't give myself up. I cling to myself with an enthusiasm that is abiding. And even though I know that the good that I see I have not been able to achieve, even though I know that there is always lurking around the purest motive that which is tainted with a peculiar 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu kind of private dial, nevertheless, I say that there is a worth in me that is intrinsic, that is independent of all character of any kind. Pitts Theology Library Emory University This is the most intimate way by which the margin of that which is more spills over into the private life. And so in our scripture lesson, the Greek woman comes to Jesus. She's in trouble as far as the child is concerned. And she wants Him to do something. And out of the tight circle of his own frustration growing out of the mounting resistance to his movement and to the Kingdom of God as he sensed it, he said to her, "it is not right. It is not meritorious. It is not a part of the balance that I should take the children's food and give it to dogs." This throws the whole thing out of scale. There is a prevailing prejudice on the part of life that manifests itself in terms of grace, but terms of grace that are peculiar to a peculiar people. And what did this Greek woman say standing outside of all that he meant? "Aw," she said, "Master, do you not know what kind of world this is? The world is so made that you can't feed the children without feeding the dogs." "Go," He said. "And it shall be unto you." And thank you very much for reminding me. Thank you very much. We're overwhelmed, our Father, by the massive pressure of Thy Spirit upon our minds and our hearts. Be with us in weakness and in strength, in failure and success, in sin and in virtue lest we fail absolutely, our Father. [MUSIC PLAYING] 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston, MA) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959 Description An account of the resource In the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman explores the woven-together tapestry of freedom, death, grace, and more. The sermon series paints a picture of human beings as both free and fallible. However, even in our imperfection and failure, we are not without the mysterious support of God, who judges us beyond our account of wins and losses. Thurman ultimately suggests that freedom, and the suffering that comes with it, brings texture and adventure to our lives, and is the way by which we discover meaning and dignity for ourselves. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-638_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Freedom and Failure; Freedom and Grace, 1959 Nov 8, 15, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-638_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering, Part 2: Freedom and Grace, 1959 November 15 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959-11-15 Description An account of the resource In this second sermon in the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman adds grace into his discussion on freedom and failure. Human beings have the freedom to fail again and again, however we never fail totally and absolutely. In this there is grace. For Thurman, grace is our experience of something dealing with us beyond balance and beyond merit; it is an unexplainable outpouring that sustains, redeems, and reassures us. Grace is found in God who does not give up on us, who sees us beyond the surface for our infinite worth. Even amongst failure, grace tips the balance scale in our favor. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/53e183240312d22072cd9c154bd92c73.pdf 7084e31ab159ca993f36f9169c8d5470 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-638_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University And there is a weariness of the body which is our common lot because of the fevered character of the daily round. And it is good to sit together in the sanctuary and give rest to the body. There is a weariness of mind due to the wide variety of tensions which engage it, tensions which express themselves in ambivalences and contradictions and paradoxes. It is good to have a moment when all of these are suspended and the mind waits for a new dimension of a lightness and synthesis. There is a weariness of the world. The kind of exhaustion that comes from the contemplation of needs that are so vast that the mind cannot encompass, from the awareness of distresses, the heights and depths of which stagger the imagination, the overriding quality of despair that seems to provide the subtle overtone to all the tidings that sweep in to us from the ends of the earth. It is good, so very good, to pause and spread out before the altar, the vast reaches of the weariness of the world. There is a weariness of the spirit made up in part of hunger, in part of guilt and sin and error, in part of anxiety, in part of love and hate. And how good it is to bring into our churning spirits the moment of quiet. When perchance our Father, it will pleasure Thy Spirit to breathe into us Thy great tranquility, that we may know each after the pattern of his own need and hunger and desperation what it is that is needful for his peace. And for this, privilege this fleeting, subtle, creative moment of Thy grace, we give Thee thanks. We give Thee thanks. We give the thanks, oh God, oh God, our Father. [ORGAN MUSIC] [CHOIR SINGING] As the background for a continuation of our thought about freedom and failure, a thought which was touched upon in our last time together when we were focusing our minds upon the setting of the timeless insights and tradition which is ours, we you listen to these two points, one with which you are familiar, no doubt, written many years ago by a man who is serving a lifetime sentence in the Charlestown prison in the state and the other from a contemporary. Life, you have beaten me. Still with stinging wounds, I kiss your hands. Though you have tortured me until my joy was crushed, my hopes, my will for things I do not understand. Though I have trembled at your power and wept in terror hour by hour for all our struggling, hate, and strife, I love you life. Though what I build, you will destroy, though you have snatched joy after joy from my weak hands, and though you break my heart, and all my dreams dispel and silence ever read drum and fife that makes my march less terrible, I love you life. And life, for all your cruel powers, for all your proud brutality, how wonderful the few brief hours when you are kind to me. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And the other-- though I am beaten, nobody shall know. I'll wear defeat so proudly, I shall go about my business as I did before. Only when I have safely closed the door against you and the rest shall I be free to bow my head when there is none to see. Tonight, I'll shed my tears. Tomorrow when I talk with you, I will be gay again. Though I am beaten, nobody shall guess, for I will walk as though I knew success. