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Pitts Theology Library
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394-784.mp3
This is tape number ET37 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one, entitled, "The Meaning of Love."
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
May I remind you that if you are interested in receiving transcriptions of my talks, you may get
them by addressing me either here at the channel five or at Marsh Chapel, Boston University. I'm
continuing our thinking together about the meaning of love. And today, I want to read a few
verses from Moffitt's translation of the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians.
Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy. Love makes no parade, gives itself no
airs, is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful. Love is never glad when others
go wrong. Love is gladdened by goodness-- always slow to expose, always eager to believe the
best, always hopeful, always patient.
The working definition that we are using is this-- that love is the experience of being dealt with
at a point in one's self that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. To love is to deal with
another person at a point in him that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil.
There is something in the experience which has with it always a note of security-- of emotional
security. And security in its simplest terms means the experience of having one's needs satisfied.
And whoever is able to satisfy one's needs-- simple needs or complex needs-- the response,
because of this sense of satisfaction, is in terms of not only dependence, but in terms of trust, in
terms of confidence, in terms of affection, in terms of love.
It is for this reason that religion insists that God loves man and that it is man's experience of the
love of God which, in the first instance, enables him to be able to love anyone. I wonder if you
take for granted the fact that so many of your own basic needs are satisfied by life. And, if you
take this for granted, then your attitude towards life may not be one of responsibility,
responsiveness, of reverence, of gratitude. It may be an attitude that is simply callous.
You may decide, for instance, that you reap the fresh air that you breathe and the cool water that
you drink and all of the other simple creature ways by which your needs are satisfied. But, if you
reflect upon your total experience of life in this regard, then your attitude towards life will be one
of reverence and towards the creator of life, one of trust and confidence.
Now, with this background, let us deal more specifically with the question before us. Love
means in simple experiential terms the ability to let one's life be filled with many simple deeds of
gratuitous extras, gratuitous kindnesses as manifested towards people by whom you are
surrounded.
When I was a boy, I could hardly wait for Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving meant that
Christmas was in the offing. And, from Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve midnight, I was a
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model boy. I would respond almost instinctively to my mother's needs during that whole period.
For instance, she did not ever see the bottom of the wood box because I kept it full of wood all
the time. I had a sense of what was vital for her, I can anticipate her needs. All of this because I
knew that Thanksgiving meant that Christmas was around the corner and when Christmas came,
that I would be rewarded for all of these simple gratuitous extras by which I had filled my
relationship with my mother.
Now, this mood that I manifested during that time is an indication-- it's a sampling of what
happens all the time in your relationships with people for whom you have this kind of love and
affection. You can sense their needs. You can anticipate their needs. And, at the heart of this
anticipation, at the heart of this awareness, there is a kind of clear-cut and definitive
understanding so that your response to the need is an intelligent response, as contrasted merely
with the sentimental or emotional response.
At the center of the dynamics of the feeling, there must be an understanding mind. If I were to
put it in a rather caustic phrase, it would be something like this-- that, in love, the mind must be
as hard as ice, the heart as warm as a kitchen stove. This is what I mean. Now, there is a second
dimension here.
There is the tendency to feel ownership towards the person that you love and to demand that you
will be loved in kind and in quality as the proof that your love has been received. We want to be
loved back. Now, this is perfectly normal, very natural, but it is my thought that the necessity to
be loved back in exchange for, or in return for loving, is an extraneous and irrelevant necessity, if
I may put it that way.
Love does not-- at its best, love does not demand that love be given back to one in return. This is
illustrated in a rather melodramatic story written many years ago by Olive Schreiner. She calls it
the story of Tausa. Tausa was a little dog. He sat with his tail in a puddle of mud. It wasn't
raining except out of his eyes, for he was very sad.
Presently, a fine looking aristocratic mastiff who lived next door came out of his yard and passed
Tausa's house and he saw Tausa weeping and he stopped-- Tausa was a little terrier. He said to
Tausa-- what's the trouble with you, little fellow? Do other dogs bite you? No, I manage to take
care of myself pretty well.
Do you get enough to eat? Yes, I have bones and occasionally there's meat on them. Do you have
a place to sleep? Yes, I have a box with some rags in it. Well, what's the trouble with you? Tausa
said-- I want to love people and I want to feel that people love me. And the mastiff said, love,
what is that? Have you ever seen it? No, said Tausa. Have you ever smelled it? No, said Tausa.
Have you ever tasted it? No, I haven't ever tasted it. Well, what good is it anyway?
And thus applying the pragmatic test to that kind of reality, the mastiff went on down the street.
Tausa got up, shook the water off his tail and the water out of his eyes and went in the opposite
direction. Presently, he saw a ragged newsboy coming-- a newsboy who had a very sad face.
And he went running up to the newsboy literally in a ball of excitement. He didn't know whether
to lick the boy's hands first or his feet. He just wanted him so.
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And the boy called him-- doggy, doggy. And when Tausa came very close to him, he kicked him
in the nose. But the lonely boy laughed. There was a singing in Tausa's ear now as he went down
the other side of the street. He wasn't so sure about how he felt. He came to the outskirts of the
village and there, he saw a cottage. The gate was open. He went through the gate, up the steps, at
the door, he looked in, he saw an invalid stretched out on a bed.
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He made a noise at the door, which being interpreted was, if you ask me, I'll come in. So the
invalid asked him in, and Tausa found that she was a very lonely person. She had had a dog once
upon a time, but he'd gone away somewhere. Tausa tried to amuse her during the daytime by
catching his tail with his teeth so as to take her mind off of suffering. And then in the nighttime
when he would hear her cough, he would get up from his pad and walk over by her bed and rub
his head against her hands and lick her fingers to let her know that even though it were
nighttime, he knew that she was suffering and he cared.
And then one day, the dog that belonged home came back. And Tausa heard the invalid say, I
don't want to give Tausa away, but what shall I do with him? Tausa didn't want to be given away,
so he went out in the backyard and disappeared. But, as he went along, he had the feeling that the
invalid for the first time in her life had had an experience with someone to whom her invalidism
was not a burden.
Tausa saw a boy just ahead of him-- a boy with a large piece of meat under his arm. And a man
jumped from behind a tree, accosted the boy, threw him to the ground, and was trying to take the
meat from the boy. And Tausa barked at him furiously and, presently, the man got up and ran
away because he thought somebody was coming. The boy looked at Tausa's face peppered with
rage and he said, do you try to do that to me after all that your master has done to me?
So, he attacked Tausa. Tausa was thrown into the bushes. The last time I saw him, says the story,
he was stretched out in the road, now, what does this mean? That love at its best does not
demand requitement. It gives, and in its giving, it finds its strength and its security and its ability
to give more and more and more. This is our privilege and this is our opportunity.
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 is tape number ET37 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, "A Sense of What is Vital."
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.
It is a pleasure to announce to you that beginning next Friday and for the two succeeding
Fridays, our guest on this program will be Dr. Edwin P. Booth of the graduate school of theology
of Boston University. Today, I am thinking with you about a phrase taken from the letters of the
apostle Paul. The phrase is this-- a sense of what is vital.
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It suggests the necessity which we all feel, for the honoring of overtones, of meaning, and
understanding, and wisdom which may not be a part of the ordinary garden variety insight. We
note this, particularly, on the personal level. For instance, when you consider the difference
between a kind act and merely an act of graciousness, there is an element that is unmeditated, an
element that is unreflective, and an element that is spontaneous and creative about kindness.
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It is for this reason that men do not ever quite manage to deserve the kind act. It is true that there
are many men who deserve honor, because of the nature of the contribution which they have
made to their generation or to other generations. All men according to the most creative kind of
ethic deserve respect as human beings-- or, in the language of religion, as children of God.
There are men who deserve varying degrees of recognition because of the way by which they
have identified themselves with a particular movement in time and space or in human history.
But no one ever quite deserves the kind act. There is an element of gratuity, of something extra
in the kind act. Have you been on the receiving end of a kind act? And, because of this kind act,
you have tried to repay the person for the kind act, only to discover that it cannot quite be done?
You can't quite balance it out, because what the kind act did for you was something so intimate
and so searching and so utterly without merit that it isn't possible for you to measure it in kind.
