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2706ac71e40410af25f1902c9a375f8b
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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-809.mp3
The following "We Believe" program by Dr. Howard Thurman is a repeat of a telecast made on
March 15, 1963.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
I'm reading from The Inward Journey. Joy is of many kinds. Sometimes joy comes silently,
opening all closed doors and making itself at home in the desolate heart. It has no forerunner,
save itself. It brings its own welcome and its own salutation. Sometimes, joy is compounded of
many elements-- a touch of sadness, a whimper of pain, a harsh word tenderly held until all its
arrogance dies.
The casting of the eye into the face that understands, the clasp of a hand that holds, then releases,
a murmur of tenderness where no word is spoken, the distilled moment of remembrance of a day
or a night, an hour lived beyond the sweep of the daily round. Joy is often compounded of many
things.
There is earned joy-- an impossible job tackled and conquered, leaving no energy for assessing
the price or measuring the cost, only an all-inclusive sense of well-being in the mind-- and
slowly creeping through all the crevices of the spirit. Or, it may be some dread has reared its
head, gathering into itself all hope that is unassigned until it becomes the master of the house.
Then, relief comes through fresh knowledge and new insight-- clearer vision.
What was dread now proves groundless. And the heart takes to wings like an eagle in its flight.
There is a joy that is given. There are those who have in themselves the gift of joy. It is no
relation to merit or demerit. It is not a quality that have been arrested from the vicissitudes of
life. Such people have not fought and won a hard battle. They have made no conquests.
To them, joy is given as a precious ingredient in life. It is a part of their basic, intrinsic
equipment. Wherever they go, they give birth to joy in others. They are the heavenly
troubadours, earth-bound, who spread their music all around and who sing their song without
words and without sounds.
To be touched by them is to be blessed of God. They give even as they have been given. Their
presence is a benediction and a grace. In them, we hear the music and the score. And, in their
faces, we sense a glory, which is the very light of heaven.
One of the most inspiring and significant teachers in my life was a Quaker, mystic, and
philosopher, Rufus Jones. And, despite the fact that one associates a certain kind of somberness
with the Quaker mood-- characterized at one period by certain peculiarities of dress and certain
peculiarities of speech, even.
Despite all of this, there is-- there was, in Rufus, buoyancy, a kind of spontaneity, a freshness, a
joy which I found constantly contagious. I remember hearing him talk one day from a verse in
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Exodus that I did not even know it existed. I had read Exodus several times in the past, but this
particular verse had escaped me. And these are the words.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
They saw God. And then, they ate and drank. And, as Rufus quoted these words, he gave this
tremendous smile and a contagion of light in his face, and his eyes, and he talked about the
meaning of this. That Moses, again and again, had gone up on the mountain behind the clouds.
And there, he had fellowship with God-- communion with God. And it was there that he received
the insights that he carried later on to the people.
But, on one occasion, he carried with him the elders-- just those people who were a part of the
garden variety ebb and flow of the life of the Israelites. He carried these people, plucked from
the masses of the rest with him on the mountain. And, after they had seen God, as Exodus puts it,
then, instead of having somber faces and coming down from the mountain and saying, don't
touch me, don't associate with me. Let me get away so that I can recover from the ravages of
absolute beauty or absolute holiness or absolute integrity.
Instead of doing this, they ate and they drank. They picked up the common tasks-- the ordinary
things that they were doing. But my guess is-- of course, I wasn't there, but my guess is that
when they ate, there was something added to the taste of the food. That there was something just
a little plus, because what they had seen him on the Mount of Vision had somehow insinuated
itself into the commonplace life about them.
And this, to me, is one of the very interesting characteristics of the dynamics of joy. It does not
mean that a person has not had a heart that is broken. It does not mean that a person has not
suffered, a person may not be suffering. But, it does mean that he has been able to discover that
joy and sorrow or joy and pain are two sides of a single coin.
I have a friend-- an old teacher-- another teacher who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. About four years
ago, both of his legs were amputated, and he lives now in a wheelchair and is no longer active.
But, again and again, different students and faculty persons and all of his former students come
to Atlanta for one purpose only-- just to go out to his home, talk with him, to get their joy
restored.
Now, he has lost both legs, and was a very active man, is confined to his wheelchair, confined to
his house. But he has taken this disaster-- he has taken this dimension of hazard, and he has torn
it open to reveal that, at the heart of it, there is a creative power that enables him to not only to
endure what he has gone through, but to find how to use this thing as an updraft.
So that, because of it, he soars in regions that were not open to him before. And, from those lofty
heights, he can look down on the plains. And, not only that, but from those lofty heights, he can
come down on the plain and be a part of the common life. They saw God-- Moses and the elders- and after their vision, they did not go into a retreat. They did not find some solitary place in the
wilderness.
But, after the vision, they picked up the ordinary tasks of ordinary life. They that wait upon the
Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings as eagles. They shall run and not
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be weary. They shall walk-- walk, walk, walk-- and not faint. The common life illuminated by
the touch of a vision.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The preceding weekly program by Dr. Howard Thurman was a repeated telecast from March 15,
1963.
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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" />
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-809.html" ></iframe>
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Joy is of Many Kinds (63-13B; 63-4/12)
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-809
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Thurman, Howard
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Joy is of Many Kinds (1963-04-12)
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording, Thurman discusses the different types of joy and its nature. He also suggests where we can find joy in life, how we can give it to others, and how it can be found even in moments of suffering and pain.
Thurman uses some examples to illustrate his points. In one example, Moses and elders return from the presence of God to take on regular tasks like eating with additional joy. In another example, a friend of Thurman's uses the loss of his legs to demonstrate that "there is a creative power that enables him to not only to endure what he has gone through, but to find how to use this thing as an updraft."
[Note: this recording was originally broadcast on March 15, 1963 and then re-aired on April 12]
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Description by Spencer Roberts
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Pitts Theology Library
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394-808.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
You are very kind. Have you ever said it? Words which gather to themselves all the harvest of
gratitude, planted by years of living, spring alive in you by the miracle of a simple deed that
bears no mark of obligation. Men deserve praise for deeds of calculating courage when odds are
weighed and the die is cast on the side of action, unrestrained but clear.
Men deserve honor when, through long days or years, they have wrested from the stubborn gods
gifts to bless, to heal, to redeem their kind. Men deserve reverence, all men. For in them dwells
the undying fire, a flame from the light that no darkness can dispel. But kindness-- where can
there be found one whose deeds, however great, whose life, however blameless, whose heart,
however pure, can claim of another the kind act, the gracious offering? Kindness can never be
coupled with merit. It is the overflowing of the heart that crowns another with a radiance born
not of duty, of requitement, but of love.
Christmas is a mood, a quality, a symbol. It is never merely a fact. As a fact, it is a date on the
calendar. To the believer, it is the anniversary of an event in human history. An individual may
relate himself meaningfully to the fact or the event, but that would not be Christmas.
