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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-360_A.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
To walk in the light while darkness invades, envelopes, and surrounds is to wait on the Lord.
This is to know the renewal of strength. This is to walk and think not. There was another. In the
experience of life, not in life will teach a person not to fear life, but to love life. When he or she
discovers that the test of life in him is to be found in the amount of pain, frustration, he can
absorb without spoiling his joy in living.
And so many of these things seem part-- well, are part of what we were talking about, and so
much a part of what I am experiencing, oh, and we all are in our own living of our lives every
day. But it seems to be magnified right at this moment for me.
On Monday, there was a teachers' meeting at our school, the new school I've gone to. And they
met to decide, without me, what my next-- this year is going to be. And it was almost like being
tried by a jury, and you don't know what on earth they are saying, or-- it was a strange feeling
not to be able to have any part in that decision. And the decision is very exciting.
And I think there is-- I know that there are some opportunities in it that are exactly the things that
I wanted to do. I never had a chance to in planning the program myself. So it's very exciting. But
all those things I was up this morning thinking about.
And they were there for me to find, to-- there's one other thing. I don't want to-- well, some
words of a song kept running through my mind, and I don't know if any of you have seen the
musical "A Chorus Line," but it's a story about young people who are dancers, who are trying out
for a show, and the conflicts, the competitiveness, the personalities, the worry, the struggle, the
needing a job that is a part of it.
And the director interviews each person on the stage, and there's one, Morales, a young woman,
who tells in her story a bit about her growing up and dancing and a class that she was in, in
acting. And it was where you'd have to be something, pretend you're a couch or a chair or a
snowflake. And her song was, so I dug right down to the bottom of my soul to see what I could
feel. I dug right down to the bottom of my soul and I felt nothing.
And through several different things that she was supposed to try to feel, the instructor caused
her to feel something was wrong with her, because she couldn't feel things, and everybody else
was feeling a table and feeling a-- and dancing it out. But she couldn't feel it.
And later, she heard the instructor had died. And she sang and I dug right down to the bottom of
my soul to see what I could feel. And I felt nothing. That says a lot of things about a lot of
things. The first part of it, I couldn't help but be thinking about yes, last night, so many things
had all come together and to try to sort them out and to feel them. I'll stop.
[INAUDIBLE] the continuing series on the inner life today, and if I were to use a text, I would
use the words from the psalmist. [INAUDIBLE]
[INAUDIBLE]
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
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And the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. The past two Sundays, I called your
attention to the centrality of the idea of the nerve center of consent, which is in each one of us.
And it is the clue to the way in which we consciously work out our destiny and achieve some
measure of fulfillment in living.
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We have a resource upon which we draw, a resource that [INAUDIBLE] light, and as profound
as is the plunging spirit of man. The outer and the inner-- I'd like to focus our thinking about that
this morning. If I may look at the words of the psalmist just a moment [INAUDIBLE].
The words, but the words of our mouth, the words refer in my thinking. To all of the outward
expressions of the light, all of the activity, all of the external, and of course the meditation in my
thought refers to the inner, to the nerve center of consent to that fluid area of purpose that
provides the power for focusing of the spirit.
We live very externally. For the most part, we tend to because life seems to demand that that of
us. I think one of the reasons why we enjoy going to the country is the fact that we, in the
country, occasionally, we encounter people who have been sufficiently unhurried to salt down a
few of their observations, let them ripen.
And I think that's why people that live in the country are always glad when summer's over, and
the city people go back home. [INAUDIBLE] The other life, the inner life, is due primarily to the
influence, I think of Greek thought on Western culture and civilization, and particularly upon
Christianity.
We make a sharp distinction between the outer and the inner. We assume, for instance, that the
spiritually minded individual confines himself exclusively to the inner. And we assume that the
so-called practically minded man, the man of business, the man who works with his hands, the
toiler-- the two aren't the same necessarily-- is a man who deals with the things that are external,
that he [INAUDIBLE] to be thoughtful. He handles the tragic.