This is why the kind act seems somehow always to be identified with what religion recognizes as
the grace of God-- the manifestation of a dimension of life which is our experience even though
we do not quite merit it. The psalmist says he has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us
according to our iniquities.
Wherever there is the element of something extra-- something that goes beyond the balance-something that spills over-- that has no necessity inherent in its operation except the out-flowing
quality of the deed itself. This is the kind act. And this is to have a sense for what is vital.
Very often, this sense of what is vital is manifested in various kinds of human relations. I have a
friend in San Francisco, for instance, who works at a mortuary. He is a sculptor. His professional
job is to sculpt the faces of the corpses so that they may be lifelike and be characteristic of the
person when the person was alive. Whenever he comes home from his day's work and when his
wife greets him and his handkerchief is hanging way out of his pocket, she knows that this is not
his good day. And whatever she has in mind to discuss that requires some measure of emotional
tension or something else, she knows that this is not the time to talk about it.
They agreed on a symbol like this so that the symbol will communicate to the other person what
is vital and what is not vital for that particular time. Whenever he greets her, as she has on a
beautiful, handmade embroidered apron that he brought to her from Czechoslovakia many years
ago, he knows that this is not her day. And whatever he has on his mind that the discussion of
which may involve a certain amount of emotional tension, he knows that this is not the evening
to talk about it.
This symbol suggests to each that whatever is vital in terms of the need of the other person, this
is the time to honor it. Now, there's a third aspect here-- we are all concerned, finally, about
having experiences in which we ourselves have a sense of being understood. So much of that
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which upsets the emotions, so much of that which depresses and casts down in human experience
has to do with a private feeling of not being understood.
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Haven't you said it to yourself many times-- in this deed, I am not understood. One of the most
dramatic illustrations of it that comes to my mind is something that I read many years ago
written by a national news reporter who had attended the burial services of Dillinger the famous- or infamous-- gangster, as the case may be.
He said that the only person present at the burial moment, other than a minister, was the mother
of Dillinger and this particular newspaper reporter. As the mother turned away from the grave of
her son, she said to herself over and over in the presence of the newscaster-- they didn't
understand my boy. They didn't understand my boy. If they had understood him, he would not be
where he is today.
This is a rather extreme expression of the thing that's on my mind. There is deep within all of us
a great need for understanding, a need for the feeling that, with reference to our lives, with
reference to the things that we do, which, to us, are important-- we are not required to be on the
defensive. To experience the integrity of the act without being under the necessity for being
apologetic for the act-- to feel that not only are my acts interpreted and somehow understood,
but, more importantly, that I am understood.
I remember talking with a little child once who always insisted on getting headaches or footaches
or back aches. And I remarked to her-- I'm sure you're doing this because you think that your
mother and your father do not love you, do not understand you, so that you are trying to attract
attention to yourself by getting a headache or getting a backache or getting a toothache. But why
don't you be smart? I said.
You should know now that when you use this device in order to be sure that you are being cared
for, that the thing that gets the attention is the headache or the backache or the toeache. And,
after all, you do not get the attention. And if you are trying to have a sense of being understood
and being cared for, this is not the way to go at it.
If I knew you and you knew me and each of us could clearly see by the inner light divine the
meaning of your heart and mind, I am sure that we would differ less and clasp our hands in
friendliness if I knew you and you knew me. This need for understanding is so important in
human life that it is the insistence of religion that, in the supreme act of worship in the human
spirit-- when the human spirit is before its god, when it is laid bare before god, that it has a sense
of being totally dealt with and being completely understood so that there is a moment when I can
act with utter freedom and with utter enthusiasm and with utter involvement, because I know that
not only my deed, but that which is deepest in me-- my intent, my purpose, the creative
movement of my desiring-- all of this is gathered up in the understanding of the individual.
A sense of what is vital-- this is one of the great necessities of our spirits.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
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Title
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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/394-784.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Meaning of Love; A Sense of What is Vital (ET-37; GC 11-26-71), 1971 Nov 26
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1950s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-784
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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The Meaning of Love (1958-03-07); A Sense of What is Vital (1959-01-30)
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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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1958-03-07
1959-01-30
Description
An account of the resource
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 heart.
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon the Apostle Paul's phrase, "a sense of what is vital." Thurman continues by developing his understanding of wisdom, and how wisdom points one towards awareness of vitality. Because you can only know of vitality by means of signs, Thurman suggests that it takes wisdom to discern which symbols actually point towards vitality.
Contributor
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Dustin Mailman
1 Corinthians
A sense of what is vital
affection
community
confidence
Dillinger
discernment
dog
experience
interconnectivity
love
meaning
Moffatt
mortician
mortuary
Olive Schreiner
ownership
Paul
requitment
San Francisco
satisfaction
security
symbolism
trust
understanding
vitality
wisdom
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394-783.mp3
This is tape number ET31 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Supportive Order Inherent in Life.
Pitts Theology Library
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[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 continuation of our time together last week, I want to read, today, from The Inward
Journey. And this has to do with the unity of life. "In all the waking hours, the tentacles of time
give channel to each living thing-- the bird on wing, the mole moving in darkness underground,
the cricket chanting it's evening song, the primeval whale sporting in chilly seas or floating
noiselessly in turbulent waters, in mountain crevice or sprawling meadow, the delicate beauty of
color-stained flower or fragile leaf.
High above the timberline, the sprig of green dares wind and snow. In the barren parchness of
desert waste, the juiceless shrub and water logged cactus. High in the tree top, the green-pearled
fruit of olive mistletoe and the soft gray stillness of creeping moss. The infant, the growing child,
the stumbling adolescent, the young adult, the man full-blown or stooped with years-- the
tentacles of time give channel to each living thing.
And beyond all this, thoughts that move with grace of being, light thoughts that dance and sing
untouched by gloom or shadow or the dark. Weighty thoughts that press upon the road with
tracks that blossom into dreams or shape themselves in plan and scheme.
Thoughts that whisper, thoughts that shout, thoughts that wander without rest, seeking, seeking,
always seeking. Thoughts that challenge, thoughts that soothe. The tentacles of time give channel
to each living thing.
Out from the house of life, all things come. And into it, each returns again for rest. When I
awake, I am still with thee.
There is not only a built-in unity and harmony in the organism-- in yours, in mine. But there is a
unity that is inherent in the particular life. This unity is determined by many factors, some of
which we understand and some we do not understand.
Why does your foot grow and grow and then stop growing? Why does some other part of your
body develop? And then something gives the word. And it stops it. It makes an end of growing.
The thing that's in my mind is that there is, in the individual life, a kind of built in logic and order
that is inherently a part of the individual's life, so that everything in your life counts. It is a part
of the order that is inherent in the living stuff which is your own life.
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Now this does not mean as it seems, that I am making some left handed case for a kind of ranting
determinism that suggests that everything that concerns your life or my life is fixed and ordered.
No. I am saying, however, that because of the harmony that is within the movement of the
private life, every thing in that life belongs.
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And if I could understand the totality of a man's life, how he has responded from the day of his
conception to the present, to all of the forces that have played upon his life to which he has
responded, then the story of his life would make sense. For there is, within the life, an order and
a harmony.
And this is the basis upon which so much of the therapy that people are using now at the hands
of the disciplined minds-- the doctors who work with us when we have emotional upsets and
emotional disturbances, or we have some other things going on within us that are unmanageable
and that cause us to do things which are out of character. And how do these men work?
They assume that there is a logic here that somewhere in the development of your life or my life
or the individual's life that is seeking help, something happened. An event took place. And I
responded to that event in a certain way.
And as a result of the impact of this-- upon my life and my response to it, what I am
experiencing now is the order. This is how we study diseases. We say that the cure for a disease
is unknown. But we do not say, ever, that the cure is unknowable.
For the assumption is that there is an order that is inherent in the operation of the disease, that
there is a rational order in the mind. This rational order is always trying to penetrate, to make
contact, to touch, to sense, to become aware of, to understand.
The principle of order that may be at work and the behavior of this body of cells, so that when
the rational principle in the mind makes contact with the order that is in the disease, so that the
mind says that the logic in my mind and the logic here in this disease flow together, and give me
an insight, then men can talk in terms of curing the disease or of reducing it so that it will not,
any longer, threaten life.
What I'm saying is that we are surrounded by an order of which we are part and of which all of
life is a part. And that if there are those experiences in life that break the order, those experiences
that rupture the community, these things are regarded as being against life.