The mood of Christmas, what is it? It is a quickening of the presence of other human beings into
whose lives a precious part of one's own has been released. It is a memory of other days, when
into one's path, an angel appeared, spreading a halo over an ordinary moment or a commonplace
event.
It is an iridescent of sheer delight that bathed one's whole being with something more wonderful
than words can ever tell. Of such is the mood of Christmas. The quality of Christmas, what is it?
It is the fullness with which fruit ripens. Blossoms unfold into flowers, and live coals glow in the
darkness. It is the richness of vibrant colors, the calm purple of grapes, the exciting redness of
tomatoes, the shimmering light on the noisily stirring of a lake at sunset.
It is the sense of plateau, with a large rock behind which one may take temporary respite from
winds that chill. Of such is the quality of Christmas. The symbol of Christmas, what is it? It is
the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the
cry of life in the new born babe. When forced from its mother's nest, it claims its right to live.
It is the brooding presence of the eternal spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places
smooth, tired hearts refreshed. Dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of
tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance
that love is steadier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more
permanent than evil.
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Religious & National Holidays
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Various sermons, meditations, and readings related to holidays and national holidays.
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Christmas Meditation, 1975 Feb 13
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394-808
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Christmas Meditation, 1975 February 13
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Description
An account of the resource
Thurman explains the mood, quality, and symbol of Christmas. This contrasts with viewing Christmas as merely a day on the calendar, or a commemoration of an event. He uses sharp imagery to describe each of these features. For example, the mood of Christmas is “an iridescent of sheer delight that bathed one's whole being with something more wonderful than words can ever tell.” The quality is “the calm purple of grapes.” The symbol is “the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day” and “that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Description by Erik Mattson
Christmas
mood
quality
symbol
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Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-807.mp3
[CHURCH BELLS RINGING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in they sight, oh Lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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 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.
Oh, will of God, I am a patient man. And I can wait like an old gun flint 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 Sangamon apples, till at last there is no sleep
left there, and the steel event descends to strike the live coal out of me and light the powder that
was always there.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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 out
eat him, and out leap him. But Mister, that dog is hell on a cool 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, 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. 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 just as soon or late.
There is no more to ask of earth of fire. And water only runs between my hands. But in the air I
look. In the blue air, the old dog muzzled down to the cold scent, day after day, until the tired
years crackled 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 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 tug me on. I have gone on while others pulled me back, striving to
read your will, striving to find the justice and expedience of this case, hunting an arrow down the
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chilly airs until my eyes are blind with a 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."
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]
This program was pre-recorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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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/394-807.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body (64-14a; 64-2/7), 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
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Identifier
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394-807
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body (1964-02-07)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1964-02-07
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.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
civil war
God residue
God's will
John Brown's Body
slavery
Stephen Benet
-
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Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-804.mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O
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'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 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, 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 agreed everything they said. No, he ain't much on looks,
much on speed. A young dog can outrun him any time, outlook him, and outea him, and outleap
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, 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 build 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 look. Yes, in the blue air, the old dog, muzzled 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.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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, [INAUDIBLE] 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.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
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 the your
will, striving to find the justice and experience 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 it issued now without defeats in everybody's mouth, it may be
viewed as a last shriek for help from an exhausted, beaten government. Put it aside till 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 of 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, hey? Yes, yes. I'm glad of that. I'm very glad.
There's no mistake this time. We have the best of them. They are in retreat. This is a great day,
Statham, if McClellan can only follow up to victory now. Lord, I will keep my promise and go
on. Your will much still being dark to me, but in this one thing, as I see it, plain.
And yet if Lee slips through our hands again, and as he well may, through all those last reports
on the war, still goes on, and still there is no end, even after this Antietam. 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, at best, we never seem to know you
wholly.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
But there is something left, a strange and 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 20,000 wasted strokes, brings the tall hemlock crashing to the ground against the failure.
Something wars.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is the great word. A man may be mistaken, and this [INAUDIBLE] 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 10,000 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 my 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
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-804.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Location, Arkansas AM&N College, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, pulled from BU's chronology - GL 5/15/19
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body, 1960 Feb 5
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
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Identifier
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394-804
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body (1960-02-05)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-10243685.651967 4061411.0319819))
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1960-02-05
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
God's will
John Brown's Body
slavery
Stephen Benet
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/61a3782cb6fcb2b90b8a35b75b19770c.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711618200&Signature=Not4BkFfCtLSdZRbYyPEQs8tW8Y%3D
9c03811d209b5f71e0adee582aba47b6
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-803.mp3
[BELLS RINGING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Because in a few days we shall be observing in this country the birthday anniversary of Abraham
Lincoln and because this is the centennial of the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, I
shall be reading for as much time as I have from Stephen Benet's John Brown's Body.
"I've never found a church that I could join"-- this is Abraham Lincoln speaking-- "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 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.
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, 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, O Lord. And the world's kennel holds 10,000 hounds smarter and
faster and with finer coats to hunt Your hidden purpose up the wind and bell upon the trace You
leave behind. But even 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
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.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
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, hippo and legs and all. I can't complain. I'm ready to admit You could have made a betterlooking dog, 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 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.
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 approved 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 a 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 cave that never hears a
footstep but my own or ever will while I'm a man alive to keep my prison locked from visitors,
what if I heard another footstep there?
What if someday, 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 He came, what would we say to Him? God is not a
jailer.
And I make a promise now to you and to myself. If this last battle is a victory and they can drive
the rebel army back from Maryland, back over the Potomac, my proclamation shall go out at last
to set those other prisoners and slaves from this next year then and forever free. So much for my
will. Show me what is yours.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
That must be news, those footsteps in the hall, good news, or else they wouldn't come so fast.
What is it, hey? 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? Ah. This is a great
day, Stanton.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
If McClellan can only come up with a 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 from my hands again, as he well may from all these last reports, and the war still goes on
and still no end, not for years, I cannot read it.
But I will go on-- old dog, old dog-- but settle to the scent. And with fresh breath now from this
breathing space, almighty God, at best, we never seem to know You wholly. But there's
something left, a strange last 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 blunted and bitten axe, and, after 20,000 wasted strokes, brings the tall hemlock crashing
to the ground.
I can't go on, and yet I must go on."
[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/394-803.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body (60-6B; 63-2/8), 1963 Feb 8
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
394-803
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body (1963-02-08)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963-02-08
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 isolation and civil unrest.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
civil war
discernment
God's will
Isolation
John Brown's Body
slavery
Stephen Benet
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/a4fc9bf36c38cad205c6fb52d0ae8d2d.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711618200&Signature=fqW6ThL1x7zmnC52A6o6gF0jIns%3D
bb470fa07bb0c8438812455997679ec9
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-802.mp3
At Victor they are skillfully blended to give--
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[BELLS RINGING]
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 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 sought 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 deputation
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 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 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, 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 help
my cause, I will do that. But should such a freedom mean the wreckage of the union that I serve,
I would not free a slave.
