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d49c17fc6f670089e3babc564b0f817a
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-810.mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord,
my strength and my redeemer. For as much time as I have this morning, I want to read two
things which have to do with the celebration of Christmas day. The first is a clipping which
comes from McCall's magazine. It appeared as the Christmas editorial in that magazine last year
written by the editors.
Could you spare five minutes of Christmas? Now Christmas comes, solstice in the long year, a
chiming of fleet hours. The verdant wreath adorns the snowy door of winter. And the evergreen
bears unaccustomed fruit.
It is the day of days. For 24 blessed and embellished hours, the flood gates of affection and
generosity are opened and the thoughts of men turn kind. For 24 hours, some special [? denizen
?] descends on fellow hearts.
For eyes that will see, the sometimes gloomy landscape of the material world makes way for far
horizons of the spirit where all things are possible. For ears that will hear, there are voices that
speak with the tongue of angels. Of all the gifts of Christmas, the gift of the very day, 1,440
minutes, is at once the most precious and the most common. It is a gift bestowed on all, young
and old, high and low, just and unjust, wise and foolish, ill and well. And the use we make of it
may enrich us beyond the dreams of avarice or render us poorer, indeed.
Could you spare five minutes of Christmas to embrace its honest meaning? Could you spare five
minutes to give a soft answer, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would be done by?
Could you spare five minutes to protect the weak, defend the persecuted, comfort those who
mourn, and love your neighbor as yourself?
Could you spare five minutes to feed the hungry, invite the stranger, cherish the child? Could
you spare five minutes to tender mercy, give without hope of receiving, and forgive those who
know not what they do? Could you spare five minutes to cast out fear, choose between good and
evil, and let your light shine? Could you spare five minutes from 1,440 to take the glibness out of
peace on Earth, goodwill to men?
So now Christmas comes, and with it, again, the age-old opportunity to begin anew, to reach at
least slightly beyond , the confining boundaries of self to emerge from concerns determined by
greed and prejudice, to depart the cheerless abode of cynicism and disdain, to cease the aimless
drifting towards paths of Eve. Could you spare five minutes to care? Whatever disillusion and
confusion beset our life, it is ineradicably written that the future belongs to the pure at heart. Five
minutes, five minutes, five priceless quickly passing minutes could change the world. Heartily
we wish you these five minutes and a merry Christmas.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
And now this of my own-- Christmas is a season of intense and feverish activity. The activity
begins days, weeks, even months before. This activity is not merely limited to those in
merchandising and advertising, but it involves all who have services to sell or to give away.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
We are prepared to go all out in what we call the Christmas spirit, making the extra contribution
to our favorite charity, putting the extra dollar in the Christmas envelope if we go to a church,
giving some money for the Christmas dinner put on by the Salvation Army, getting our old toys
or old clothes so that they may be shared with the skinned and cast down. Christmas is a season
of intense and feverish activity.
The contagion of the season extends in other ways more personal and intimate. We are reminded
of unanswered letters, for instance, and unacknowledged courtesies that have accumulated
through the year. Christmas is the time to say thank you and to make the gracious gesture.
Whatever it may be the prevailing quality or character of our relationships, something special
must be done during the Christmas season to highlight a more favorable and generous side of our
lives. Such activity takes on the characteristics of an inventory of our personal relationships. And
this is good.
There is a strange irony in the fact that Christmas has become identified with mass production,
exploitation for profit, profit for profit, crowds, hurry, whipped-up emotions, and collective
hysteria. These are followed by exhaustion, physical and spiritual weariness, more drives on
goods, bargain counters, and bills, bills, bills. All of these things are far removed from the simple
setting that means for millions in our world the moment of truth for the world.
Now, what was the setting? Of course, according to the traditional story, there was the
announcement of the angels. There must be always remaining in every man's life some place for
the singing of angels, some place for that which is breathlessly beautiful, and by an inherent
prerogative, throwing all the rest of life into new and creative relatedness, something that gathers
up in itself all the freshness of experience, from drab and commonplace areas of living, and
places, and one bright light, a penetrating beauty and meaning, then passes.
The commonplace now is shot through with new glory. Old burdens become lighter. Deep and
ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads, that for the
rest of our lives, we are trying to grow tall enough to wear.
Despite all the coarseness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the
singing of angels. May this Christmas season, then, this Christmas day be for each of you, a time
when you may gather together in some moment of creative focus and meaning, something that is
precious to you. And hold it, and finger , it and lay it alongside your heart, that it's pulse beat
may be your pulse beat. And then some of the kindness, and the joy, and the magic that is to be
found in the pure in heart as they share this will come to you. And yours will be a good day, a
unique day, a wonderful day, whether you bow your knee before an altar or not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
2
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord
my strength and my redeemer.