And the purpose of life from this point of view is to develop more and more order, more and
more synthesis, more and more wholeness, more and more creativity. And wherever there is that
which is divisive, wherever there is that which tears asunder, which [? rends ?] this must be
regarded as being against life.
And he who works for order, who works for harmony, who works for a total experience of
integration, life is on his side. And he who works against this, whatever may be the private
grounds for the judgment that monitors the enterprise, this is against life. And if it is against life,
it is against God."
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[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.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The preceding program was pre-recorded.
This is tape number ET31, from the Library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2, entitled For Love's Sake.
[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]
Today I am reading, as the background for our thinking, a prose poem from the greatest of these.
"While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there
is a man in jail, I am not free. Thus spoke one whose very life and deeds these words fulfilled.
Contacts with one another abound in a world grown small. Because the mind of man has worked
unceasingly to banish barriers set by nature here and there, everywhere. But where there is no
will to love, to make an act of grace towards fellow man, contacts may degrade. Outrage nip the
tender shoots of simple trust.
Love abides when all else sickens and dies from sheer revulsion and disgust. The fruit it bears
sustains the nerve and makes the life a harbor of repose for the weak and tottering, a heavy
judgment for the cruel and hating, a precious bane for those who seek to know the way of God
among the sons of men.
With it, the deeds of men are measured by man's great destiny. It meets men where they are,
sometimes cruel, sometimes lustful, sometimes greedy, often callous, mean, of low design, and
treats them there as if they were full-grown and crowned with all that God would have them be.
For love's sake, and love's alone, men do with joyous hope and tender joy what no command of
heaven, hell, or life could force of them if love were not. To be God's child, to love with steady
mind and fervent heart, this is the law of love."
The apostle, Paul, in one of his letters, has left a very significant and pointed line which has
bearing on our thought for today. He says, "My prayer to God is that your love may grow more
and more rich in knowledge and in all manner of insight, that you may have a sense for what is
vital, that you may be transparent and of no harm to anyone."
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We are surrounded today by a climate of impersonality, I suppose, is the best way to put it. It is
very difficult for the individual in our society to keep from becoming anonymous in his
relationships and in his estimate of himself, so that any thought about the thickening of human
relations, the tidying of relationships-- so that when men move in the midst of each other, they
will have no sense of jeopardy, no sense of being threatened, is a most important consideration.
Pitts Theology Library
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The basic statement that I would make, that I hope you will remember, with reference to this
whole idea is that in our kind of world today, there is but one refuge that any man has on this
planet. And that is in another man's heart. And when I close the door against any man, it means
that I undermine my own sense of emotional security as I seek to live my life on this planet.
Now there are many contexts which we have, contacts, for the most part, are contacts without
fellowship. Now contacts without fellowship tend to express themselves in a kind of
unsympathetic mood.
They are, essentially, unsympathetic. They are cold. They are detached. Sometimes they are
cruel. The contacts are there. But they are not warm. They are unsympathetic. They are hard-the sort of thing that you feel, sometimes, when you go into a man's office. And he looks at you
with a with a dead hard stare in his eyes. And you wonder whether the third button on your shirt
is open or closed. But you dare not feel to see.
It is something that strips you, that lays you bare, that exposes you. It's hard. It's devastating. It is
destructive. Now an unsympathetic attitude tends to express itself in the exercise of a will that is
distorted, a will that is ill, a will that is sick.
And there is a subtle contagion about a sick will. Many people who come into direct contact with
it or are exposed to it find that they are contaminated by this. And the same sort of disposition or
attitude which is theirs, which is to be found in the mind and the life of the person with the ill
will, becomes characteristic of those to whom it is exposed.
Now an ill will that is dramatized in the life of a man is what we mean by hate walking on the
earth. Now the reverse of this is true.
Contacts with fellowship are warm. And they make for an understanding that is sympathetic-the kind of understanding that we all seek, the sort of understanding that gives the individual a
sense of inner freedom, that gives the individual the feeling that he need not pretend.
He need not cover up. The vulnerable things in his life will be protected by someone who
understands him in a sense that is increasingly total. And this is what we seek, after all-understanding that is sympathetic, so that in its warm glow, the weaknesses and the strengths, the
good points and the bad points, are not held in any sense that is judgmental.
But they are gathered up in a healing mood of not only compassion but of understanding. This is
what we seek among ourselves. This is what our children seek. This is what adults seek.
4
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now sympathetic understanding tends to express itself in the exercise of a will that is good. Now
a good will is the creative expression of one man's total attitude towards another man.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is, laced, if I may use that word, in a kind of kindness. And here, something very important
must be said. No one ever quite deserves kindness. Men deserve respect as human beings. Men
deserve honor, sometimes, for the contribution which they have made to the redemption of the
common life or the contribution which they have made to some stark human need to which they
are exposed.
But no one ever quite deserves kindness. For when you are kind to a man, it means that you
place upon him something that he does not merit. It is like placing a crown over his head that, for
the rest of his life, he is trying to grow tall enough to wear, so that when you are the recipient of
the kind act, you know deep within yourself that you cannot ever repay this deed to the person
from whom the deed issued to you so that the only thing that you can do is to seek to confer that
kind of meaning upon someone else as your response to that kind of meaning that has been
conferred upon you.
Now a goodwill caught, dramatized, epitomized, for instanced in the life of a man is what we
mean by Love. And when we love, it means that we deal with each other at a point in each other
that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. There is but one refuge that one man has
anywhere on this planet. And that is in another man's heart.
Will you keep your door open that whoever knocks may enter?
[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]
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/394-783.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
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Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Supporting Order Inherent in Life; For Love's Sake (ET-31; GC 11-24-71), 1971 Nov 24
Time Period
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1960s
1950s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-783
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Supportive Order Inherent in Life (1963-05-17); For Love's Sake (1958-05-30)
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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1963-05-17
1958-05-30
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "The Inward Journey." Thurman's reading speaks to the intricate ways in which human life and experience is ordered in a synchronistic fashion. It is in one's understanding of creation's interrelatedness, Thurman suggests, that one can come to understand that the entirety of one's existence belongs.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects upon a poem from Eugene V. Debs, speaking to notions of solidarity and love. He notes that notions of love and disease both have a contagious characteristic, and that there is great responsibility in one's choosing of love or disease. To share one's heart, thus one's love, is to invite fellowship and community. To share one's disease, is to invite isolation and individualism.
Contributor
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Dustin Mailman
belonging
contagion
creation
creativity
ecology
Eugene V. Debs
experience
fellowship
harmony
healing
heart
interconnectivity
inward journey
love
order
organism
Paul
Philippians
poetry
relationship
security
society
synchronization
synthesis
tentacles of time
unity
vulnerability
wholeness
will
-
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29608d573f8b6756fb15c2451db8bc75
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-778.mp3
This is tape number ET22 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust-- two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled, Quality of Life.
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]
I'm beginning by reading a selection from my book, Meditations of the Heart. "At times when
the strain is heaviest upon us, and our tired nerves cry out in many tongue in pain, because the
flow of love is choked far below the deep recesses of the heart.
We seek with cravings, firm and hard, the strength to break the dam that we may live again in
love's warm stream. We want more love and more and more until, at last, we are restored and
made anew, also it seems.
When we are closer drawn to God's great light, and in its radiance stand revealed, the meaning of
our need informs our minds. More love, we cried, as if love could be weighed, measured,
bundled, tied. As if with perfect wisdom we could say, to one a little love, to another, an added
portion, and on and on until all debts were paid with no one left behind.
But now, we see the tragic blunder of our cry not for more love, our hungry craving seek, but
more power to love to put behind the tender feeling, the understanding heart. The boundless
reaches of the Father's care makes love eternal always kindled, always new. This becomes the
eager meaning of the aching heart, the bitter cry, the anguish call."
We are approaching the Christmas season. And it is a time when much thought will be given to
the sharing of gifts, the expressing of love. I am reminded that so much of our lives is
quantitative. We think about the meanings of our lives, and the meanings of things and times that
can be weighed and measured.
And, perhaps, we have no choice but to do this. I was looking over a casualty policy, which I
own. And on the inside of this policy, there is a table that lists the equivalent in dollars to
different kinds of injuries-- $1,000 for the loss of one eye or $50 for the spraining of an ankle.