Oh, will of God, I am a patient man. And I can wait like an old gun flint 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 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. 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.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
I can't be smart the way that they are 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.
Therefore, at last, I lift my hands to you who and are and must be, if our world is anything but a
lost ironclad 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 plain 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 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 I 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 experience 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.
We can fail and fail, but deep against the failure, something wars. Something goes forward.
Something lights a match. Something gets up from the Sangamon County ground armed with a
bitten and blunted ax and, after 20,000 wasted strokes, brings the tall hemlock crashing to the
ground.
And now, let me pull just one other line out. 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?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my rock and my redeemer.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[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/394-802.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body, 1962 Feb 9
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
394-802
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Readings from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body (1962-02-09)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1962-02-09
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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.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
civil war
God residue
God's will
John Brown's Body
slavery
Stephen Benet
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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-801.mp3
This is tape number ET64 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one entitled, "Sing Your Own Song."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
I'm very glad to be back in Boston again and to do this first broadcast since my return. I wish to
express my appreciation to all of you who have sent cards and letters expressing your
appreciation for the weekly broadcasts during the period of my absence today I'm reading as a
background from the "Blue Cat of Castle Town."
Once in a blue moon, there comes a cat that is blue singing the river's song seeking for you. The
blue kitten was born under blue moon on a warm nest of dry clover, Queen Anne's lace, and
chicory, which his mother had made for him at the foot of a forgotten Haycock in a Vermont
meadow. It was the end of the first third of the 19th century and more than 100 years ago, which
is a very long time indeed.
The mother cat had been quite upset when she first saw the blue kitten. She had looked fearfully,
then, toward the river. For, like all cats, she had heard that a blue kitten could learn the river's
song. Any kitten has a hard enough time to find a home for himself, for every kitten must find a
hearth to fit his song. But a kitten who listens to the river and learns the river's song has the
hardest time of all. Not only must the kitten who sings the river's song find a hearth to fit that
song, but he must teach the keeper of that hearth to sing the same song. The river's song is very
old and mortals who have ears to hear and hearts to sing are fewer than few.
The blue kitten curled his blue tail respectfully around him and sat facing the river. It had been
dusk when he left the comfort of the familiar Haycock and set forth, but it was almost dark when
he came through the reeds and by the wire ducks nest to the edge of the river. He heard the heavy
flapping of wings as a startled duck whirled upward. He wiggled the tools of his front paws
wistfully. He did so want to turn about and go home, but he didn't. He only made his homesick
toes be still, sat a little straighter, curled his tail a little closer, and waited.
Both his ears were bent forward to listen, but the river was paying no attention whatever to the
blue kitten. It gurgled and hissed and splattered all along over the stone-- splattered and hissed
and gurgled. Not until the blue moon began to peer over the mountain did the river hush
gradually into quiet. Only when, like a great cat's eye, the moon was clear of the mountain and
its light reflected all along the water the river began to sing a song the kitten had never heard.
And the kitten, a little dark shadow in the moonlight, felt the song slipping into his ears, along
his backbone, and tingling even the tips of his four paws and the end of his tail. And yet, this was
strange, for the song itself was as simple and wonderful as life in a meadow-- beauty and peace
and content were everywhere. And the glory flooding over like the light of the blue moon
shining around the blue kitten.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Sing your own song, said the river. Sing your own song. Out of yesterday, song comes, it goes
into tomorrow, sing your own song. With your life, fashion, beauty, this, too, is the song. Riches
will pass and power. Beauty remains. Sing your own song. All that is worth doing, do well, said
the river. Sing your own song. Certain and round be the measure-- every line be graceful and
true. Time is the mold. Time, the weaver, the carver-- time and the workman together. Sing your
own song. Sing well, said the river, sing well.
It is very difficult to sing one's own song-- to listen to the melody of one's own spirit and find a
way by which this deep inner melody can become the music that comes from one's life, from
one's living. To hear the sound of one's own heart and spirit-- this is what is meant here. And this
is difficult because, all along as we develop from childhood to maturity, much of our time is
spent on trying to find out the songs that others are singing and to see if we cannot sing their
song in order that, in turn, we may become like them.
For they are external to ourselves. They are the other than self reference. And they are
observable. And we can see how they are and from them, sometimes, we are tempted to get the
image for ourselves and try to be as we seem to think they are, or to be as they are seen as being
by us. But to sing one's own song, to find one's own melody-- this is hard to do, but it is the only
way by which the music which you are capable of making can be made.
I remember hearing a children's story one day when we were attending a church in Australia.
And the story, as I remember it, is something like this. There was a puppy who had forgotten
how to bark. He didn't know what the bark sound was like, so he went to a cow and he said, I
have forgotten how to make my own sound, perhaps you can help me? And the cow said, I don't
know, but does your sound go like this-- moo. And the puppy said, oh that's a lovely sound, but it
isn't my sound.
And then he went to a lamb or a sheep and he said, I have forgotten how to make my sound.
Perhaps you can help me. And the sheep said, bah. He said, no that's not-- it's a lovely sound, but
it's not my sound. And then, presently, he saw a dog who looked just like him running across the
street. And just in front of the dog, there was a cat. And when the cat disappeared over the fence,
the dog barked. And the hero of the story said, ah, that's my sound.
All the other sounds were good sounds. They were wonderful. They performed their sound
function. They were true to the cow, they were true to the sheep, but they were not true to the
puppy. And this is the point-- have you found your own sound? Have you found your own song,
or are you singing a song that is beautiful, wonderful, that says all kinds of wonderful things, but
somehow it is not your song?
Now, your sound may be simple. It may be commonplace. And, from your point of view, it may
seem so ordinary that it isn't worth sounding. But it is all the sound that you have, and when you
make that sound, then you can be unanimous within yourself so that what you see yourself as
being, you not only are, but you can, in another dimension, become. Sing your own song, said
the river. Sing your own song.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Out of yesterday, song comes. It goes into tomorrow. Sing your own song. With your life,
fashion, beauty, this, too, is the song. Riches will pass and power-- beauty remains. Sing your
own song. All that is worth doing, do well, said the river. Sing your own song.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Certain and round be the measure-- every line be graceful and true. Time is the mold, time the
weaver, the carver. Time and the workman, you, together, sing your own song. Sing well, said
the river. Sing well. And, if you sing your song, then God, who is the creator of life and all the
living substances, will be able to sing his song through you.
Do not default. Do not betray the integrity of your own sound. Sing your own song, says the
river. Sing truly, sing true.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
This program was prerecorded.
This is tape number ET64 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two entitled, "A Way of Life Worth Living."
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
I'm beginning today by reading from "Deep is the Hunger." He had buried 60 American sailors
who had lost their lives in the fearful bombing his ship had been given in the early afternoon. As
the chaplain and this group of men started toward the landing crafts, one of the sailors said, sir,
there is another body over there-- a Jap. The chaplain looked awhile saying, just a slight tone of
irritation in his spirit, what, another one?