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Let us not be depressed. It was suggested that one of the tremendously searching and necessitous words that is symbolic of a timeless insight that moves through the ground of our tradition is the word freedom. And this is no accident. Freedom has a twin, and that twin is failure. In June 1941, or '42, June 1 and 2 1941, '42, there was held in Cincinnati a conference, the topic of which, why men fail. It was sponsored by the Doctors of the Mind and the Emotions. They had published under the editorship, the former editor of the American Medical Association a volume that gives the papers that were read by the doctors at that time, which if a person's interested in pursuing certain aspects of the whole meaning of human failure, I suggest this book, "Why Men Fail," edited by Dr. Fishbein. There is another book on the meaning of human existence by a man whose name is Leslie Paul. It has also a very searching chapter on another aspect of the meaning of failure for persons who want to pursue this further in terms of the meaning of human freedom as they experience it against the background of freedom and its meaning. You will find further reading in this way very rewarding. Now, I began with the basic insight that the gift of life is at once the gift of failure. The gift of life is at once the gift of failure for the gift of life is at once the gift of freedom. Man is a very fallible creature. We cannot think of man as being infallible, can we? One of the reasons why I think that life is good rather than evil is the fact that I can always be mistaken. The margin of error, the possibility of error does not ever desert the human predicament. And it is altogether possible that a man may live his entire life confident that at every step of the way, he has been right, only to discover just before he dies that a great segment of his life has been a mistake. But because this is true, we don't stop living. Now, things that do not have life don't make mistakes. And sometimes that's why I envy things because it's a wonderful thing to know that your pencil just as a pencil can't ever make a mistake. Your fountain pen can't ever make a mistake. Your shoes can't ever make a mistake. These inanimate things somehow are blessed without having any meaning. They cannot be significant because they can't fail. Now, let this sink into our minds. When failure is an expression or the experience of the internal organism, we say that the person is ill. So illness is a form of failure as far as the internal organisms is concerned. So that the doctor through chemistry and through a certain kind of mechanical apparatuses and functioning and one or two other things seeks to restore the wholeness of function to the 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu organism. And you say he is well if this internal failure has somehow been corrected. But because it is a living thing, it can experience this kind of failure. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, there is another dimension of failure when the organism is functioning in activity-- failure in judgment, failure to exercise the increment of will at a moment when this increment of will was called for and we could not deliver, failure to act because one was filled with what may be called the absence of courage at the crucial moment. These represent failure of the organism in inactivity. And always at this level, failure means that the individual has had an opportunity to act in one way or the other. Therefore implicit in man's experience of failure is his experience of freedom for freedom means to be able to act one way or the other, but to be under no compulsion to act exclusively in a particular way. For this, there would not be freedom. I have told you several times from this pulpit, and I say it again because it's worth it, that the most dramatic illustration that I've had in my own life of what failure and freedom mean in terms of this choice of action. And where there is no choice of action, there is no freedom, and therefore no failure. It is the story of the traveling evangelist who came to our community and who preached a sermon about hell. And he was taken on a journey to hell as a visitor. And he was shown around. And in my community at that time, the two great sins, of course, were dancing and card playing. And the persons who went to hell went to hell for doing these two things. Now, he was a man of very great insight, for he said that the thing that you had to do forever in hell was the thing the doing of which brought you to hell in the first place. So that he went first to this great dance hall, and everybody was dancing. That is, couples were dancing, and they had to dance forever and ever without ever stopping and with the same partner. Just forever and ever and ever. And then, another place, they were playing cards, playing five up, which was the game of my boyhood. They were seated four at a table. And they had to sit there and play cards throughout eternity without ever stopping. Now, they couldn't fail, you see, because they could act only in one way. Freedom then was not something which they could experience. And the absence of freedom was not only slavery. But the absence of freedom in the mind of this inspired man was ill for it meant that the living texture of the organism had died. It could not act within the feeling context of a living option. Now, there is not only failure when the organism breaks down internally in one way or another or when there is a breakdown in judgment. But there is another kind of failure which, for lack of a better term, is a failure that has more of a spiritual quality in it without seeming to prejudice it at all. It is the failure to do the good thing, the right thing when you are faced with the option. To look at the good, and formally to reject it. The failure that is made up of remorse. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, if I have a failure in judgment so that I act with as much knowledge and awareness as I know, but I didn't have enough knowledge and enough awareness now, I may be sorry that I didn't do the thing that I should have done. But I am not loaded with remorse and guilt. This is different. Pitts Theology Library Emory University But if I am faced and confronted with a thing which seems to me to be the right and the decent thing to do, and I exercise an option which sends me in a direction that denies the validity and the integrity of the thing, then my reaction to that kind of failure is remorse, guilt. If I mistreat you in order that I might pour out upon you the distilled violences of my own spirits and make of you a victim of my distorted or diseased emotion, then as I contemplate the withering results of this kind of behavior, I feel unclean. It's like the difference between a man who has been killed by what bill of ladings call an act of God-- a man killed in an earthquake or a man killed by lightning. When you look at such a man, you feel the sense of the tragic dimension of life, the dimension of powerlessness, of exposure of man to what seems