So we set up a separate category for these two human beings. And if the man who is supposed to
give his thought and time to things spiritual, spills over into this other area, we say that he should
stick to his knitting. And if the man who is supposed to give all of his time to the tragic, moves
over to the other area, we say that something is wrong with him.
We have seen that the church is the psychiatrist. Something's wrong with him. This dichotomy is
so clear. We see it in our-- even in our worship. We make a very radical distinction between two
kinds of gods. I have mentioned this to you many times, because it seems to me to be a very
consistent aspect of our culture, the god of religion on the one hand, the god of the sanctuary, the
god of the cloister, the god of the dim light, the soft, treading step, the god of the holy place, the
god of piety, the god of the extremities of life, and then the god of life over here, the god of the
market place, the god who stays outside.
And so persistent is this dichotomy in our thinking and feeling that we tend to split our
allegiance right down the center. And we say, for instance, that the god of life is at a
disadvantage in the place where the god of religion holds for. When the god of life comes in to
the place where the god of religion dwells, the god of life is spent.
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[INAUDIBLE] the god of religion move out into the traffic of the world, he's at a disadvantage,
so we say about a religious insight that is trying to be implemented in terms of the context.
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I'd like for us to dwell there a little, because it is so essential to the quest of the human spirit for
wholeness, for-- not unity, but the union, I guess is a better word, and since we cannot handle the
distinction, which I think is an artificial distinction between the practical, and the theoretical, our
feeling about-- I don't quite know how to put this-- that the truth of a thing, the meaning of it is
contingent upon how practical it is, so that the only way we can communicate within this kind of
emotional security in this whole realm, as far as religion is concerned is by symbolism.
Or way back when I was in college, and they had the great Passaic, New Jersey, textile strike,
one of the first great, heart breaking labor brutalities in the history of American business, a
forerunner of the brutality of the coal mines.
When the Rockefellers were laying the foundation for their wealth, these people were killed and
so forth. But the great Passaic, New Jersey, textile strike. And the church wanted to give us
witness, and we're just beginning to get what was a conscience about the responsibility of the
Christian for the fate of the defenseless, the exploited, resisted the beginning of this sort of thing.
And to move into the area in New Jersey where the strike was on meant that you moved at your
own risk if you were not a part of the owners of the factories, who supported the police and
through their taxes, had the power of the state on their side, and the only way that the religious
community of the period could have any effect through its coming in to bring soup and
administer to the this and thatness of life.
The men who represented the church had to wear clerics, because if the if they had clerics, then
there was a certain respect, which had nothing to do with religion, but a great deal to do with
superstition. And this kind of dualism has crept into a private feeling about the relevancy of the
spiritual in terms of the practical journey that our lives take.
So that the dualism-- this is what I'm getting at. The dualism is one that dogs our footsteps, that
without realizing, without sensing it, there is a sort of internal convincement that in the world of
things and practicality in which we function, the god we worship is always at a disadvantage.
Now, hang around that a little, so that you can stir it up and it'll do pitch hitting for you down the
road. It's very hard to believe and to affirm that God is God, in the nitty gritty, rough and tumble
survival issues of life. I don't know how to that in-When I was a student in Atlanta, my senior year, I was going from one part of town, where my
college was located to another part, across in a business area. There was a section where Martin
King's church is located, or was located.
And in those days, there were no traffic lights but you had policemen, and one of the main
thoroughfares went by the railway station down through the center of town out to [INAUDIBLE]
Avenue. And at every big traffic center, there was policeman to direct the lights, to direct the
traffic.
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This young minister and I were driving along in his car, and we were talking. And so at first, we
didn't even see the policeman. In present day, this great big six feeter, six footer, six feeter. What
is it? Feet? Six footer, six foot. Anyway, you get the picture,
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And the minister who's driving the car was absorbed. He was just talking. He didn't see or think
about him until he saw this huge mass in the air, saving its life, sitting up there talking. And he
blew the whistle. I mean, he blew the whistle with his gut, not with his lungs. And even the car
froze.