He was tired, nauseated, and exhausted in body and in spirit. The men were all for throwing the
dead man in the bush, as they had become accustomed to doing. The chaplain bent over to
examine the body to discover that he was the pilot whose ship had done so much damage to their
outfit. It was a moment of great searching of hearts.
His mind was made up. He called his men together and addressed them as follows. Men, we
must find the right thing to do this afternoon-- the right thing to do in the light of eternity. Of
course, I know you say that he is a suicide because his orders were to dive his plane into our
ship. But, in a sense, I am the same kind of suicide.
I have a genuine admiration for this man. Too, he is a human being. I find no hatred in my heart
for him, and if you search your own hearts, you may not find hatred for him either. I ask you to
help, not because of any future that you and I may have together, but I do want you to know that,
in a god forsaken island in the Pacific, you and your chaplain, faced with the naked challenge to
the essential humaneness of mankind, sought a level of rightness that transcends the vicissitudes
both of fortune and of circumstances.
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I shall not give him a Christian burial, because that would profane his own religious faith that
differs from our own. But this we will do-- let us kneel and pray to our own God in the presence
of this dead man as an act of reverence in our own hearts. This act will unite us beyond all
conflict and beyond all madness.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
When this is done, we will bury him with a headstone that bears no name, because we do not
know his name-- but with the simple inscription, "Japanese pilot" and the date. Perhaps this act
of reverence is an expression of the right thing in the eyes of eternity. For a long time, I sat in
silence as the words, the terrible words would not be still. The right thing-- the right thing-- do
the right thing this day-- the right thing in the eyes of eternity.
Each one of us is, in one way or another, deeply concerned about finding for himself a way of
life that is worth living-- to find something that will give to the ordinary round of living and
functioning a sense of meaning that transcends the particular vicissitudes under which one may
be living that transcends even a particular series of events by which one's life is surrounded.
A way of life that is worth living can be found, I think, only when an individual has discovered
what, for him, is a radical test for his life-- a sense of something being at stake in the daily round.
One of the very interesting contributions made during the last Worlds War was made in a rather
unexpected way.
You may recall that there was a rather universal registration of all male adults up to certain ages.
There was also something else that involved every individual in the country-- it was the
registration of the intent to consume goods-- sugar, to use gasoline, tires, meats, fats, butter, and
so forth. In other words, every citizen had to register specifically and concretely his name and
indicate his intent.
Now, this very simple thing-- whatever may be one's private attitude towards the whole notion or
concept of conscription or proscription with reference to matters of that sort-- the basic fact that
to which I call your attention is this-- that every individual in the country had a sense of being
involved in something that was at stake, that included his life, even with reference to the cup of
coffee that he drank in the morning.
So that every time he used this teaspoonful of sugar, every time he used in his car a gallon of
gasoline, he registered a certain sense of involvement, which meant that the great national life
itself-- the integrity of the nation, the whole dream which is a part of the common heritage of all
citizens was at stake at the level of the simple deed of the ordinary person.
Now this is an indication of the sort of thing that's in my mind. We find a way of life that is
worth living when, in the daily round, we have a sense of being critically and crucially involved
in terms of the meaning of the decisions that we make and the deeds that we do. Now, this
suggests, then, that a way of life that is worth living is available to a person who has a basis for
all of his integrated action-- a point of referral for his life-- in the light of which he is able to
define the meaning of the things that he is doing, or even the meaning of right and wrong.
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Now, each one of us is born with a basic sense of value. This is structural in personality. Now,
the content of the sense of value-- the specific meaning a deed in terms of whether it is right or
wrong is something that is the result of training, of one's social heritage, of one's religious
orientation-- a whole combination of things enter into the meaning of a particular deed in terms
of whether it is right or wrong.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, this value content is something for which the individual has a specific responsibility. Now,
it is this that provides the point of referral for the particular deed. I ask you, then-- is your life
flabby? Do you have any sense of values by which you can determine for yourself the meaning
of a particular deed? Or must you always find the meaning of your deed in the opinion, the
judgment, the attitude of someone else?
Now, you cannot find a way of life that is worth living unless you have discovered a basis of
action for your life. And this means that, at the center of your life, there must be a hard core of
purpose-- something that decides for you the things against which you will stand with your life,
and the things for which you will stand with your life.
Now, if you have made such a discovery, then the deeds that you do, the decisions that you
make-- in fact, the kind of human being that you are or that you may become-- will be set for you
within a rather tight circle of meaning, which is, for you, your hard core of purpose. This means,
then, that there will always be available to you close at hand judgment that is swift and
meaningful so that in the living of your life, something vital will be at stake in every decision
that you make and all of the important deeds by which your life is characterized.
And, on the basis of this thing that is vital, you will know whether or not you have found for
yourself a way of life that is worth living. Do what you do with the full consciousness that what
you do means something in terms of eternity and in terms of tomorrow and today.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
5
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
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<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" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-801.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
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Sing Your Own Song (1964-03-06); A Way of Life Worth Living (ET-64; GC 12-7-71), 1971 Dec 7
Time Period
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1960s
1950s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-801
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Sing Your Own Song (1964-03-06); The Right Thing This Day (1958-05-23)
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1964-03-06
1958-05-23
Description
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In this recording within the We Believe Series, Howard Thurman speaks to what it means to live a life that is truly one's own. Drawing from Catherine Coblentz' "Blue Cat of Castle Town," and a story of a dog who has lost its bark, Thurman challenges the listener to discern what their true voice is, how one comes to singing their own song. Thurman agrees that the process of finding one's own song is difficult; however, Thurman maintains that finding your own song is one of the most integrous journeys that one can take.
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Howard Thurman reflects upon an excerpt from his own writing, Deep is the Hunger. He reads a story of sailors and a chaplain stumbling upon the dead body of an enemy, and collectively discerning what they are to do with the said body. Drawing from this story, Thurman invites the listener to discern what is at stake when considering what it means to live a good life, which is followed by the discovery of what Thurman calls a "basis for action." Thurman explains that this form of discernment is something that is at the center of our being, and is worth deep exploration.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
actualized potential
blue kitten
circle of meaning
core
deep is the hunger
discernment
dog
identity
individualism
integrity
purpose
river
song
voice
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Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-800.mp3
This is tape number ET60 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1 entitled "The Moment of Truth."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC]
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]
I'm beginning today by reading two paragraphs, which a Canadian friend of mine sent to me
several years ago. "Eight-year-old Johnny was very serious when I called him into the hospital
and explained how he could save the life of his little sister. Mary, age six, was near death, a
victim of a disease from which Johnny had made a miraculous recovery only two years earlier."
"Now, Mary's only chance was a blood transfusion from someone who had previously conquered
the illness. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, Johnny would be the ideal
donor. 'Johnny," I ask, 'would you like to give your blood for Mary?' He hesitated for a moment,
his lower lip trembling, but I have seen many people older than Johnny who were frightened by
the idea of giving blood. So I thought no more about it."