3
�
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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/394-810.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
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Edited - GL 7/29
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
A Salutation to Christmas (WB-1B), 1961 Dec 22
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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Identifier
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394-810
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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A Salutation to Christmas (1961-12-22)
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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1961-12-22
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Howard Thurman reads two reflections on the Christmas season. The first is from "McCall's Magazine," and reflects upon the implications Christmas day has in relation to the Christian life. Though Christmas day is filled with generosity and affection, Thurman asks the question if those celebrating Christmas could take five minutes to protect the weak, feed the hungry, love thy neighbor, etc. The second excerpt is written by Thurman, himself. In it, Thurman works with the tension between gratitude and critique during the Christmas season. He asks the question of how one can both show gratitude while also resisting materialism and hyper-industrialism.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
angels
Christmas
contagion
creativity
crown
ethics
gifts
Golden Rule
holidays
Jesus ethic
materialism
potential
Relatedness
values
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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-785.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 39 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled "Active Membership in the Human
Race."
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]
I'm reading from my book, Meditations of the Heart. "The telephone rang at 7:15 in the morning.
And on the other end was a lady whose voice seemed full of years, soft but strong. What she had
to say was profoundly stirring. I'm sorry to disturb you so early in the morning, but I wanted to
call you before you left the hotel for the day. About 10 years ago-- I'm now 69-- I decided to
examine my life to see what, if anything, I could do to put into practice my own convictions
about brotherhood. Why I decided this, and not suddenly, I need not say, but I did.
The first thing I discovered was that I knew almost nothing about other races in my own city,
particularly about Negroes. I went to the library and was given a small list of books and
magazines. I began to work. The things I learned. When it seemed to me that I had my hands on
enough facts, and I discovered you don't need too many facts, because they get in your way, I
plotted a course of action. Then I was stumped. What could I do, a 69-year-old lady? I had no
particular abilities, very little energy, and an extremely modest income. But I did like to talk with
people as I met them on the buses and in the stores.
I decided that I would spread the facts that I had and my own concern among all the people
whose lives were touched by mine in direct conversation. It took me some time to develop a
simple approach that would not be an intrusion or a discourtesy. But my years helped me. For
several years I've been doing this on the bus, riding into town each week, in a department store
where I've made my purchases for two decades, and various other places.
Occasionally, I run into a person in the street who stops to introduce himself and to remind me of
a previous meeting. One such person said, 'I guess you've forgotten me. But about four years
ago, I sat by you on a bus.' And I don't know how the question came up, but we talked about the
Negroes. And you started me thinking along lines that had never occurred to me. You even gave
me the name of a book which I noted and purchased. Since then I have been instrumental in
changing the whole personnel practice of our business on this question. And thanks to you.
Continuing, she said, 'I know that this is not very much. And I guess many people are doing
much more. But I thought I would tell you this, so that in your moments of discouragement, you
may remember what one simple old lady was doing to help in little ways to write big wrongs.
Goodbye and God bless you.' She did not give me her name, nor her address. She merely shared
her testimony and gave her witness. The idea that because I am weak or I am of limited
resources, even intellectual, or even emotional, or financial, or because I am not strategically
placed so that my words can carry the big weight. Because none of these things that I have
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
described may not apply to me, I may decide that therefore there isn't anything that I can do to
express my confirmation of my membership in the human race and all men's membership in the
human race.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It may be that I am unable to do as this lady did. But always within every human being's reach,
there is something that he or she can do to take a position on the side of the things for which you
stand and a position against the things against which you stand. Now it may be that the only
thing that you can do is to write a letter that will sustain the flagging or the lagging confidence of
some public servant, who expresses from within the context of his responsibility, a good
conscience on behalf of good community and the world. Or it may be that just a telephone call to
say a word of hope to someone who has been victimized by circumstances, over which he has
been unable to exercise any control, and you want to let him know that your membership in the
human race is an active membership.
Or it may be that you will discover that none of these things you are able to do, but you do have
influence with little children. And you can help the tender, unfolding imagination of a little child
to grow unhampered, and to be free, to relate to all kinds of people without regard to their
religious background, or their cultural background, or their ethnic background. But one thing is
true. Whether or not you are able to do anything concrete that will give you a sense of
participation in a collective destiny that increasingly involves all the human race, one thing is
always open to you. The things that you condemn in society, the attitudes of bigotry, or
narrowness, or prejudice, or however you say it, the attitudes that are against community, and
therefore, against life.
And if they are against life, they must of necessity be against the God of life. These negative
attitudes, against which you react, you must see to it-- and this is the thing that you can do
always-- you must to see to it that you do not encourage in yourself what you condemn in
society, that the response which you give in that little world, in which your will is as the will of
God, there you can, and you must, make what you hunger for real. So that in that area of your
control, the things that you long for and hope to see come to pass in the great, wide sweep of
mankind.
You encourage them. You nurture them. You give all of the support to them within yourself.
And if you do this, I am convinced that this becomes one more positive and creative element in
the environment that tends to strengthen the weak hand, that tends to give a push to the lagging
foot, that tends to give courage to someone who is in a position to make the crucial decision that
will make the radical difference in the well-beings of many people. It gives heart and hand to
such a person. Now if you do this, then you have the tremendous consolation that where you are,
you carried out your kind of and way of responsibility in the way that you would like to carry it
out if your power were absolute and your position transcendent."