In other words, these things, which have to do with the quality of pain, the quality of anguish, the
quality of suffering are transposed in terms of dollars and cents. We tend to feel that, somehow,
we can reduce all of the quality dimension of life to quantitative measurements. And this is a
delusion.
I remember some years ago having a conversation at another university where I was teaching, a
conversation with Dr. Cabot, who, for many years, was a professor in the Harvard University
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Medical School. We was seated in my little office talking. And every five minutes, some student
would knock at the door. And I would go to the door and answer it and do a little conversation
there.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And then the next two, three minutes, the buzzer would sound. And I would answer the
telephone. And this kept on while Dr. Cabot was trying to explain something to me. And then,
suddenly he said to me, will you do me a favor? And I said, yes. He said, will you lock the door
and don't open it for 10 minutes?
And then will you please say to whoever buzzes you upstairs to not to disturb you for 10
minutes, because I want to tell you something. And I don't want to be interrupted. And this is
what he told me-- that some years previous to this time, he had been invited by the National
Conference of Social Work to give their annual lecture. And he chose to address himself to the
theme, the limitation of intake.
And his thesis was very simple that the figure five bears the same relationship to infinity that's
the figure of 5 million bears. Now, he says, that if human need, for instance, is infinite, and if a
man works 1,000 years without taking time out either to eat, sleep, or rest, at the end of the 1,000
years, that which remains to be done, will still be infinite.
If he reads every hour during 1,000 years without taking time out to eat, sleep or rest at the end
of the time, the number of books remaining to be read would be infinite. So the wise man
discovers that he cannot make a quantitative impression on infinity.
And therefore, he begins to learn how to make a qualitative impression on infinity to put into the
particular expression all of the meaning and quality and vitality of which one is capable without
feeling that what one expresses can be measured in terms either of dollars and cents or in terms
of thank you or no thank you in terms that have to do with those things that are essentially
quantitative.
When Tycho Brahe was the great Danish astronomer-- and at the end of his 25 years when there
was a change in Danish politics, the politicians came out to his observatory to see how he was
spending the money of the state. And he showed them these wonderful maps of stars that he had
been drawing-- he and his students.
And the politicians winked their eyes at each other. And one did a spiral with his hands, pointing
to his brain, showing that Tycho Brahe was a little off. And he went back. And he made the
report to the officials. And Tycho Brahe was put out of his observatory.
And the last night when he gathered his students around him, he said, 25 years ago, I had a
dream. And that was to chart 1,000 stars before I died. I've only charted 750. And now, I must
quit. But these 750 stars will never have to be charted again. I have put into what I have done.
The rich, rare quality of the most creative and most sensitive effort that I can give. Therefore, I
suggest, then, as we approach the Christmas season, that we bear down on the quality of how we
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
relate to each other-- the quality that is given, rather than the quantity, the figure, the price tag
that goes with the object.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is the sort of thing that we want, isn't it, in our most primary and intimate relationships. When
we love someone, we do not love a little bit and measure it. But we love love. And if we do not
love in this way, then we are always under the burden of trying to prove that we love.
Let us then enter into this season with a qualitative significance to what we do, rather than be
deluded into accepting a quantitative measure, because if we do, then we can't do enough. We
will always be behind. It is the qualitative, rather than the quantitative emphasis.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That 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]
[AUDIO OUT]
This is tape number ET22 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, Religion and Life.
[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]
For our background this morning, I'm reading two things-- a poem by Max Herman and then a
quotation from Petrarch's Letters of Old Age. "Let me do my work each day. And if the darkened
hours of despair overcome me, may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation
of other times.
May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking over the silent hills of my
childhood or dreaming on the margin of the quiet river when a light glowed within me. And I
promised my early god to have courage amid the tempests of the changing years.
Spare me from the bitterness and sharp passion of unguarded moments. May I not forget that
poverty and riches are of the spirit. Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and
actions be such, as shall keep me friendly with myself. Lift up my eyes from the earth, and let me
not forget the uses of the stars.
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Transcription
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Forbid that I should judge others, lest I condemn myself. Let me not feel the glamour of the
world but walk calmly in my power, give me a few friends who will love me for what I am and
to keep ever burning before my vagrant steps, the kindly light of hope.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And though age and infirmity overtake me. And I come not within sight of the castle of my
dreams. Teach me still to be thankful for life and for times, old and moments that are good and
sweet. And may the evening twilight find me gentle, still."
And then this from Petrarch. "When a word must be spoken to further a good cause. And those
whom it behooves to speak remain silent. Anybody ought to raise his voice and break a silence,
which may be fraught with evil. Many a time, a few simple words have helped to further the
welfare of a nation no matter who uttered them.
The voice itself displaying its Latin power, suffice to move the hearts of men. It is a very
searching question, the bearing that a man's religion has on life, on his life, on the way by which
he conducts his private and personal enterprise.
And there are many people who feel that religion should have nothing to do in essence with the
world with all of the things that are part of the traffic of life. And such persons who take that
position are of the mind that all religious people belong to use a phrase from the apostle Paul
belonged to the colony of heaven that they are, in essence, pilgrims through the world.
They are not involved in all the things that go to make up the common life and the common
experience. Such people, then, attempt to walk through life untouched and affected, because they
do not feel that there is any relevance between whatever may be their profession of faith and the
hard, difficult turbulent dimensions of life.
And there are others who feel that all that religion has to say can be confined to the warp and
woof of daily living that there is no dimension of life or religion that transcends the bread and
butter aspects of life, so that when they think of religion, they think in turns of doing things, of
shifting things, of transforming the world of men and affairs.
And then there are others who take the position that both of these things are true that religion has
to do with the dimension of man's life that transcends time and space and circumstance. But it
informs the quality of his living, as he is a person functioning in time and in circumstance. And
therefore, the critical question is, what do I do? How do I register the imprint, the impact of my
own private religious testimony on the stuff of life?
Now, sometimes there are people with tender consciences in this regard, who, as they look out
upon all of the injustices of life, all of the things that break the heart and make the mind move in
a tilted place, all of the inarticulate and dumb agony of the masses of men who have no voice to
speak for them that all of these things are terrible.
And they express themselves in outcry and a certain kind of personal indignation. And the phrase
is, this is outrageous. It is terrible. Somebody-- somebody ought to do something about it. And
this becomes so exhausting-- this kind of outcry-- this sort of righteous indignation that is
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
expressed that all of the energy of one's life is exhausted in our crying so that there is nothing
left.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There are no resources left upon which one may draw in order to do something about it. So
Petrarch in his letter addresses himself to an aspect of this problem. If it be true that you living in
a situation of which you are very mindful.
You are aware of all of its dimensions that go against your own deep sense, either of decency,
honor, justice, righteousness-- whatever the phrase may be-- that expresses the quality of your
own inner character. You're living in the midst of a situation such as this. And those persons,
who are in power, those persons, who are in the strategic position, so to speak or so to function
that what they do will make a radical change all the way down the line."
"If those people," says, Petrarch, "are silent, if for reasons that are political in character or
theological in character, or ecclesiastical in character, whatever may be the reasons, there is this
long and sustained and aching silence. And," says, Petrarch, "it behooves any man to speak in
order that the truth may be heard, and in order that there may be available somewhere in the
common life, a voice that makes articulate a deep and searching concern.
And it is important to remember that because an individual seems to be limited, because the
individual seems to have no power. The individual seems to think that his voice is a weak voice.
His voice will not be heard. No one will listen to me. I do not count. I do not rate.
This sort of self-pity that becomes an escape from responsibility is something that goes against
what seems to me to be the most insistent demand that life and religion in one sense are one
thing. And therefore, if those who are in a position of power to speak do not speak, then raise
your voice.
And your voice may be the only voice that is heard. But if you raise your voice, then you can
very easily do two things-- one, you can give your witness. You can give the testimony of your
own deep convictions. You can share the dimensions of your own religious faith so that you can
be honest with yourself.
You can hold in tact your own self-respect, because you have spoken. You have done what you
could. That's one thing. And the second thing is that very often, there are many, many people
who can't make up their minds, who are on the fence, who have no sense of bearing.