"Then he smiled and said, 'Sure, Dr. Morris. I'll give my blood for my sister.' The operating room
was prepared and the children wheeled in, Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and almost
cherubic. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned broadly. As Johnny's blood
pulsed into Mary's veins, her pale skin began to turn pink. There was complete silence as the
operation proceeded, but then Johnny spoke in a brave little voice I will never forget. 'Say, Dr.
Morris, when do I die?'"
"It was only then that I realized what that moment's hesitation that almost imperceptible
trembling of the lip had meant when I talked to Johnny in my office. He thought that giving up
his blood for his sister meant giving up his life. In that brief moment of truth, he made his great
decision."
When a man becomes aware of the essential or the intrinsic or authentic meaning of an act or a
person or a situation or an event and the bearing of that act or situation, person, or event upon his
private life, he experiences a moment of truth. When he becomes aware of the authentic or
intrinsic meaning of something and the bearing that that meaning has upon his private life, he
experiences a moment of truth.
There are several elements that are to be remembered here. The first is that it is always a
personal and private and solitary experience. We spend so much of our time associating with
other people, we are so involved in the human situation and the human predicament that we
forget that fundamentally, so much of a man's life is lived in solitariness in all of the great
moments of life, whether it is at the moment of his birth or the moment of his dying, whether it
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Transcription
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has to do with some great significant step that he is about to take when deep within himself he
makes the decision of commitment.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
All of these are intimate and personal and primary and solitary. And the moment of truth takes
on this character. It is as if you and the experience alone existed in the world. It's like trying to
explain something to a little child. You will explain it, and then the child will say, but why,
continue asking the same question. And then you explain it again, and the child will say, but
why?
And then you try to find a way by which you can find the proper words that will fit into the
context of meaning of the child and then utter these words so that the child understands. And
when the child looks into your face and says, oh, I understand, it is as if the child and the
moment alone existed in all the universe. It is a private opening of the life to a meaning which is
personal, yes, but at the same time, which expands out into a context of all the meaning that there
is.
Now, the moment of truth then has in it the element that is solitary, that is personal and private.
And it also has in it a certain element of commitment, a certain element of involvement. I guess
that's the best way to put it.
I am reminded of one of the experiences in the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, when in the early
part of his career, it seemed as if he had air conditioning against leprosy. He could abide almost
anything else except leprosy. This was so loathsome to him that he felt always as if he should
move in the other direction or put as much space between him and the leper as possible.
Shortly after his great commitment of his life, the story goes that he was riding along on a horse
or walking. I don't remember that detail. But around the bend in the road, he encountered a leper,
and for him it was a moment of truth because all the meaning of the disease as it expressed itself
through the loathsome body of this man and the bearing that this disease had upon the sensitivity
of Saint Francis, all of this converged in one swirling moment of encounter. And Francis drew
back, turned, and started to flee in the opposite direction.
And then he heard the voice, always the voice, reminding him of his commitment, that his
commitment was something that was absolute, that he had given up in his commitment the
initiative over his own life. Therefore, any sensitivity and all of these things were luxuries, which
his life could no longer afford.
And he turned around, embraced the leper, and the story goes that he went with the leper back to
the place where the leper lived, and he stayed there for several days administering to his need.
The moment of truth is the moment when the intrinsic, authentic, significant meaning of an event
or a person or a situation is sensed clearly and directly by an individual and the bearing that this
meaning has on the man's life.
Now, the moment of truth then carries with it always the element of commitment. For when I
experience the moment of truth, it is a total involvement, a total encounter so that my life, not
some phase of my life, some dimension of my life, some aspect of my life, but my life in some
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total sense is affected, is altered, shifts, changes, moves, makes some kind of adjustment to the
fact that I have had such an encounter.
It is solitary. It is personal. It involves the total commitment of the life in a direction contrary,
perhaps, to the way one had been going before.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[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.
[MUSIC]
This is tape number ET60 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2 entitled "Pearl Without Price."
[MUSIC]
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]
I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart, "The Pressure of Crisis." "When Lloyd George, the
British statesman, was a boy, one of his family responsibilities was to collect firewood for
warmth and for cooking. He discovered early that always after a very terrific storm, with high
winds and driving rain, he had very little difficulty in finding as much and more wood than he
needed at the time."
"When the days were beautiful, sunny, and the skies untroubled, the firewood was at a premium.
Despite the fact that the sunny days were happy ones for him, providing him with long hours to
fill his heart with delight, nevertheless, in terms of other needs, which were his specific
responsibilities, they were his most difficult times."
"Many years after, he realized what had been happening. During the times of heavy rains and
driving winds, many of the dead limbs were broken off, and many rotten trees were toppled over.
The living things were separated from the dead things. But when the sun was shining and the
weather was clear and beautiful, the dead and the not dead were undistinguishable."
"The experience of Lloyd George is common to us all. When all is well with our world, there is
often no necessity to separate the dead from the not dead in our lives. Under the pressure of
crisis, when we need all available vitality, we are apt to discover that much in us is of no account
and valueless."
When our tree is rocked by mighty winds, all the limbs that do not have free and easy access to
what sustains the trunk are torn away. There is nothing to hold them fast. It is good to know what
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there is in us that is strong and solidly rooted. It is good to have the assurance that can only come
from having ridden the storm and remained intact."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
"Far beside the point is the why of the storm. Beside the point too, maybe the interpretation of
the storm that makes it an active agent of redemption. Given the storm, the fact of it, it is wisdom
to know that when it come, the things that are firmly held by the vitality of life are apt to remain
chastened but confirmed, while other things that are dead, sterile, or lifeless are apt to be torn
away."
"The wheat and tares grow up together, but when the time of harvest comes, only wheat is
revealed as wheat and tares remain what they have been all along-- tares." It is a very simple
remark that again and again, when life seems to be running smoothly, when all things seem to
fall into line and we are sure that, for us, this is the good time, the time of a sudden kind of
psychic or spiritual or actual physical prosperity.
And during such times, there is no necessity, no felt necessity for assessing our equipment for
life, our strengths, our needs. In our own country, for instance, one of the most critical problems
that faces religion, that faces organized religion, that faces the church or the synagogue is, what
does religion say to a people who are fat? Who have everything? Who are so surfeited with good
food and rich food that they must spend millions of dollars in trying to get rid of the logic of the
good food that they're eating?
Is there any word that can be addressed to a man who has everything and to whom the world, in
a sense, is his oyster? This is the point here. At such times, we are apt to live life rather casually,
to raise no fundamental question about its meaning, about our own sense of direction, about what
our point is. Because our situation does not force us to raise the critical and the crucial question.