[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.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
The preceding program was video-tape recorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[AUDIO OUT]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 39 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled "The Big Dream, The Little Act."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh
Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
And tomorrow is Declaration Day, and I'm reading as a background for our thought, this
meditation. "Two men faced each other in a prison cell. They belonged to different countries,
their roots watered by streams from different cultures. One was under sentence of death, which
sentence was scheduled to be executed within a few short hours. The other was a visitor and a
friend. This, even though months before they had been enemies in the great war. They bade each
other farewell for the last time.
The visitor was deeply troubled, but he could not find his way through the emotional haze in
which he was caught to give voice to what cried out for utterance. This is what he wanted to say
but could not find the words to say, 'We may not be able to stop and undo the hard, old wrongs
of the great world outside. But through you and me, no evil shall come either in the unknown
where you are going, or in this imperfect and haunted dimension of awareness through which I
move. Thus, between us, we shall cancel out all private and personal evil; thus, arrest private and
personal consequences to blind action and reaction; thus, prevent specifically the general
incomprehension, and misunderstanding, hatred, and revenge of our time from spreading
further." The end of the quotation.
The forces at work in the world, which seem to undermine the future and the fate of mankind,
seem so vast, impersonal, and unresponsive to the will and desire of any individual that it is easy
to abandon all hope for a sane and peaceful order of life for mankind. Nevertheless, it is urgent to
hold steadily in mind that the utter responsibility of the solitary individual to do with all his heart
and mind everything to arrest the development of the consequences of private and personal evil
resulting from the interaction of the impersonal forces that surround us, to cancel out between
you and another human being all personal and private evil, to put your life squarely on the side
of the good thing, because it is good, and for no other reason. This is to anticipate the Kingdom
of God at the level of your functioning.
At long last, a man must be deeply convinced that the contradictions of life which he encounters
are not final, that the radical tension between good and evil as he sees it and feels it does not
have the last word about the meaning of life and the nature of existence, that there is a spirit in
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
man and in the world working always against the thing that destroys and cuts down. Thus, he
will live wisely and courageously his little life. And those who see the sunlight in his face will
drop their tools and follow him. There is no ultimate negation for the man for whom it is
categorical that the ultimate destiny of man on this planet is a good destiny.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Many years ago, as a matter of fact, at the end of the First World War, Hermann Hagedorn wrote
a poem, a line of which I want to throw in relief as the word for our consideration in the
background. And this is the line, "We died. But you who live must do a harder thing than dying
is. For you must think, think, think. And ghosts shall drive you on." It is a commonplace remark
to say on an occasion like this that the forces that are pitted against each other in the great
outside world are so vast and so overwhelming, the policies that determine the manipulation of
states, and nations, and armies, and peoples are so impersonal and far-reaching that the private
individual, the so-called little man, the individual like me and you, seems somehow to be
powerless to effect any of these great forces that are determining and shaping the destiny of man.
But this is not all the truth. I would remind you this morning of another dimension of man's
experience in this regard. And it is this, that there is a world, a private world of the individual, in
which the individual's will, in a sense, is as searching and imperious, and in a sense, as absolute
as is the will of God. It may be true that from where you sit or from where I sit, we may not be
able to disarm a single man and a single nation anywhere in the world. It may be that nothing
that we can do immediately can relax the intent of nations to guarantee and perpetuate
themselves, even at the expense of other nations which in turn will brood wars of various kinds.
But there is one thing that is true for you and me. We can see to it that we will not encourage in
ourselves, in the private world in which we live and function, in the details of our common life
by which we relate to the members of our family, to the people on our job, the people in our
immediate community, that at this level, we shall not encourage the things that we condemn in
the great outer world. We cannot then expect to be against war, and against armed violences,
against all of the means and methods and procedures of destruction that is a part of the etiquette
of the modern nation.
We cannot be against that, and at the same time, in our private lives encourage all kinds of little
violence, take advantage of the weakness of individuals who come under our little power, exploit
the emotions of those persons who are related to us in ways that are primary and direct. We must
see to it then that the things that we encourage in ourselves are not at the same time the things
that we condemn in the great outer world. So that the things about which we dream for mankind,
we will work at in our homes, on our streets, in our communities, in our state, in our country.
Now there's a second observation here. And that is that we are under primary and personal
obligation to make what we hunger for real. Sometimes we are so surrounded by ideas, about
reward and punishment for things that we do, we sometimes seem to live under the shadow of a
kind of overall judgment that makes us do the good thing with an eye on the reward for doing the
good thing, or shrink from doing the evil thing because of the kind of punishment that is
involved in the doing of evil thing.
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now there is a sense in which, of course, we operate on this level. But there is no true
authenticity of character operating at that level. What we must do, if the thing for which we
hunger is real to us, is to put at the disposal of the little deed, the great faith and the great
concern. To put at the disposal of the simple act, the total commitment of the life, so that what
we hunger for mankind will be real to us in that area over which we do have control.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And then, the final thing follows, that we have within ourselves a very great responsibility to see
to it that we will put our lives at the disposal of the things for which we stand. And that we will
put our lives and their resources over against the things against which we stand. So that whatever
we do, it will register towards the fulfillment of the big dream, and the great hope, and the
overwhelming desire for mankind.