But when your voice speaks, and you are not a prestigious person when your voice speaks, this
then provides for them a point around which they may rally, because all life is one. And there is
nothing that takes place in any man's life that does not affect the life of all men. While there is a
lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a man in jail, I
am not free."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
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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.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[BUZZING]
6
�
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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/394-778.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Qualitative Life; Religion and Life (ET-22; GC 11-20-71), 1971 Nov 20
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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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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394-778
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Quality of Life (1960-10-07); Religion and Life (1964-04-03)
Source
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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>
Date
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1960-10-07
1964-04-03
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman reflects upon the way in which American culture makes sense of love. He notes that typically, the "flow of love is chocked beneath the deep recesses of the heart." This is the product of quantitative love rather than qualitative love. He reminds the listener, that qualitative love is more significant than any price tag or number of accoutrements one acquires. Qualitative love speaks to the depths of the human experience.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman reflects upon writing from Max Herman and Petrarch to ask the question: To what depth does one's religion have a bearing on one's life? He continues by probing the political and ecclesiological elements of the religious inner life intersecting with the secular outer life, and the ways in which religion impacts one's praxis and location in the world.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
bears
Cabot
Christmas
decision
ecclesiology
God
Harvard
heart
interconnectivity
Letters of Old Age
limitations
love
Max Herman
meditations of the heart
National Conference of Social Work
need
Paul
Petrarch
poem
quality
quality of life
quantity
religion
responsibility
testimony
Tycho Brahe
voice of the genuine
witness
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37e2dfc62c3f611f0d990b389eeb6231
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-620_B.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
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 in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointeth my head with
oil. My cup runneth over. Runneth over.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house
of the Lord. Forever. Forever.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
As a background for the continuation of the theme on which we are working, Jesus and the
disinherited, I'm reading two things from Clive Benson, the British poet. One is called "The
Brothers," referring, of course, to the brothers of Jesus, and the other is called "The Phoenician
Woman." It is the brothers who are speaking here.
Going from Nazareth? Where? To the Jordan Valley, leaving your home and your trade, your
own kinsfolk? For what? For John, an unwashed preacher, a ranting hermit who sacrificed family
and wealth and a seat in the priesthood and for locusts and prophecies? Why?
You're mad, insane, selling your life for a whim, for a religious frenzy. Mad, yes, mad. Will you
share his faith and his filth, outcast like him, rejected by brother and friend, a life of rebellion,
hunger, a shameful death? If the thought of that leaves you unmoved, then remember us, your
brothers and your sisters, and the mother who gave you birth.
Look at her there, standing in tears, forsaken, bewildered, left by her firstborn, you, the head of
the household. Think of her neighbors' looks, the humiliation, her fears and her griefs.
What? What do you say? Whoever obeys the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, my
sister, my mother. By the God of Israel, would you preach at us, your ministry start at home?
Better recall, if you can, your father in Nazareth, your pledge to him, your promise of filial care.
You shall honor your father and mother. Remember that when you mouth your texts at us.
Remember that and carry forever the shame of your father's children.
Now "The Phoenician Woman."
She has followed us all day, master, hook nosed, insistent, yapping at our heels in commercial
Greek. Her husband's a boat builder. Those boats of [INAUDIBLE] wood. Her daughter, it
seems, possessed of a devil that you, master, a Jew, are supposed to exorcise.
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Transcription
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Talk to her, master. Send her away. Tell her you came to the children of Israel, not to Phoenician
dogs. He turned on me sternly, but his voice smiled. You hear what they say, he demanded,
talking to the lady. Is it right, do you think, taking the children's food and tossing it to the dogs?
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Master, I replied, feeling the bond between us, a humor we share alone, even dogs are allowed
scraps from the table when the children reject them. His face smiled now. You have
understanding and faith, mother. It will happen as you desire. It was true.
Coming to the hill above Tyre, weary beyond all weariness, I fell on my knees, letting my eyes
search where feet could not follow, looking down on the cluster of evening ships, the causeway
with its moving chain of carriers, and a heap of murex shells outside the dye works. I saw her
coming from the bazaars to meet me, my daughter, her white conspicuous among blues and
purple.
She did not need to speak. She walked up the hill as a girl walks whose arms are her own.
I want to take us for one more leg on our journey and to see if I cannot make a plateau out of this
for you to hold until we start again of-- it is rather difficult to get out what has been gnawing in
me, so that I want to try, if I may, to summarize what is my concern in two or three
comprehensive sentences, and then work back to see if we can't get at it.
The basic proposition is that the contribution-- let's see-- the contribution which Jesus made to
the working concept of brotherhood, which was his inheritance, was this. He substituted the
exclusiveness which is inherent in any definition of brotherhood, you see, inclusiveness.
Now, think for a minute. By definition, you see, brotherhood is exclusive. What he did was to
substitute the exclusive [INAUDIBLE] and redefine it in terms of inclusiveness. And this he
could do in the light of the meaning of his religion. I shall come back to it as we begin to work it
out.
Now, Paul in his treatment of this experience, did the same thing, on a more limited scale. He
included in his definition the Gentile world. So there again, he pulled out exclusiveness and
introduced inclusiveness. The difference, however, he made his inclusiveness contingent upon
the relationship of the individual to Christ.
So whereas in the thought of Jesus, the inclusiveness was due to the way the individual is related
to God, in Paul, the inclusiveness was due to the way the individual must be related to Christ.
Now, the church picks up this and makes its definition of brother in Christ what, do you know?
Inclusive immediately of all the believers, potentially inclusive of all who will believe. And out
of this concern, there is the necessity to go out to ready people for their acceptance of Him in
order that they may be included.
So the church finds itself ambivalent, then, you see, confirming in its commitment this
inclusiveness, defining the nature of the believer in terms that are exclusive, putting the burden
for inclusiveness ultimately upon the shoulders of the person who must do something in order to
be included. And it is for this reason that within the church itself, individuals, groups are
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permitted to be regarded as included but not quite. And this is the basis of all the segregation of
the Christian church.
Now let's go back and work it so that if you don't get anything else, I've said what's the heart of
what's in my mind. Now let's see if we can't work at it.
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God, in the thought of Jesus, God is the creator of life, and that human life, we begin with that
point, and that all men are brothers by virtue of the fact of their creation, and the derivative from
the fact of the creation is that there is in all of them a part of the living God who is their creator,
which is the basis of the Jesus doctrine of brotherhood.
It is not contingent upon any kind of classification, any kind of belonging, any kind of status, any
kind of construct of relatedness. It is inherent in the nature of the existence of the individual. He
is created by God. And in him there is that which is of God the creator, and therefore I get to you
through God the creator.
He causes His sun to shine on the good man and the bad man, the wicked and the unwicked, the
believer and the unbeliever. And have I a right to exercise a principle of discrimination in my
dealings with human beings, a principle that God Himself does not exercise in the way in which
He shares His life?
This is the radical thing in the definition, in the re-defining of brother in the [? real ?] [? spirits ?]
of Jesus. For you see, the word brother means by inference something that is unique, particular,
exclusive, because it stands over against those who are not brothers.
Now, if it is true that God is the creator of all and there is, therefore, in each one of us His spirit,
and thus, we are under some inner necessity to relate to in order that we may be aware of the
dimensions of our own brotherhood, if this is true, then no category is as understanding that
separates. Now, this is radical. It was radical for Jesus. Think of what it meant, what it meant for
him to take a position like this.
What about the Samaritan? What about the Gentile? What about the Roman? What about the
uncircumcised? What about those who are not a part of the covenant?
Now, this means it seems that in Him there is a redefinition of the significance of the individual,
that God relates not merely to the group, not merely to the family, not merely to the nation, but
God relates to the individual. Because the groups will change, will shift. Kingdoms will wax and
wane. Civilizations will rise and fall. States will be active today and inactive tomorrow.
But always, there is the individual who relates to life out of the depths of his intimacy and his
privacy. And it is for this individual the constant equation in all of these social forms and
patterns and constructs. The individual, therefore, is the one for whom God cares.
Now, Paul had essentially the same psychological problem that Jesus had, only more crucially
difficulty, if I may tie up two words like that. For Paul was a Jew as Jesus was, but Paul was free.
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And this is of such overwhelming importance to understand the nature of his victory over
himself and his heritage. He was a free Jew.