But if the time comes, as it does come to everyone, when the normal pattern of general at easeness begins to disintegrate and break down and it is necessary for us to assess life, to think about
what life means, to raise the far-reaching personal question, what is it that I am meaning by all
the things that I am doing. What is my point? Where in the totality of my experience? Is there
provided for me as a person some radical test in the light of which and on the basis of which I
will be able to define what it is that I am trying to do, where it is that I am headed?
For it is only the radical test, the moments which seem to be unmanageable. It is only at a time
when everything seems to be falling apart that a man discovers of what is his substance? What is
his strength? What is there in him that is ultimately dependable? Where in him may be found the
resources that he needs in order to do his thing now in a hard circumstance, in a difficult
moment?
For if life is easy and if life is indulgent, then despite all of the comfort that it may bring, the
most important question that we most want to know about ourselves, we cannot know. And that
question is, what, after all, ultimately, do I'd amount to? How much can I take? How much can I
stand and not give, not yield, not buckle under?
4
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Am I a real man so that when I take my stand, I can absorb whatever it is that life has to offer?
And then I get something that is the pearl beyond price. I live with the confidence-- and this is of
overwhelming importance. I live with the confidence and the strength that I can stand anything
that life can do to me.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[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.
[MUSIC]
5
�
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
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<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" />
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-800.html" ></iframe>
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The Moment of Truth; Pearl without Price (ET-60; GC 12-4-71), 1971 Dec 4
Time Period
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1960s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-800
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Thurman, Howard
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The Moment of Truth (1963-04-19); Pearl without Price (1971-12-4)
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1963-04-19
1962-03-23
Description
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In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reads from a letter that his friend from Canada sends him. Within the letter, the listener hears of a young boy who makes the decision to participate in a blood transfusion for his sister. In agreeing to participate in the transfusion, the boy misunderstood, and assumed that he would have to die in order to save his younger sister's life. Thurman sees this boy's misunderstanding as a "moment of truth." The moment of truth speaks to one's sense of courage, responsibility, creativity, and sacrifice. Embedded into this moment of truth is a reaction that comes from the tension between one's personal and public life. Thurman invites the listener to discern what their "moment of truth" is and challenges the listen to what their "moment of truth" is calling them to do.
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reads from his book, "Meditations of the Heart." In this reflection, Thurman reflects upon what it means to look at life critically. When things are going well, the difficult and the not-difficult aspects of life blend together; however, when one is in desperation, one is able to critique and names the parts of life that are difficult. This conversation speaks to Thurman's wider work concerning the tension goodness and innocence.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
commitment
decision
dichotomy
encounter
experience
goodness
innocence
Lloyd George
meditations of the heart
moment of truth
pearl
responsibility
sacrifice
solitary
spiral
St. Francis
test
truth
-
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7bdb1ac983cf02432d45e73308db2391
PDF Text
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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-799.mp3
This is tape number ET67 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1 entitled "The Blind Man."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[CHURCH BELLS RINGING]
[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]
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, hears 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 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 had been preparing for this great moment, and now it was upon him. And in this 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 man-- 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 briers 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 briers 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 the picture that is given here in this simple story of
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
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. 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. What does one do with frustration under one's own circumstance in the light
of one's own tragic fact? 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 the 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 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 comes
within the ken 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 is 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.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
There is a picture that comes to mind of Saint-Gaudens' statue in Rock Creek Cemetery in
Washington. It is a statue that Saint-Gauden built over the grave of the wife of Henry Adams.
You may have seen it. It is a figure of a woman. Her whole body is draped in a kind of green
bronze caul that covers her head and all her arms. She is resting her right arm on the right arm of
the chair. Her face is-- chin is resting in her hands, and she looks out steadily in front of you.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
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. 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.
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, yea, 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 is 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, or lonely and find a friend. But the
peace that passes understanding is the peace that comes when the pain of life is not relieved. It is
the peace that comes shimmering on the crest of a wave of pain. It is the spear of frustration
transformed into a shaft of light."
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 would be to
you and to me.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in they sight, oh Lord,
my rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET67 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2 entitled "Heaven, Heaven."
The words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in they sight, oh Lord, my
strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Thinking this morning about another of the ancient songs. It is one that has been desecrated
many times because of the syncopated character of its inherent rhythm. The song is "Heaven,
Heaven," everybody talking about heaven and going there. This is a song which is rooted and
deeply grounded in one of the oldest experiences of the human spirit. It suggests that no person
lives in a society of which he does not or cannot approve without some measure of compromise.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The question, therefore, is not whether there is compromise inherent in the living experience. But
the question is, rather, at what point is the line drawn? Now, fundamental to this notion or
experience of compromise, of course, is the deeply lying and subtle experience with hypocrisy,
with deception, with lying.
Now, deception is an experience that is familiar to us all. It is one of the simple ways by which
individuals who are weak undertake to deal with persons who are strong. A little child, for
instance, knows that he cannot control his father's will, or power, or mind. He is weak. He is a
little child. And the father is strong. The father represents, let us say, the power of the state in
terms of control.
So what does the little child do? He surrounds the father with little acts that are, in themselves,
deceptive-- not in any moral sense, but the whole idea is so to operate upon the father's mind,
emotions, that at last the father will do what the child wants as if the father thought of it himself.
It's a very old technique.
When I was a boy, very often in the woods I would see birds and their young ones grazing or
eating bugs in the dried grass. And then there would be the shadow of a hawk on the grass.
Without ever looking up, a signal would be given by-- in some way. And all of the birds
suddenly would lie down as if they were dead, sometimes even taking dried grass in their claws
and holding it. The hawk, riding high in the sky, blinks his eyes, makes a double take, thinking
perhaps that he's had an optical delusion, and goes on his way to seek for birds who did not have
enough sense to play dead.
The cuttlefish does the same thing when he is attacked. He releases out of a sepia bag a fluid that
makes all the water around him murky. And in that murky gloom, he disappears. And the enemy
that seeks his life does not know where he is. It is a very old technique of the weak against the
strong to surround the life with subtle deceptions, which deceptions cause the enemy to look
otherwhere.
Now, this is a very crucial ethical problem in human life. Is there a difference in the moral
quality of deception when deception is used as a device for the saving of one's life as over
against deception when it is used merely as a device of deception itself? It's a searching question
because it goes to the very heart of the issue of compromise.
If I compromise because what is at stake is something which, to me, is more significant and
valuable than my integrity, then does this make a difference? What do you think about it? How
do you deal with the compromises within the construct of your own life?
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, there are several options that are available to the human spirit. One is to recognize the fact
that what you are up against, the situation with which you are dealing, is a situation which carries
inherent in it so much that is destructive, so much that is annihilating, so much that is demonic
that any device that you can use in order to frustrate that which is destructive, any device that
you can use to frustrate that which is on evil bent or which is demonic is justifiable and has in it
a quality of creative significance that honors the human spirit rather than despoils it.