As Hermann Hagedorn reminds us, as a voice coming from the dead, from all of the graves of all
the soldiers around the world, we die, yes. "But you who live must do a harder thing than dying
is. For you must think, think, think. And ghosts-- our ghosts-- shall drive you on." This is the
word.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord,
my rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-785.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Active Membership in the Human Race; The Big Dream, the Little Act (ET-39; GC 11-26-71), 1971 Nov 26
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
1950s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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394-785
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
The Idiom of Brotherhood (1963-11-15); The Big Dream, the Little Act (1959-05-29)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963-11-15
1959-05-29
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from his text Meditations of the Heart. He tells a story of a 69-year-old woman who had come to realize that she did not know much about the black community and decided to go to the library to educate herself on black history. After her time in the library, she was committed to telling the "facts" about black people while she was on the bus and around town. Thurman reflects upon the role that responsibility plays in relation to one's citizenship to humanity.
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads a meditation that speaks of two men who were once enemies sharing the same prison cell. From this meditation, he asks the question of what it means to overcome evil, and anticipate the Kingdom of God? He continues that it is in the disruption of barriers of hatred that humanity builds against itself that one can begin to anticipate the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. He continues, when we put our lives at the disposal of "that in which we stand," no matter how big or small, one is pursuing the greater good of humanity.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
awareness
calling
citizenship
creativity
evil
facts
George Cross
Herman Hagedorn
holiday
identity
meditation
meditations of the heart
prison
prisoners
race
reconciliation
solidarity
testimony
truth
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e198bf7a7d3170e1b8e1d96c8b321781
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
As a 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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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
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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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
[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
Emory University
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.
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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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Dublin Core
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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
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-783.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
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
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
1950s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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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>
Format
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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
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
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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http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/126feedc34953a5d951582c730b8dd5d.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711641000&Signature=YoRk5E%2BfXusCgdHLiBcySjtjmjI%3D
e4d4199999472f1adc9e4c468349d50d
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-781.mp3
This is tape number ET28, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Creative Order in Life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[BELLS RINGING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm continuing from Jane Steger, Leaves from a Secret Journal. About the tree, what I want to
know is why the sap ever started to run up the tree, up the trunk, along the limbs into the buds to
spread them out into leaves. Perhaps the way to find out would be to get inside the tree one's
self-- a nebulous personality to run with the sap up the trunk, out the limbs, into the leaves and
maple keys. And there, hear the command to stop.
The end is as amazing as the beginning. Why does the urge of life cease with leaves and seed
vessels? How does it know when to stop when its type is completed? If this command to halt
didn't come at the right moment, the breath of life that is in the tree might go on beyond leaves
and bloom into all sorts of green, fantastic abortions that would spoil the type.
The beginning is a marvel. The ending is an amazement. And I suppose that was, in the mind of
God, the finished thought of a maple tree, as definite and complete as its spark of life in the seed,
although He no doubt sent the thought forth in several types before the present one was achieved.
It is a miracle that trees stop with themselves, that maple trees are only apple trees-- that maple
trees are only maple trees, that apple trees are only apple trees, and oak trees are only oak trees.
The urge of life might so easily have flowed on into a green maelstrom of confusion-- a sort of
wild, crazy quilt of creation.
The same, of course, is true of every type. Why do pigs stop at pigs and human beings at human
beings? Of course, we human beings still have animal tendencies, and no doubt we are potential
angels, but in spite of what we have, then, or may be, we are human beings. Each type may have
come up from something else and be slowly drifting on to another development.
Nevertheless, at each stage, it is itself and not a confused medley. As I sit writing, I am
surrounded by numberless finished articles-- books, chairs, tables, desks-- all of which were
conceived by the mind of man. Then, as I look out into the garden, I see infinitely more things.
An innumerable company-- grass, trees, flowers, bushes-- all of which the mind of God created
and all of which are separate, distinct, and finished, with no confusion, no intermixing of forms.
Truly, the finished type is an astonishment. I never really thought of it before. The urge of life
always amazed me, but I never until now realized the marvel of it stopping when each creation is
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
completed. It might so easily go on into confusion or shatter the type as a child breaks his bubble
by blowing too much breath into it.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It might, that is, if at the back of creation was nothing but a blind force. How can anyone believe
that? One might possibly if one thought only of the initial urge of life, but surely not when one
sees it always stopping in definite forms and definite types.
Look at that fat dictionary over there on the shelf, so solemn and well-informed. Do I think that it
was created out of chaos? No, I don't think so. Did anyone ever see a trumpet vine forget its type
and try to overflow into something else-- into a maple tree, for instance? Or a maple tree forget
that its urge to life should stop with sharply pointed leaves rather than with round edges of an
oak?
Nobody ever did unless the types had been crossed by outside interference. What keeps them all
so loyally true to their own plan? Surely, if there were nothing but a blind urge at the back of
them, they would long ago have lost their way in the maze of life and gone off into a confusion
of all kind of chaos.