to be the operation of certain impersonal and random elements in existence. But when you look at a man who has been killed by another man, you feel nasty, contaminated, unclean. Now, here is the miracle. I wish I knew enough to explain it. But here is the miracle, that there is a dimension of the human spirit that is able to detach itself from the sense of failure that grows out of this third activity and so to operate upon it, that the individual seems to be able to work out some kind of redemption, some kind of reconciliation. So that always wherever men have experiences of guilt and shame surrounding the experience, moving somewhere within the area of the experience, or sometimes found at the very heart beat of the experience itself is something that is positive and creative that suggests sometimes techniques, methods, ways, moods, attitudes, spirit that will somehow absolve the violence of the guilt. And the individual has the experience that is called the experience of forgiveness. Now, the monitor-- oh, that isn't the word. The boundary-- no. The context yes, that's better. The context in which man's experience of failure takes place-- failure and freedom, you see, are these twins. You'll understand how I'm thinking about the. The context in which it takes place is a context that has one basic assumption. And that is that the ultimate failure for the organism is death, is death, is death. And even in the story of Methuselah, finally even he and death got together. That ultimately, the organism fails in death. But here again is another thing that I don't quite understand. But it is it is inherent in all of the great religious insights and fundamental to the insight of our own tradition, that the human spirit in the exercise of responsible and significant living, which is living that is fallible, must learn how to take into account the fact of death so that somewhere within the context of every man's living, his spirit confronts death. Not his body, his body-- this is automatic. Not merely his mind, but the dimension of his personality, that for lack of a better term, I will call the time binding aspect of his personality. This confronts death. This faces death. This takes death into account. This deals with death. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And out of this confrontation of the human spirit with that which holds in its hands the guarantor of man's fallibility arises all of the great moments when the mind and the spirit in synthesis seem to be able to announce to death that it is a little thing. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And the dogmas express it in a wide series of doctrines. But what they are saying is that something can happen to the spirit that enables the spirit of man to confront that which guarantees all the fallibility of man, death, so that so that there emerges then over and over again at the level of the most humble human being and sometimes at the staggering heights of the most learned and sophisticated a very simple insight that is distilled out of the stuff of deep living, that there are some things in life that are worse than death. And once this is the assurance, the perspective on life falls into place. Now, there's one more little step if I can just take it. It is this quality of the spirit of man that ultimately takes even the fact of death into account, that ultimately deals with failure. For a distinction of insight and of spiritual quality is always made then by such persons between being mistaken-- now, please hear this-- between being mistaken on the one hand and failure on the other. That one of the delusions, you see, is to identify failure and being mistaken. And the two things may not be synonymous. A man may feel again and again and again and again. And each failure underscores his sense of fallibility and weakness and impotency. Yet, he may not be mistaken in the thing he's trying to do. For always against the failure under such circumstance, something wars, something does battle. And it is this quality in the spirit of land with which he confronts death, even, that enables man to keep the distinction clear. And assuming that it is a valid and a real one, between being mistaken in the thing to which I'm committed and failing to accomplish it. I may fail over and over and over again, and get up and start over again over and over. Heir of the kingdom neath the skies, often he falls, yet falls to rise, stumbling, bleeding, beaten back, holding still to the upward track, playing his part in creation's plan. God-like in image, this is man. This is man. This is man. And it would not be true if he couldn't fail. For to be free, man must be free really. And to be free really means that he must be conditioned, as it were, to error. And grow in his spirit is measured by the degree to which he is able to release the quality that is inherent in him that enables him to deal in terms of confrontation with the fact of failure understood within the insight of man's experience with freedom. And I thank God that this is so. Be very close. Very close to us as we stumble and falter and fail, that we may know that these, after all, are expressions of Thy love and the depth of Thy carry. [ORGAN MUSIC] [CHOIR SINGING] Amen. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University Amen. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston, MA) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959 Description An account of the resource In the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman explores the woven-together tapestry of freedom, death, grace, and more. The sermon series paints a picture of human beings as both free and fallible. However, even in our imperfection and failure, we are not without the mysterious support of God, who judges us beyond our account of wins and losses. Thurman ultimately suggests that freedom, and the suffering that comes with it, brings texture and adventure to our lives, and is the way by which we discover meaning and dignity for ourselves. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-638_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette Freedom and Failure; Freedom and Grace, 1959 Nov 8, 15 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 394-638_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource Freedom and Suffering, Part 1: Freedom and Failure, 1959 November 8 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1959-11-08 Description An account of the resource In Part 1 of this sermon series, Thurman claims that freedom and failure are twins. The gift of life is also the gift of failure, which is also the gift of freedom. Without the ability to choose, there can be no failure. Thus, human beings are free and fallible creatures. The ultimate and inevitable failure for a living organism is death. Thurman says that the human spirit must confront death and failure. From this confrontation arises a new perspective on life, a renewed understanding of freedom and life. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III.