Now, this is one possible alternative. There is a line in the Old Testament in which one of the
men of Israel, who happens to be an attendant on a king who is pagan, he has to go with the king
everywhere, even into the temple of the king's god. And when he stands before the altar, the
heathen alter as he thinks of it, with his king, and the king bows his head and genuflects his knee,
the attendant, the Israelite who worships, from his point of view, the one true God, must bow his
knee also before this heathen altar.
And he says to his god, God, deal gently with me. Be gracious to me. Provide for me an
extenuating circumstance because thou knowest that I am in a difficult place, and I have no live
option but to compromise in deed. But my heart does not yield to this compromise. Now, that is
one possibility.
Another possibility is to recognize the fact that you are in a compromising situation and to seek
always to keep the decision in an area that is not for you morally decisive. Now, this is very, very
important. It involves a kind of juggling of the total context in which one is operating so that
always the decisive issue will not have to be dealt with except on one's own terms.
Now, the third is finally to come to a point at which you cannot compromise. You cannot go
beyond this point. Now, when you arrive at such a position, then your only live option is to take
your stand, even if it means the loss of one's own life. What would a man give in exchange for
his soul? This is what the master says, and it is at this point that the question becomes even most
crucial.
Now, the final concept in this song is that in the presence of God, all limitations are broken
down. The song says, "When I've got shoes, you've got shoes. All of God's children got shoes.
When we get to heaven, we will put on our shoes and shout all over God's heaven," that in the
presence of God there are no lines drawn, no limitations. But the human spirit, stripped to
whatever there is in it that is literal and irreducible in the presence of God, is honored profoundly
and deeply.
This, after all, is the discovery of the ultimate basis of self-respect. And once a man has this
experience, he knows that he can abide anything that life can do to him.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in they sight, oh Lord,
my rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-799.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Blind Man; Heaven, Heaven (ET-67; GC 12-7-71), 1971 Dec 7
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1950s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-799
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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The Blind Man (1958-10-03); Heaven, Heaven (1958-11-21)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1958-10-03
1958-11-21
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reflects upon the spiritual, "The Blind Man Sat By the Way," which he calls a "sorrow song." When holding this song in tension with the biblical narrative of Jesus healing the blind man, Thurman comes to the conclusion that the blind man in the sorrow song was never healed. Drawing from the experience of people who were enslaved in America, Thurman reveals that there is no mentioning of the blind man being healed in the song because there was no healing upon the horizon for those who were singing the song. He continues by reflecting upon numerous stories from his life in order to further ask the question, "What do we do with frustrations when there is no freedom in sight?"
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reflects upon and attempts to reclaim the old spiritual song, "Heaven, Heaven." Thurman critiques popular conceptions of the song, stating that it overlooks the reality that every person has to navigate societal expectations with a level of compromise. The question he asks in light of compromise, however, is "At what point is the line drawn?" Here, Thurman considers the deeper question of compromise being a means of deception, and that the ethical dimension of compromise is housed in the tension between deception as a means of survival and deception as a means of ethics.
Contributor
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Description by Dustin Mailman
aspirations
compromise
cuttlefish
deception
desire
discovery
healing
Hounds of Hell
Huckleberry Bush
hypocrisy
New Testament
Old Testament
preparing
rattlesnake
Rock Street Cemetery
self-respect
shedding
sight
sorrow songs
spirituals
St Gauden
-
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ae37bca0eda89c75a665dc9946d0f787
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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-798.mp3
This is tape number ET66 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Balm in Gilead, Part 1.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord,
my strength, and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
As a tribute to a very great world religious leader, Pope Pius the XII, who has passed, I am
reading at the beginning of my period, the 23rd Psalm. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He
restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For Thou art
with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me and the
presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely,
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the
Lord forever."
Continuing our thinking together about Satan of the basic and fundamental insights of the ancient
songs, I'm thinking this morning about the spiritual, there is a balm in Gilead to make the spirit
whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.
The reference is taken from a text in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah had reached a very hard
place in his life, a place that may be regarded as the Dead Sea place in his life. The national life
was corrupt. And there were many, many aspects of it that were disillusioning.
His private life, apparently, was increasingly bankrupt. He could not find the key to the solution
of his private enterprise as a part of his overall commitment to Jehovah. And he raises a question,
is there a balm in Gilead? Is no physician there?
It is not a question that is addressed to anyone in particular. It is a question that the total
predicament of Jeremiah raises about the meaning of life, and his part in that meaning. Is there
no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? There must be a balm in Gilead. There must be a
physician there. This is really what the prophet is saying.
Now, the early singers did a rather extraordinary thing with this song. What is a question in the
book of Jeremiah becomes an exclamation point and a word and note and utterance of triumph,
they said. There is a balm in Gilead. This is a very interesting and significant interpretation of the
meaning of optimism in a world in which the relentless pressures of life, by which the
individuals were surrounded, would indicate that pessimism is the only rational answer to the
human predicament.
1
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There are many times when the tragic fact of life would indicate that any note of optimism is
unrealistic, unless-- unless-- the note of optimism is distilled out of the raw materials, out of the
stuff of pessimism itself. It is suggested then, here, that one of the sound grounds for optimism,
even in the midst of the most pessimistic experiences, or pessimistic moments, or pessimistic
predicaments to which the individual would be exposed, is that life is its own restraint-- that
there is a quality, what I may even call a built-in quality in life that contains, within itself, a very
searching kind of logic.
The logic is that life is its own restraint. And because life is its own restraint, life itself is bound
in its inward parts by a relentless logic, by what may be called the swinging of the pendulum
between antecedent and consequence, between reaping and sowing. There is an underground
pulse beat that is rhythmic in character, that always insists that all who are involved in the
context of life-- all who are living, forever may be the nature of their pretentions or
predicaments-- ideas, concepts, experiences, or philosophy, or faiths-- all are bound by what may
be called the operation of moral law. This is the fact that men do reap what they sow. This is
another way of stating the fact that life is its own restraint.
Now there is something very disturbing and yet very inspiring about this idea, this notion, this
aspect of experience. For it says that there is no way by which the individual can juggle life at
the point that he lives it, so as to defeat his involvement in the logic of the moral law.
Now, sometimes, individuals feel that they are so strong, they are so secure, they are so welleducated, or they are so powerful in times that are economic, or political, or what have you-- that
they, themselves, are not involved in the kind of logic about which I am talking and thinking.
You may very easily feel that there is something so utterly unique about you and about your own
life, that what involves other people who may not be as fortunate as you are, or as privileged as
you are, what involves them does not touch you at all-- that life somehow stacks itself on your
side because of some particular or special advantage or privilege, which incidentally, may be
yours at a particular moment in time.
Now this is a delusion, for the total experience of man indicates that no one escapes. Soon, or
late, the doer and the deed meet and sit down together and face each other. This is what is meant
here, that life is its own restraint.
Sometimes, we are so situated in our common life, or in our national life-- for instance, it is one
of our perils as a nation just in passing to comment on this-- we are advantaged. And we are
privileged. And we are wealthy. And we are well-fed and overweight, while vast multitude of
human beings scattered all over the world are hungry and are broken, like sheep without
shepherds.