It was one of those breathless moments. My friend pulled to the side, and he came forward to us,
pulled his-- what we called it in those days, his billy, little, short, leather club out with his right
hand, reached in with his left hand to pull this driver's head in reach. And my friend said Officer,
you wouldn't hit a man of God, would you?
And the thing froze, and he sputtered and said something. Now, the subtle thing for all of us is to
make, if we can in our religious experience, the distinction between religion and superstition.
And we have prostituted religion into symbolism.
And the symbolism stands in the stead of the vitality and the rawness and the intensity of the
religious experience itself. So back to Passaic. At the fever of all this brutality, a man walked in
with his clerics on.
There was at once a part of his protection and the thing for which he stood on behalf of these
defenseless people, a kind of magic, because it was anyone of these people. Somewhere in his
history, it would start a feeling that the sacred cannot be touched, and the sacred can be known
by a certain kind of symbolism.
So that if you have the symbolism, then the symbolism draws on the whole evolving of the
human spirit with reference to the untouchable, the Shekhinah, the uncreated light by which the
throne of God is surrounded.
So I find that in my own spiritual struggle, even though my mind functions in terms of anybody's
mind, functions in terms of symbolism, as the opening through which meaning comes. The
symbolism is so deceptive, because it becomes the meaning.
And this is-- yes.
There's a story I heard out of Kentucky. The fellow who did it was telling it. He was a musician.
And one time-- he played the accordion or whatever-- one time, it was the miners on one side
and the state police on the other side in this rally. And he walked down the middle and played his
music. And that day, they didn't fight. So that's sort or the other side of the coin versus this guy
in his clerical, standing between-Yes. Yes, and you see, the important thing is the distinction with which we wrestle all the time is
the distinction between what, in our minds, is the secular and the spiritual, the practical and the
theoretical.
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It's a kind of dualism that serves, I think, as a-- oh I hate to feel this, but I do. That is a padding, a
shield, to keep us from the naked exposure to the spirit of god.
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And I find that deep in my own soul-- if I may use a word like that-- I'm always trying to find a
way to escape the dualism, so that I will not live with accumulated delusions. I can handle one,
but they breed like cats in an alley.
Over and over again, I find myself saying this is true. I know it's true, but in this kind of world, it
won't work. You lost me. I mean, you lost me. What I'm saying is that over and over again, with
reference to something you believe in, you say I know this is true, but in this situation, it will not
work.
And I don't know about other human beings [INAUDIBLE]. One. But I'm always trying to find a
way by which the distinction between the practical and the theoretical will disappear.
[INAUDIBLE]
Yes. Excuse me.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Oh, never through, but go ahead.
Thinking about the things that you've said and what came to mind as far as the practical and the
theoretical becoming one, is an incident that happened, I guess last week or so, and I didn't read
the accounts of it, but these are Christians taking a stand and acting on their belief. And I know
of that because in New Haven, [INAUDIBLE] this group was praying for these people,
[INAUDIBLE] and another young man from New Haven who I guess took their blood and
poured it on classified information.
And men are being punished for their crimes. But it seems to me that the dichotomy disappears
maybe when something of an incarnation appears and people act on strong beliefs or have
behavior of this type in the room in which-Yeah.
I guess, maybe it's a rare thing rather than a common thing.
Yes, I think so. This sort of thing where the spiritually sensitive person I think is to resist the
temptation to prove something. I mean, this is the-- and yet, our whole culture and civilization
and everything depends upon tests, making dry runs, checking it out, and somewhere between
these two, I think is the thing that nourishes and sustains.
In the evolution of mind, in the whole journey of the evolving of human, of the personality, to
test a thing to prove it is so incredibly essential. And without that kind of validation, there can be
no security in knowledge, and yet, the integrity of the insight can never be tied to the necessity of
external validation.