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He boasts of the fact in his trial that he was a Hebrew son of a Hebrew father, as touching the
law of Pharisee. He was of a core. He found his emotional security and stability in the very core
of his belonging in the context of Israel. And in addition to this you see, feeling as he did about
being a Jew, at the same time, he was privileged to experience in the way he was treated by the
Romans as if he were not a Jew.
Think of what this did to his whole psychology. By blood, training, background, he belonged to
this group in the Roman Empire that was under the hammer with no political freedom, with a
sense of having their lives pinched in by the pressure of the Pagan world, at the top of which sat
the Roman Empire with its marching legions. It was all right. But Paul was not affected by this.
Because for some reason we do not quite know, by some historical incident-- it may be his father
did something to save a Roman general, or maybe he did something else. I don't know just what
happened. But he was given perpetual citizenship.
Now, think of what that means. Living in the midst of the Jewish community, a part and parcel
of all of their life and hopes and dreams, but when it came to any kind of discrimination, he was
an exception. Think of what this did to him.
Suppose I went down to Mississippi just as I am and because of some extenuating circumstance
that all the laws of Mississippi that have to do with segregation would not apply to me. I would
have open sesame to the city of Vicksburg.
[LAUGHTER]
Now, do you see what it would mean? Now, this would tempt me to do what? It would tempt me
to say to my friend in Vicksburg who is having a lot of trouble and under great pressure, now,
really, they really aren't so bad, if you could see the other side of the street the way I do. Now, to
soften this, [? don't ?] [? take it ?] [? easy. ?] [INAUDIBLE].
If a Roman soldier were whipping Paul, he could say to that soldier, take your hands off me. I am
a Roman citizen. I appeal to Caesar. But if a Roman soldier tripped Jesus into a Palestinian ditch,
he could not appeal to Caesar. He was just a Jew in the ditch.
So this subtle thing is a psychology of force has had a profound influence in the development of
the notion of brotherhood in the Christian religion. Now, please do not misunderstand me. But
this that I am about to say now is not all that there is in Paul. But what I am trying to help you
understand is what happens in the kind of definition that he gave to brotherhood growing out of
his experience.
This was all brought home to me in a very striking way. I've written this account. So some of you
perhaps have read it. But when I was a boy, one of the chores of which I started out in life after I
became literate was to write the letters for my grandmother.
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My grandmother was the anchor person in our family. And everybody wrote to her knowing that,
in due time, all the members of the family would hear. And very [INAUDIBLE] the family
began complaining that they couldn't read my writing. And my grandmother then shifted my
chore. I became the reader, and my sister became the writer, because she wrote with a nice girl's
hand.
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One of my chores was to read the Bible to my grandmother. But she would not ever let me read
any of the letters of the Apostle Paul. And I was concerned about it. But my grandmother was the
sort of person that you didn't raise any questions about anything. You just abided.
But when I went to college, at the end of my junior year, I came home and was a little more,
well, you know. So I was reading the Bible to her one afternoon on the front porch. And I said to
my grandmother, why is it as we grew up you would not ever let me read any of the letters of
Paul to you? And she said, oh, that's very simple.
When I was a girl and a young woman on the plantation in North Florida where I was owned and
lived until the Civil War was fought, twice a year, the minister of the master had special services
for the slaves. And he always preached from the same text, words of the Apostle Paul-- slaves be
obedient to your masters, for this is right in the Lord. And I promised myself that if I ever
learned to read or if I ever became a free person, I would never read that part of the Bible.
Now, this is present in the thought of Paul, logically and consistently present, growing out of the
psychology of his experience. But there's something else there. He found that through Christ, he
could redefine the meaning of brotherhood in the same way that Jesus found, through God, he
could redefine the meaning of brotherhood. So that Paul says in Christ, then, there is neither [?
bond ?] [? nor ?] [? priest ?] or [? West ?] Greek or barbarian.
Now, the church, then, following in the wake of this, this historic religious experience, defines
brotherhood in terms of those who are brothers in Christ, in Christ, using as the key, you see, the
very same basic insight that Paul used. But that's different. Through him, there are certain
formalities that are necessary in order for you to qualify to be a brother in Christ, you see? So
that if you define the meaning of Christ in one way, then this alters the conditions that must be
met by those who are excluded before they can be included as brothers.
Do you remember when we began the series? I told you about the experience of my father. Now
the minister of that church defined the meaning of Christ in a way that excluded my father from
being a brother. Now, so the burden of proof, then, for becoming a brother rests on the individual
and how he relates to a doctrine and the dogma and the creed again and again. So we find this
[INAUDIBLE] today that we define brotherhood in terms of Christ-- the church does. And this is
in the nature of the case initially exclusive.
Deep within the incentive of the religious experience is an obligation to those who are excluded.
So moving out of the experience of brotherhood, we go forth then to transform the world and
make the world available to the experience of brotherhood in Christ. So that everybody, then,
according to this essential position, everybody potentially is a brother. Only those who believe
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are actually brothers. So the process, therein, that those who believe are under obligation to bring
those who are potentially brothers until they too are in the fold.
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Now, the difficulty is, [? the ?] [? difficulty ?] [? is ?] [? in, ?] that the definition of brotherhood
spreads out so as to reflect what is the pattern by which the particular society or individuals may
be governed. So when I say, if I permit any extenuating clause-- and this is the heart of my own
concern and the depths of my own dilemma-- any extenuating clause like [? brothers ?] [?
potentials, ?] opens the door for every other kind of exclusion.
If I can-- when I look at you and I say, you have not been visited by the grace of God in Christ.
And therefore, you are not a part of the body of Christ. And if you are not a part of the body of
Christ, then you are only potentially a part of the brotherhood of man. And we don't logically put
it down in such hard, cold terms, but this is the way it operates.
Then I say, [? you see, ?] [INAUDIBLE] as long as I can say this, then the door is open for me to
put in my little exceptional clause. You don't cut your hair properly. Or your hair's red, and it
should be green. Or you have bad manners. The door is open now for all kinds of extenuating
circumstances which place the burden of proof for becoming a brother in Christ not in the nature
of man's existence as man. No, but in the nature of some kind of classification.
And that's why the definition which Jesus Christ gives for brotherhood will destroy our culture
and destroy our civilization. Because our civilization within the church and out the church,
within all the groups that's built upon another principle, men are brothers because of something
that is organic-- the country they belong to, this or that, or they are not brothers by virtue of the
fact that each one shares at the deepest levels of his being in the creation which isn't [? God's. ?]
This is the only basis upon which any kind of brotherhood can stand, for it is here that at last a
man begins to get an inkling into what is the nature of his infinite worth. And whether he is lame,
sick, [? hurt, ?] ugly, beautiful, wise or stupid, sane or insane, saint or sinner, American or
German or Russian, Methodist or Baptist or Hindu or Presbyterian, all of these are organic
classifications that have no standing in the definition of brotherhood according to Him as it is
derived from how He feels.