And it is entirely possible for us in our smugness to feel that we are privileged because we are
exceptions to the rule, that we are not bound by the kind of moral law that binds people who are
hungry, and people who are weak, and people who are destitute. But the concept that is at work
here is that life is its own restraint. And that any person who feels that his life is an exception to
the rule is doomed to destruction by the relentless logic of life itself.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. And what is that balm? The recognition, in the
first place, that life is its own restraint, and no one escapes. We shall begin at this point next
Friday.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh
Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET 66 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2, entitled Balm in Gilead Part 2.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight oh, Lord, my
rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm beginning this morning at the point at which I left off last week, discussing the insight from
the old song, "There is a Balm in Gilead." To make the wounded whole, there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin sick soul.
It was pointed out that this song was built on an insight as found in the prophet Jeremiah, in
which he raises the question at a moment of great despair and pessimism, is there a balm in
Gilead? Is no physician there, he cries out? This insight suggests, in the first place, that life is its
own restraint. It is this notion that was developed last week.
Today, we go on to suggest the second insight that comes from this song, and that is that life not
only is its own restraint, but also that the contradictions of life are not final and ultimate. This, I
think, is the striking difference between pessimism and optimism. For a man fundamentally
believes, with reference to the structure of life itself, that life is fixed, is finished, is completed, is
unyielding. Or, that life is unfinished. Life is dynamic. Life is growing. Life is open-end.
Now, if a man's position is that that life is fixed and finished, then deep within himself-whatever his professions may be-- deep within himself, he is sure that in the last analysis, there
isn't anything that any man can do about anything. Life is readymade. It is frozen. And whatever
may be a man's particular position, status, location, this is his, as long as he lives. He is the
prisoner of the event, the prisoner of the circumstance.
Now this robs the life of all alternatives and options. If, however, his position is that life is
dynamic, is open end, then one of its most persistent characteristics is an ever-effective sense of
options and alternatives. This means, in practical terms, that whatever may confront a man at any
particular moment-- whatever may be his predicament at any particular moment-- he always has
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
a sense of alternative, a sense of option, so that he can bring to bear-- upon the gritty facts of his
experience-- a live option which may alter the circumstance, which may change the picture,
which may give to him, a sense of meaning and significance that spills over-- goes beyond the
event by which he may be temporarily caught.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, this is what is meant by the fact that the contradictions of life are not final contradictions.
Now this is very important, for it says that there is always available to the individual, some
additional resource-- some additional insight, some additional strength-- that goes beyond
whatever he may be experiencing at a particular moment.
Now we see this in simple circumstances again and again. Sometimes, when you are involved in
something that seems to be more than you can manage-- it seems to be overwhelming, and you
have exhausted all of your resources, all of the strength which seems to be available to you is
taxed-- then again and again, we experience a second wind-- a new release of energy and
strength that enables us to go beyond the thing which we may be experiencing at a particular
time.
This is noted particularly in the life of a man like Abraham Lincoln in connection with his
struggling to bring peace to the country and the emancipation of the slaves. He speaks in some of
his letters and in some of his other utterances, about the way in which his life is like the life of a
hound dog who has been running on a trail. And the trail is cold. And he doesn't give up the
scent. He exhausts himself in the effort. And finally, he discovers that a new increment of energy
is his.
Even though he says, to quote him directly, "I can't go on. Yet, I must go on." Now this is noted
as the sound and authentic basis for optimism. For optimism suggests that there is more available
of energy and strength than the individual may be using at a particular moment.
This says that the characteristic of all life and all living experience is what may be called the
growing edge, the peripheral element of vitality that creeps along the outer edges of what seems
to be that which has exhausted itself, that which is dead. This is the ground of hope at times
when there seems to be no sound basis for hope.
We see this operative, for instance, with reference to the way men think and feel about peace.
There never has been a time when peace among men was complete, was whole, was the total
experience of the race. But nevertheless, there has been on the horizon of man, this riding hope-this goal, this upward thrust of faith and optimism-- that the normal relationship between man is
one of trust and peace.
This, despite the fact that as a complete experience, the race has never experienced peace.
Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that it is precisely during the times of war, times when
the whole nation is caught in the agonizing grapple of struggle for its survival. And violence as
an instrument of protection is the order of the day. Precisely, at such moments, what happens?
There always stirs, deep within the soul of a people, a dream and a hope for peace. Even though,
at the time, men are caught in a life and death struggle summarized by the word that we call war.
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now, this suggest something further, that there is a notion-- more than a notion-- a conviction
that because the contradictions of life are not final, because the struggle between good and evil
or between that which makes for turbulence and that which makes for tranquility is not a final
struggle, that there is present in what we call goodness-- an element of triumph-- goodness as
distinguished from innocence.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
A child, for instance, is innocent. But a man is not innocent. A man may be good, but he is never
innocent. For goodness suggests an element of triumph that means that a man has been able to
distill out the evil of life, to winnow out of the tempests and struggles and turbulences of life, a
quality of wholeness and a quality of tranquility. There's something triumphant about goodness.
And what is that something?
It says always, that the contradictions of life are not final contradictions, that the ultimate destiny
of man is a good destiny. And a man holds to this as a point of constant and persistent referral,
while he struggles with the agonizing dimensions of testing and tempest by which his life is
surrounded. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to
heal the sin sick soul.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord.
My rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
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Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-798.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Balm in Gilead: Parts 1 and 2 (ET-66; GC 12-7-71), 1971 Dec 7
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1950s
Location
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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
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394-798
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Balm in Gilead, Part 1 (1958-10-10); Balm in Gilead, Part 2 (1958-10-17)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1958-10-10
1958-10-17
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon the negro spiritual, "There is a Balm in Gilead." Rather than echoing the moan of the prophet Jeremiah, this song provides an answer to the prophet's cries. Rather than asking," Is there a balm in Gilead," Thurman notes that the early singers of this spiritual are affirming that there is indeed a balm in Gilead. From Thurman's perspective, this balm is the moral law which rests within all of humanity. Moral law is the restraint one has in themselves to take the raw material of pessimism and transform it into optimism.
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman builds upon his previous reflection upon the negro spiritual, "There is a Balm in Gilead." Here, he echoes the words from his professor and mentor, George Cross, when he remarks, "The contradictions in life are not final and ultimate." Here, Thurman is asserting that when one conceptualizes life as static, one is imprisoning oneself; however, when one conceptualizes life as dynamic, one is pursuing a life of freedom and fullness. Thurman explains to the listener that in this dynamistic perspective, one finds the energy and strength that is associated with optimism; thus, one is able to find tools to heal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
actualization
contradictions
dynamic
energy
experience
fluidity
George Cross
healing
Jeremiah
moral law
optimism
pessimism
Pope Pius XII
privilege
Psalm 23
raw material
restraint
Satan
spirituals
strength
There is a Balm in Gilead