Browse Items (291 total)

In this audio recording, Howard Thurman shares the background and the intentions of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Thurman traces his own educational journey through the hardships of segregation and financial struggles, which were only overcome by the support of friends, family, and strangers. After a fateful encounter with a man that helps pay his ticket to high school, Thurman makes a promise to God: for every year of his life, he will try to do for some student that that man had done…

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." The majority of this recording is a group of young people working through the nature of temptation, and Jesus'…

This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." This recording consists of preliminary introductions from various participants in the conversation, responding…

In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reads from his text, Deep is the Hunger, speaking to his understanding of love. He defines love as "the experience of being dealt with at a point in one's self that is beyond all good and evil." Embedded in this definition are notions of trust and forgiveness. He indicates that love is the antithesis of isolation, with isolation being the very essence of having a lack of access to another person.

In this recording, Thurman asks whether our lives are canals, reservoirs, or swamps. Lives like canals connect people, movements, and purposes. Reservoirs have inlets and outlets in order to store up resources and provide them to others when needed. Swamps are without outlet, only taking in and becoming stagnant and rotted.

Thurman asks what form our lives take, and suggests that we become reservoirs, finding ways to replenish our resources "so that there will be an outgoing from us to…

In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman draws upon a parable of two leaves at the end of the Fall season. The two leaves are in conversation with one another, pondering questions of why they must die and who will take their place when they die. After reading this parable, Thurman reflects upon the ways in which all of creation's lived experience participates in death; rendering death as an event that happens in one's life, not something that happens to oneself.

In this recording, Thurman explores the varieties of peace we can find in life, from innocent peace as children to the peace of exhaustion when we've overwhelmed our resources and can do nothing more. Finally, there is the peace resulting from triumph over adversity, when we are able to "distill goodness out of that which is not good" and "learned how to winnow beauty out of ugliness."

In this recording, Thurman discusses the quiet ministry of the living spirit, which feeds our deepest spiritual needs and remains a source of strength when all other dependencies fall away.

In this recording, Thurman discusses how timetables and schedules can affect us in negative and positive ways. Timetables can sometimes be oppressive, and so "we become busy." In other cases, they allow us to become more efficient and thus find more time to cultivate our inward part. Thurman ends by focusing on the importance of cultivating habits that "steel us within" so that we might find inner tranquility among the turmoil of life.

In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon a passage from 1 Corinthians to elaborate on his understanding of love. He defines love as "the experience of being dealt with at a point in oneself that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. He notes that the love of God functions as the exemplary love to which humanity should strive towards. Thurman's conception of love is not possessive nor transactional, rather, it is interdependent and comes from the…