Got the will of God broods over the minds of men, like the spirit of the hive broods over the
apiary of bees. And it is to this new dimension that we are called. The feebleness of effort and
the great turmoil out of which here and there a light may come and Thy voice may be heard, we
thank Thee, oh, Father. We thank Thee. Dismiss us now with Thy spirit and forsake us not in the
lonely way that we take, oh, God, God of our spirit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
6
�
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Jesus and the Disinherited (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA)
Description
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"[Jesus and the Disinherited] is the centerpiece of the Black prophet-mystic's lifelong attemot to bring the harrowing beauty of the African-American experience into deep engagement with what he called 'the religion of Jesus.' Ultimately his goal was to offer this humanizing combination as the basis for an emancipatory way of being, moving toward a fundamentally unchained life that is available to all the women and men everywhere who hunger and thirst for righteousness, especially those 'who stand with their backs against the wall.'" - Vincent Harding, foreword to 1996 edition of <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em> (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).<br /><br />First published in 1949, <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em> was also a common topic in Thurman's lectures and sermons. In 1959, he delivered this 12-part sermon series as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University.<br /><br />[In Progress]
Date
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1959
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Descriptions by Ken Owens
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-620_B.html" ></iframe>
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Edited - GL 7/6
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
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1950s
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Jesus and the Disinherited, parts 3 and 4, 1959 Jan 25, Feb 1, Side B
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394-620_B
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Thurman, Howard
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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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Jesus and the Disinherited, Part 4, February 1, 1959
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
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1959-02-01
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<p>Part 4 of <em>Jesus and the Disinherited</em>. Reads 2 pieces by Clive Benson: "The Brothers" and "The Phoenician Woman." This talk is on "brotherhood" or inclusiveness. He argues that Jesus considered someone included by their relationship with God, whereas to Paul it was one's relationship to Christ. The church has followed the Paul model. He points out that Paul had a different viewpoint than Jesus. Both were Jews, but Paul had Roman citizenship and could claim that for protection whereas Jesus could be treated as trash. He claims it made Paul look at the Romans as "not so bad," and he likens it to him being given complete freedom in Mississippi to live like a white person even though he was black. He talks of his grandmother, who was a slave, refusing to read Paul because twice yearly the master would have the preacher come and lead services always using Paul's text of "slaves obey your masters." He argues that Paul's definition of brotherhood, or who's included and who's excluded, is different than Jesus'. And once we have any reason to exclude anyone, then we can then make up any reason we want for excluding someone. Hence, church and civilization divide people up, but true brotherhood is based on our universal connection to God.</p>
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Description by Ken Owens
brotherhood
Clive Benson
exclusiveness
Grandmother
inclusiveness
Mississippi
nationalities
Paul
slave
The Brothers
The Phoenician Woman
Vicksburg
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394-164_A.mp3
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It is our great and blessed fortune that our lives are never left to themselves alone. We are visited
in ways that we can't understand and in ways that are beyond our understanding by highlights,
great moments of inspiration, quiet reassurances of grace, simple manifestations of gratuitous
expressions of the goodness of life. These quiet things enrich our common life and give to the
ordinary experiences of our daily grind a significance and strength that steadies and inspires.
We are also surrounded by the witness of those others whose names may be familiar to us, whose
strivings have made possible so much upon which we draw from the common reservoir of our
heritage, those who have carried the light against the darkness, those who have persevered when
to persevere seemed idiotic and suicidal, those who have forgotten themselves, and the full and
creative response to something that called them beyond the furthest reaches of their dreams and
their hopes. We are surrounded also by the witness of the life of the spirit in peculiar ways that
speak directly to our hearts and to our needs, those men and women who walk the pages of the
holy book, those men and women with whom, in our moments of depression and of despair and
in our moments of joy and delight, we identify as we sit now together, feeling each other's
presence very near.
We are grateful to thee, our Father, for all of the springs of joy and renewal and recreation that
are our common heritage and our common lot. And we offer in thanksgiving to thee the fruits of
our little lives that they may, in turn, be to those others whose names we do not know somewhat
of strength and inspiration that, apart from us, they may not find fulfillment, and apart from
them, we may not know ourselves. We thank thee, our Father, for so holy a privilege. And we
offer our thanksgiving and our dedication as our response, not only to thee but to the life which
is ours.
We are continuing our thinking together about the moment of crisis, and we are considering the
significance of this kind of experience in the life of Paul, the Apostle of Christ. Set your hearts
on the higher talents, says Paul. And yet I will go on to show you a still higher path. Thus, I may
speak with the tongues of men and of angels.
But if I have no love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. I am a prophecy, fathom all
mysteries and secret law. I may have such absolute faith that I can move hills from their place.
But if I have no love, I account for nothing.
I may distribute all I possess in charity. I may give up my body to be burned. But if I have no
love, I make nothing of it. Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy. Love makes
no parade, gives itself no airs, is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful.
Love is never glad when others go wrong. Love is gladdened by goodness, always slow to
expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient. Love never disappears.
As far prophesying, it will be superseded. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it
will be superseded. For we only know bit by bit and we only prophecy bit by bit. But when the
perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.
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When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I argued like a child. Now that I
am a man, I am done with childish ways. At present, we only see the baffling reflections in a
mirror. But then it will be face to face.
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At present, I am learning bit by bit. But then I shall understand as all along I have myself been
understood. Thus faith and hope and love last on, these three. But the greatest of all is love.
Make love your aim, and then set your heart on the spiritual gifts.
And then this. I would know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his
sufferings, with my nature, transform to die as he died to see if I, too, can attain the resurrection
from the dead, not that I've already attained this or am already perfect. But I press forward to
appropriate it because I have been appropriated myself by Christ Jesus.
The moment of crisis is the experience through which an individual passes when he is caught in
the grip of two forces moving in opposite directions, one force seeking always to maintain the
balance, that is the familiar experience, to maintain the status quo, to conserve, to hold the line,
to dig in, and the other to go forward, to take a step that has not been taken before, to move into
an unexplored area, to change. To think of this basic idea in the life of Paul, the Apostle of
Christ, is for me, personally, very illuminating, but because of my own background, a very
difficult one.
In order that you may not guess what I mean and, thereby, lose time, let me say very simply,
when I was a boy, most of my life, my early life, I was raised by my grandmother, my
grandmother who was a young woman at the time of the Civil War. And, therefore, all of her
early adolescence, late adolescence, was spent in slavery.
One of my chores as a boy was to write letters to all of the outlying members of our family, for
my grandmother was the anchorperson. If you didn't know where anyone was, you simply wrote
to her. She always knew where everybody in the family was.
There came complaints from various members of the family because they found it difficult to
read my writing. My grandmother, therefore, changed the chores. My sister, who wrote a very
nice and refined and ladylike hand, became the letter writer, and I became the reader.
One of the things that I had to do in addition to reading the letters was, of course, to read the
Bible to my grandmother. She did not ever permit me, except under rare circumstances, to read
from any of the Pauline epistles. Occasionally, she would let me read the chapter which I read to
you this morning, the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. I did not raise any question as to why as I
grew up because my grandmother was a person with reference to whom you did not raise
unnecessary questions.
But when I went to college and came back home for a holiday, I was sitting on the front porch
one afternoon, reading the Bible to her, and I asked the fatal question, the one that had been on
my mind all through my childhood. Why is it, I said, that you do not ever let me read from any of
the Pauline epistles? And she told me a very simple thing, that during the days of slavery on the
plantation where she lived in North Florida, twice a year, the minister of the master would have
religious services for the slaves. And at these services, each time, for as long as she could
remember, he always preached to the slaves from the same text from Paul, slaves, be obedient to
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your masters, for this is right in the Lord. And she purposed in our heart as a young woman that
if freedom ever came or if she ever learned to read, she would not read that part of the Bible.
This set a certain block in my mind. Now, there is another. And I do not wish to make anyone
sensitive by what I'm saying about all of this. If so, it is too bad.
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The other block, the thing that stands out in the end the religious experience of Paul was the
overwhelming significance of the meaning of the cross, as we shall point out later, as the creative
act of self-giving and redemption on the part of God. And literally, this became for me a
stumbling block, because my memories of the cross were not related to Sunday school. They
were these big wooden burning things in front of the school house down at the end of our street.
At any time of tension when the Klan moved, the symbol of the Klan was the burning cross.
So with these two handicaps moving at the center of my own adolescence, I had to work my way
through many, many crucial experiences of turmoil and trauma to arrive at a place that I could
contemplate the meaning and the significance of this figure without having it sotted and unclean
and full of those things that make for brutality and war.
Now, with that as a background, let us look at this tremendous figure. The first things that
impressed me, all of this is preliminary to the moment of crisis, which I will make clear. Jesus
was the founder of Christianity. But Paul was the first great creative interpreter of Christianity.
It seems to me, as I read the record, that at no point in the moving and significant and, in many
ways, unique religious experience of Jesus did he ever formally break with the religion of his
fathers. It seems to me that he lived, experienced, taught, suffered, regarding himself always as
the creative fulfillment of the meaning of the heart of the law and the genius of the covenant.
Paul has a very different story. There came a moment in the experience of this man when the
decision which he made resulted in a clear and definitive break with the religion of his fathers.
There's one other thing that's important here. Jesus was a member of the Jewish community. And
as a member of the Jewish community at that particular moment in human history, he was a man
without the ordinary freedoms that would go with citizenship. He was circumscribed by the
limitations of the community of which he was a part. He was not a citizen of the Roman Empire.
Paul, on the other hand, was a citizen of the Roman Empire. And this is very instructive as a part
of what seems to me to be the nature of the crisis in his religious experience. He inherited from
his father, as is indicated by implication, a citizenship. This meant, you see, that he lived and
moved and worked and functioned as a member of the Jewish community with the privileges of a
citizen of the Roman Empire.