This is a rather extraordinary and exciting notion to my mind, and it is well worth our reflecting
upon. It is true that the beginning of life is quite miraculous. As a matter of fact, the big the idea
of beginning is itself as a concept almost beyond the grasp of the mind.
But as fundamentally exciting as may be the notion of beginning, it is even more astonishing-this built in quality that seems to be inherent in any particular form of life that tells that form of
life how it is to shape itself and when it is to stop developing. Suppose your foot did not ever
stop growing, that there wasn't anything that you could do to stop it. It would be quite a fantastic
arrangement.
But there is built in the very life structure of the body something which, in recent times,
biologists, or cytologists more specifically, have discovered. And they call it a certain quality in
the cell. A coding, C-O-D-I-N-G-- a coding in the cell that determines what the development of
the organism will be-- which cells will become eyes and legs and feet and hair and what the
dimensions are.
This is a part of the Constitution that is inherent in the cell itself. And in reading some time ago
about the growth and development of eels, I was amazed at the discovery that some of the
investigators were trying to determine, why was it that certain eels that came up from the
Sargasso sea, born there, five miles below the surface of the sea, found their way all the way up
to the Atlantic?
And some of the eels moved to the right and went to Europe. Some of the other eels came to the
United States-- to Virginia and North Carolina, to the fresh waters there. What determined which
way the eel should go? What determined the European eel and the American eel, as it were?
Well, these scientists discovered that the eels that had 11 or fewer vertebrae always came to
Virginia and North Carolina. If they had 12 or more vertebrae, they always went to Europe. The
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ticket-- the ticket-- was in the vertebrae. Now, this means that all of life is fundamentally
structured and grounded in order, that there is inherent in the creative process that which when
life realizes itself, its potential has been actualized.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, this gives to us-- it should give to us a very simple but profound confidence in the life
process itself. And in my language, it should give us the confidence in the Creator, confidence in
God, for it would seem to me that if all other manifestations of life, including my own body,
have this order built into it, why should not the experiences of my life, the growth of my life, all
of the things would have to do with my mind and spirit, why should not they then be in
accordance with what to me is the will and the purpose-- and for my mind-- the creative dream of
God?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET28, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2, entitled, The Great Exposure.
[BELLS RINGING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart. Sometimes, there's only a 60 second divide between
youth and maturity, childhood and adulthood, strength and weakness, life and death. That life is
vulnerable is the key to its longevity.
We are surrounded every day by the exposure to sudden and devastating calamity. Despite all
efforts to the contrary, there is no device by which we may get immunity from the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune. Here is a man in the full prime of active life, with all the strength
and vigor of a rounded maturity. Disease strikes. He withers and dies quickly, without warning
and often without premonition.
Here is a carefree, happy child, surrounded by all the love that wise devotion and careless rapture
can give. A plane crash. Both parents perish. And what at 10 o'clock was a child becomes at
10:01 a desolate creature shunted across the great divide that separates hope from hopelessness,
dependence from independence. Thus it goes in one vein.
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Or here is a person from whom all the lights had long since gone out. The way ahead is no way.
A sharp, sudden turn in the road or a chance encounter in the darkness and everything's changed.
Life is vulnerable. Always, there is the exposed flank.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Sometimes much energy is spent in a vain attempt to protect oneself. We try to harden our fiber,
to render ourselves safe from exposure. We refuse to love anyone, for instance, because we
cannot risk being hurt. We withdraw from participation and the struggles of our fellows because
we must not get caught in the communal agony of those around us.
We take no stand where fateful issues are at stake because we dare not run the risk of exposure to
attack. But all this, at long last, is of no avail. The attack from without is missed. And we escape
only to find that the life we have protected has slowly and quietly sickened deep within because
it was cut off from the nourishment of the great exposure.
It is the way of life that it be nourished and sustained by the constant threat, the sudden rending,
than welcome each rebuff that makes life's smoothness rough. It is a very commonplace
observation to say that as we live, our lives are caught up in a pattern of logic and order, reward
and punishment, reaping and sowing.
So fundamental is this kind of rhythmic balance in the very grain of our feeling tones and our
thought patterns that automatically we elect, as it were, to project this generalization in to an allinclusive way of life, so that when we do something, we expect it to balance itself in something
else.
I remember when I was a little boy, I broke my arm. It was in the summer. The doctor put my
arm in splints, as it were. And for three or four weeks, I was unable to participate in the things
that ordinarily engaged my time and attention.
And I wondered why, if I had to break my arm, it would not happen during the school year when
I could get mileage out of it. But it happened at the time when school was out and all the
wonderful things were going on in the summer. And then I began to go over in my mind-tutored, you see, by this balance about which I'm talking, reward and punishment, action and
reaction, antecedent and consequence-- and I wondered, what deed had I committed that was of
such enormous consequence that it had to be balanced by a broken arm at the peak of the
summer time?