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Now, it's a dilemma for which the human spirit finds no solution in terms of the pilgrimage of
values of which it's engaged. The moment you try to prove your truth, you become defensive
with reference to your truth. And yet, if you're not willing to test it, then the environment in
which we've grown up in Western civilization says that you don't know what you're talking
about, unless you make these dry runs.
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So that somewhere in there between these two dilemmas, the confidence in the insight has to be
its own validation, and bearing in mind all the time that I'm sure is that I am right, I may be
wrong. And it may take me in my journey 50 years to discover that 50 years ago, I should have
turned left rather than right.
But it took me 50 years for that dimension of the truth to break into my mind and spirit. Just go
on, [? Georgia. ?] Do we have a break?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Let's take a break.
Thank you. And may I have some coffee?
You bet.
May I ask one question? You said, the minute you tried to prove [INAUDIBLE] how did you
complete that?
Oh, I have no idea.
I mean, the thought. The minute we try to [INAUDIBLE], then it becomes our truth, rather than
the real truth.
And you see, the minute you try to prove it, to your soul, that becomes, a vote of no confidence
in it. It has to say it, and be accepted for that, because you can't-- the moment, I think that in the
end journey that we take to prove it is to satisfy an observer, not ourselves.
And the observers, the integrity of the observer is not at stake. I think the greatest temptation of
Jesus, whatever testimony he brought forth in telling his disciples about the baptism and all of
that was the greatest temptation, I think, of his-- when the people around him, as he was fighting
it out between life and death on the cross, they were saying, now, if you were every to, say, come
down from the cross, I-I think everyone who's involved in the grounds of living his life by a deep, inner guidance has to
affirm the integrity of his or her journey. And the journey becomes the proof.
[INAUDIBLE] printing office. Is that all right?
Yeah.
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Do you want to start just [INAUDIBLE]?
Yeah, please.
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Hate and love, [INAUDIBLE] impulses loose insights that we are trying to validate in that kind
of context are impractical. [INAUDIBLE]
A little louder, Joyce.
The outer and the inner are separate in our thinking. What the psalmist says is let the outer and
the inner both be acceptable in thy sight because it should be one and the same. [INAUDIBLE].
There are attitudes that we take towards living. It seemed to me to invalidate the sense of
integration, which may be summarized in terms of the free and easy flowing between the outer
and the inner, free and easy access between these two interactions this way.
And one of those attitudes is one which insists that we should not recognize that there is a
relationship between these two things. Think back over this week in your own life, just this
week. How many things have you done which seemed to you to be expedient, necessary, but
above which you have deep within yourself, the profoundest kind of inner reservation?
Let's think about it. So that you found yourself functioning and developing a behavior pattern or
deepening in behavior pattern, activities, agreements, yes-ing or no-ing, and you said to yourself,
what I am doing is not remotely connected with my own inner nerve center of consent.
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Internal Notes
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Edits: will(?) provide his light; Georgia; any of those(?);
Time Period
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1980s
Original Title
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Conversations with Howard Thurman (parts 5 and 6), 1980 Sep 19-21
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394-360_A
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Thurman, Howard
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Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 5 and 6, Side A
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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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1980-09-20
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Description
An account of the resource
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 opens with one student's reflection on the inner life, which is followed by a discussion on dualism, in relation to the inner life, from Thurman. Thurman explores the tension between the outer life and the inner life, religion and superstition, and the practical and the theoretical. Speaking to these examples of dualism, Thurman notes that dualism as "a padding, a shield, to keep us from the naked exposure to the spirit of God."
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Description by Dustin Mailman
A Chorus Line
authority
cleric
coffee
confidence
darkness
dualism
evolution
fluid area of purpose
inner guidance
inner life
inward journey
Jesus
Kentucky
Martin Luther King Jr.
Nature of God
nerve center of consent
New Haven
New Jersey
non-dual
Passaic
praxis
psalmist
reflection
Shekhinah
symbolism
teachers
temptation
test
textile strike
turning
ultimate truth
validation