Now, this is very crucial in my thinking. For it meant, you see, that even though by blood,
background, culture, religious heritage, and social heritage to a large extent, he belonged to the
Jewish community. But by this political or economic incident or accident of circumstance, he
had the freedom that belonged to a person who is not a Jew in the Roman Empire but was a
Roman citizen.
And this must have had profound influence. How much, I do not know. I'm not wise enough to
know. This must have had profound influence on the way he tended to look out upon the world.
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With whom would he identify, for instance? A simple question like that. With whom would you
have identified? Suppose you were in a community in which all of the persons by whom you
attired in terms of blood and so forth and so on and heritage were people who were not a part of
the ordinary pre-suppositions of citizenship. But you were an exception. Would you identify with
those who guaranteed your own emotional security by giving you a protection against the
mindless brutality of the thoughtless members of the environment? Or would you identify with
those who had no protection from such brutality as such?
So if a Roman soldier pushed Jesus into a Palestinian ditch, it was just another Jew in the ditch.
But if a Roman soldier pushed Paul into a Palestinian ditch, Paul could appeal to Caesar. And it
is to the credit of the overwhelming power of Jesus Christ on his life that, according to our
records, he appealed to Caesar only one time. But always here was something available. It's like
having something in your hip pocket that you don't announce, but you know under certain very
excruciating circumstances you might appeal to it and perform the miracle of freedom.
Now, this was the part of the whole burden of the man. Now, he witnessed the death of Stephen,
the death of Stephen. As Stephen was dying, according to the Book of Acts, being stoned to
death, the clothes of the men who were doing this were laid at the feet of this man, Paul. And he
watched Stephen die, being done to death by stones.
And as Stephen is dying, he says, behold, I see Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of the Father.
Is this man right? Is it true that the cross did not end the life of this man? Can a man, when he's
dying for his faith, declare in that moment-- when there is nothing to be gained except inner
damnation if he lies, can a man, under that circumstance, say what is not true?
This was working away in the mind of Paul as he went on with his persecution, with his
opposition. For, you see, if Stephen is right, then the whole structure and foundation upon which
I'm standing, Paul may have said, must be re-evaluated, rethought, reinterpreted. And he must
have had very searching questions to ask various Christians as he came in close contact with
them, taking them to the places where they were incarcerated.
How did it happen that you believe this? What is the key? Why? Why? Why? He watched then
endure not with some sort of stoicism, but he watched them endure with a delight, a kind of holy
glow in their countenance and without all of the normal and natural psychological recriminations
and hostilities that would be engendered towards those at whose hands you are suffering radical
violence.
These people were different. Why? Can they be right? These were the things, I think, going on in
his mind as he journeyed on the Damascus road. And there came a moment on the Damascus
road when the thing happened.
Hundreds of volumes have been written about what happened. But according to the simplest
record, he had an encounter in which the crisis, which, in my judgment, had been building, now
came to a point of tension that could not maintain itself without yielding one way or the other.
He heard a voice say, Saul, Saul, why prosecutest thou me? Who art though, Lord? Here in
simple language, as nearly as I can feel this, Paul discovered in his moment of crisis, bearing in
mind how he defined crisis, that Jesus was not dead.
4
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, let me go back as quickly as I may. A part of the religious heritage which he brought with
him to this moment of crisis was this, that God is the creator of life and the King of the universe.
He is moral will, a person with moral will. Second, that God created the whole world, that God
reveals himself in time and space by a series of mighty acts. One act is the creation of the world.
Another act is the creating of a community of people who are so sensitized that they can
understand and respond and interpret his moral will so that they become, in that sense, a
covenanted and unique community of all the peoples of the world, that creation is purposeful,
that it is moving towards an event, which event is the coming of a messiah who, when he comes,
will bring an end to all of the things that are out of balance and will bring an end to the age.
And there will be a moment when the Kingdom of God and the life of God will be allenveloping. And those that are outside of that will not have even the dignity of a continuation of
existence. But the messiah that would precipitate all of this had not come. And what Paul
discovered in his religious experience was that the messiah had come, that he who was crucified
on the cross and who had come back from the grave, this was the messiah.
And now, the difference that it made in him was this, that unlike the religions by which his life
was surrounded that had myths of the God being born of a human mother and a divine father and
he lived and went back to where he came from, but always he was not quite a part of the warp
and woof and struggle of human beings. Paul introduces an idea out of his experience, that God
himself became articulate in the flesh, identifying himself with all of the dimensions of human
life and human necessity and human need and human striving and human aspiration, and on the
basis of that identification, tested by and act, a creative act of self-giving on a cross which
opened the door not for a select community, not for the rich or for the poor, not for the sick or
the well, but for all men to participate in the life of God at the level of his creative expression in
time and space, namely Jesus Christ.
Therefore, he says, as I live, for me to live is Christ. To die is gain. I would know him and the
fellowship of his suffering and the power of his resurrection, that happily I, too, might
experience the thing which he experienced, that I might so identify with him that the redemptive
act of God coming in to time and space in a particular manner and behaving in this fashion,
opening the way for all mankind to move down the long corridor to restoration of life and peace
with him, that I might experience this and all men might experience it.
Now, finally, what Paul does is to give out of the tensions of his religious experience a meaning
to the cross which has made it through all the years since a symbol not only of self sacrifice and
devotion and all manner of creative redemptive acts at many levels of human experience, but he
gave to it a significance that no word of Jesus has. He gives to the cross a significance in the
Christian movement that even the Sermon on the Mount does not.
Suppose the sermon on the mount had the emotional impact and push and vitality and creative
thrust that we find in the cross. The whole story of man's life in western culture would be a very
different story. And the part of our job now is to put at the disposal of the terrific impact and
creative power of the cross and all that goes with it the illuminated ethical significance and
insight of the Sermon on the Mount.
This is it. But they're divided. It would mean that, at the heart of Orthodoxy, there would be a
concern for man that would make of the believer a living moment of redemption wherever he
5
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
moved and worked and thought and functioned and lived. It would not be the separation. And it
is to this I think we are called to put at the core of all of the emotional insight and fervor and
stability, if you please, that comes from the long and sustained and redemptive significance of
the cross and the story and the religious experience of Christianity the words, love you, one
another.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
When you pray, do not use vain repetitions. But go to your closet and close the door, and there
lay bare your heart to God. The lilies of the fields, the birds of the air, oh, how your Father loves
them. Aren't you worth more than they?
All men, how little you trust God. This is the combination in my judgement without which the
human race cannot find redemption. And it is to this that we are called.
Walk beside us, oh God, our Father, lest we stray from the places, our God, where we met thee,
lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. This is our cry. This is our
boundless need. And we thank thee, our Father, that it is so. Dismiss us with thy spirit and grant
unto us thy peace.
6
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Moment of Crisis (1958, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA)
Description
An account of the resource
In this series, Thurman uses the lives of the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln as examples of moments of crisis. He concludes the series with a message on the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society.
[Note: Part 1 of the series is not available]
Date
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1958
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Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard and Rodell Jefferson III
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-164_A.html" ></iframe>
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
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1950s
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"The Moment of Crisis" (Part 2-Paul and Part 3-Jesus) (Marsh Chapel), 1958 Feb 9
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/.
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394-164_A
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Thurman, Howard
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The Moment of Crisis, Part 2: Paul, 1958 February 9
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1958-02-09
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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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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
Description
An account of the resource
In this second installment of The Moment of Crisis, Thurman considers the significance of the experience of crisis in the life of the Apostle Paul. In this lecture, the moment of crisis is defined as the experience through which an individual passes when he is caught in the grip of two forces moving in opposite directions, one force seeking always to maintain the balance, that is the familiar experience, to maintain the status quo, to conserve, to hold the line, to dig in, and the other to go forward, to take a step that has not been taken before, to move into an unexplored area, to change. This was evidenced in the life of Paul who functioned as a member of the Jewish community, yet still had the privileges of a Roman citizen. Similarly, it was on the road to Damascus where the duality of Paul’s identity would come into direct opposition, thus freeing him from his unbelief in Christ. Through his self-sacrifice and devotion, Paul gives additional significance to the cross in the Christian movement.
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Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard
balance
Christ
crisis
Paul