This notion, you see, that we are in a rhythm of reward and punishment, and it operates
sometimes in our working philosophy. We say that if we are very good, then good things will
come to us as a result of it; that a good man, a worthy man, a man who has integrity and who
lives up to the most far reaching demands of his integrity, that man would not be subject to the
great exposure as a man who pays no attention to these things.
Now, this is one of the aspects of our experience, but it does not exhaust the possibilities. It is
true that there is reward and punishment, that the law of antecedent and consequence does
operate. But as it would seem to me, that over and above this kind of balance or this kind of
order, this kind of moral structure, there is what may be called a random movement in existence-
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- a movement which does not seem to take into account the private predicament, the situation of
the individual as an individual, but it involves him because he happens to be present and
available at the critical moment.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The Master talks about this when someone ask him concerning a child that was born blind. His
disciples said, was this child born blind because of the sins of his parents? And the Master
countered with a very interesting comment. He said, the people on whom the tower at Siloam fell
and were killed, were they any more guilty than the people on whom the tower didn't fall?
And the inference is, no, they were not more guilty, but they were under the tower and the others
were not. This is an extraordinary something with which you are dealing. There is no protection
against the great exposure. We as living beings in this world, again and again, are exposed to the
operation of impersonal forces over which we are unable to exercise any control-- forces that are
not responsive to our wills, however good and insistent those wills are.
Given this situation, which is a part of the human predicament, it is within the resources of the
individual and it is one of the tremendous insight of religion that there is always available in God
strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be. And this is not some Pollyanna remark,
but it is the studied wisdom and the garnered experience of generations of men that the test of
life is often found in the degree to which we are able to absorb the hammerings of the great
exposure without at the same time destroying our joy.
There is in God strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The preceding program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-781.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Creative Order in Life; The Great Exposure (ET-28; GC 11-23-71), 1971 Nov 23
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-781
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Creative Order in Life (1963-09-27); The Great Exposure (1963-02-15)
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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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1963-09-27
1963-02-15
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from Jane Steger's "Leaves from a Secret Journal." He attempts makes sense of the makeup of one's own life through the lens of ecology and biology. Using examples such as trees and DNA, Thurman explores the depths of the "order" of human existence.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text "Meditations of the Heart." His reading reflects upon the impact of trauma, and how it effects the development of the individual. He develops his ideas based off of personal experience and his own psychological findings. In this recording, Thurman suggests that it is in the exposure to the reality of existence that one can begin to mature.
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Dustin Mailman
angels
balance
biology
chaos
childhood
coding
completion
confidence
consequence
constitution
creativity
death
development
ecology
epistemology
experience
Jane Steger
journey
leaves from a secret journal
life
maturity
meditations of the heart
moral structure
North Carolina
personality
pigs
Sargasso Sea
seasons
snakes
trauma
tree
urge of life
Virginia
-
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bed408961b56d1c66d05841648126b27
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-780.mp3
This is tape number ET 26. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled Thanksgiving and the Nature of Life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Since next Thursday is Thanksgiving, I am reading my litany of Thanksgiving. And today, I
make my sacrament of Thanksgiving. I begin with the simple things of my days. Fresh air to
breathe, cool water to drink, the taste of food, the protection of houses and clothes, the comforts
of home. For these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.
I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known. My mother's arms, the strength
of my father, the playmates of my childhood, the wonderful stories brought to me from the lives
of many who talked of days gone by when fairies, and giants, and all kinds of magic held sway.
The tears I have shed, the tears I have seen, the excitement of laughter, and the twinkle in the eye
with its reminder that life is good. For all these, I make an active Thanksgiving this day.
I finger, one by one, the messages of hope that awaited me at the crossroads. The smile of
approval from those who held in their hands the reins of my security. The tightening of the grip
in a single hand shake when I feared the step before me in the darkness. The whisper in my heart
when the temptation was fiercest and the claims of appetite were not to be denied.
The crucial word said, the simple sentence from an open page when my decision hung in the
balance. For all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day. I pass before me the main springs
of my heritage. The fruits of the labors of countless generations who lived before me, without
whom my own life would have no meaning. The seers who saw visions and dream dreams. The
prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp, and whose words could only find
fulfillment in the years which they would never see.
The workers whose sweat has watered the trees, the leaves of which are for the healing of the
nations. The pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons, whose courage made
paths into new worlds and far off places. The saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness
that only a dream could inspire and a god could command. For all this, I make an act of
Thanksgiving this day.
I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment of which I give the loyalty of my
heart and mind. The little purposes in which I have shared with my loves and my desires, my
gifts. The restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence that I have never done my
best. I have never dared to reach for the highest. The big hope that never quite deserts me that I
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
and my kind will study war no more, that love and tenderness, and all the inner graces of
almighty affection will cover the life of the children of God as the waters cover the sea.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
All these, and more than mine can think and heart can feel, I make as my sacrament of
Thanksgiving to Thee, our father, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart. Ordinarily,
when we think of Thanksgiving, and particularly in times of historic perspective, we are
reminded of the time of the end gathering of the harvest, and the time when the forebearers of
ours gathered their fruit and their harvest and had a meal of Thanksgiving and celebration.
This is what we think of. But I'm thinking this morning, however, of a harvest of the heart. The
heart. What kind of harvest are you gathering in your own heart? And this is not merely an
academic question or a formal question. It is not a question that belongs to some particular
religious category or some religious insistence. But it's a question that belongs to the very heart
of all the meaning that your life is experiencing, and all the meaning that you are trying to
winnow out of the raw materials of your experiencing.
What is the cumulative encroachment that you have distilled out of the years of your living?
What is the harvest? It is not enough to say that you did not know what kind of seeds you were
planting. It is not enough to say that while you slept and were unmindful, some thief in the night
crawled over your fence and sewed your field, and now you must reap a harvest which you did
not sew.
This is not enough to say. The question cannot be downed. What is the harvest of your heart?
What is it that you yourself have grown, upon which you nourish your life? For as you have
planted, so will the harvest be. And during this period that we call Thanksgiving, it is altogether
fitting and proper that we should be mindful of this as the clue to what should be characteristic of
all of our days.
And this calls for one other consideration, and that has to do with what, in essence, is
Thanksgiving and the mood. It is not merely the utterance of words of gratitude. It isn't simply
saying a kind of salutation to life, that life has spared you or that you have been able to survive
or something of that sort.
But Thanksgiving is more than a mood of appreciation. It is more than a mood which comes
upon us periodically. It is a way of feeling about the nature of existence. It's a way of feeling
about the nature of life, that this feeling-- and I use the word feeling rather [? mirrored ?] than
using the word thinking. It is a feeling quality that life is something that I am sharing.
It is not something that I have created. It is something in which I am participating as a sharer,
and therefore, my mood towards it is one not merely of salutation, but one of deep, internal
humility that I have been graced by life in a manner that makes it possible for me to be where I
am in my place, carrying on in my way, reaping the harvest of my heart. And if I do not have this
attitude, then perhaps it were better that I had never been born.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
2
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord.
My rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This program was videotape recorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET 26. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, this is
side two, entitled, Waiting Creatively.
[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 preparation for our thought this morning, will you listen to these words? To him that waits,
all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny in the darkness what he
has seen in the light. This is a quotation. Waiting is a window opening on many landscapes. For
some, waiting means the cessation of all activity when energy is gone and exhaustion is all that
the heart can manage.
It is the long, slow panting of the spirit. There is no will to will. Spent, that is the word. There is
no hope, not hopelessness. There is no sense of anticipation, or even awareness of a loss of hope.
Perhaps even the memory of function itself has faded. There is now and before. There is no after.
For some, waiting is a time of intense preparation for the next leg of the journey. Here at last
comes a moment when forces can be realigned, and a new attack upon an old problem can be set
in order. Or it may be a time of reassessment of all plans, and of checking past failures against
present insight. Or it may be the moment of a long look ahead, when the landscape stretches far
in many directions and the chance to select one's way among many choices cannot be denied.
For some others, waiting is a sense of disaster of the soul. It is what Francis Thompson suggests
in the line, naked I wait, thy love's uplifted stroke. The last hiding place has been abandoned,
because even the idea of escape is without meaning. Here is no fear, no panic. Only the sheer
excruciation of utter disaster. It is the kind of emotional blackout in the final moment before the
crash. It is the passage through the zone of treacherous quiet.
For some, waiting is something more than all of this. It is the experience of recovering balance
when catapulted from one's place. It is the quiet forming of a pattern of recollection, in which
there is called into focus the fragmentary distillations of value from myriad encounters of many
kinds in a lifetime of living and journeying. It is to watch a gathering darkness until all light is
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
swallowed up completely without the power to interfere or bring a halt, then to continue one's
journey in the darkness, with one's footsteps guided by the illumination of remembered radiance.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is to know courage of a peculiar kind. The courage to demand that light continue to be light,
even in the surrounding darkness. To walk in the light while darkness invades, envelops, and
surrounds. This is to wait on the Lord. This is to know the renewal of strength. This is to walk,
and faint not.
For many people, even the word waiting is a negative word. It suggests giving up the struggle. It
suggests complete inactivity, a kind of acquiescence, a bowing before what may be regarded as
one's fate. But it seems to me that waiting need not be any of these things. Waiting has inherent
in it, what seems to be a very profoundly creative quality.
For waiting is, after all, an interval between moments, experiences, events, that are filled with
involvement and activity. Therefore, waiting carries with it [? said ?] very important
implications. It means that the individual must know something very specific, and definite, and
concrete about himself, so that during the interval, whether it be a limited interval or extensive
interval, during that interval, he can come into a closer understanding of who he is, what he is,
the kind of intrinsic equipment which is basically his, in honor that when the interval is over, he
may move into the next step in a full [? on ?] possession of his powers and himself.
Therefore, waiting means an understanding of one's self. Very often, there are things that we
discover about ourselves only because of the lull into which we move as a result of a series of
activities which have engaged us. For so often, life is so demanding. Life requires of us such an
absolute concentration, so often. Sometimes the scramble for survival is so momentous that there
is no margin of the self available for reflection, for interpretation of directions and goals.
Now, when the lull comes, it is then that one has a chance to take a look at one's self uninvolved.
One's self not under attack, but one's self as it were lying acquiescent and relaxed, without the
overarching, demanding pressure of activity. At such times, it becomes necessary for the
individual not only to understand oneself, but to accept one's self as one is.
Now, this does not mean to approve of one's self as one is. No, it may not mean that at all. But it
does mean the acceptance of one's self as one is. For better or for worse, you are you. I am I.
This is the basic core with which we have to work. This is the essential raw material which must
be fashioned into the kind of tool which we will place into life's hands on behalf of the dreams,
the desires, the hopes, to which we are dedicated.
Now, if I refuse to accept myself intrinsically, then this means that in the living of my life and in
the assessing of the meaning of my life, in this period of waiting, this lull, I am completely
bankrupt, because I cannot use as my own the raw materials which are you. I am stuck with
myself, and you are stuck with yourself. For better or for worse, this is what you have to deal
with.
Now, therefore, in waiting, in this lull, if I accept myself, then it means that precious energy will
not be wasted in trying to wish or in thinking, and hoping, and desiring, that I was someone else,
4
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
that I had certain qualities that I do not have. All of these things become a part of the blanket
term that is used over and over again, wishful thinking.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, if I accept myself during this lull, then when I move in to the after waiting period, when
the new demands are upon me, when the new responsibilities are mine, or when the next stage in
my journey is being undertaken, then I move into it with a sense of power, a sense of vitality.
Because now, I have put at the disposal of the accepted self, whatever may be the gifts that are
mine. The talents of my mind and spirit, my personality, my resources, all of life now becomes
maneuverable.
Because at the core of my operation, there is a relaxed acceptance of myself. Now, once this is
done, then I can wait with wisdom. I can work while I wait. I can do all kinds of things that will
enable me to be in the darkness, if I may call waiting that. What I see myself as being in the
light. And this is, after all, what is meant by the line, I must walk in the darkness by the light
which I saw in the light.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord.
My rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-780.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Thanksgiving and the Nature of Life; Waiting Creatively (ET-26; GC 11-23-71), 1971 Nov 23
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
1950s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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394-780
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Thanksgiving and the Nature of Life (1963-11-22); Waiting Creatively (1959-06-12)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963-11-22
1959-06-12
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reflects upon the Thanksgiving season. He lists a litany of feelings, emotions, materials, and states of being that he is thankful for: air to breath, food to eat, shelter, love, etc. He then discerns the way in which humanity may overlook many of the things that humanity should be grateful for, and suggests that Thanksgiving should be approached as a sacrament which points one towards humility and gratitude.
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reflects upon the meaning of "waiting." He defines waiting as the "interval between moments, experience, events, that are filled with activity." Waiting is dynamic in nature, and requires a true decision from the one who is participating: creatively participating in one's own life as it is manifested today, or longing for the life they will never have.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
activity
ancestors
care
contentment
courage
creativity
crossroad
darkness
disaster
examine
Francis Thompson
gratitude
holidays
hope
humility
litany
love
magic
nostalgia
solitude
spirit
temptation
thanksgiving
unrest
waiting
will
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d8e741ffcac5541a025e9a74908d25fb
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-779.mp3
This is tape number ET25 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one entitled, "supporting rhythms of life."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
Upon the night view of the world, a day view must follow. This is an ancient insight grounded in
the experience of the race in its long journey through all the years of man's becoming. Here is no
cold idea born out of the vigil of some solitary thinker in lonely retreat from the traffic of the
common ways. It is not the wisdom of the book put down in ordered words by the learned and
the schooled. It is insight woven into the pattern of all living things, reaching its grand apotheosis
and the reflection of man gazing deep into the heart of his own experience.
That the day view follows the night view is written large in nature. Indeed, it is one with nature
itself. The clouds gather heavy with unshed tears. At last, they burst, sending over the total
landscape waters gathered from the silent offering of sea and river. The next day dawns, and the
whole heavens are aflame with the glorious brilliance of the sun. This is the way the rhythm
moves.
The fall of the year comes, then winter with its trees stripped of leaf and bud-- cold winds-ruthless in bitterness and sting. One day there is sleet and ice. In the silence of the night time, the
snow falls the soundlessly. All this until at last the cold seems endless and all there is seems to be
shadowy and foreboding. The earth is weary and heavy, and then something stirs-- a strange new
vitality pulses through everything.
One can feel the pressure of some vast energy pushing-- always pushing through dead branches,
slumbering roots. Life surges everywhere within and without-- spring has come. The day usurps
the night view. Is there any wonder that deeper than idea and concept is the insistent conviction
that the night can never stay, that winter is ever moving toward the spring? Thus, when a man
sees the lights go out one by one-- when he sees the end of his day is marked by death-- his
death-- he senses, rather than knows, that even the night into which he is entering will be
followed by day.
It remains for religion to give this ancient wisdom praise and symbol. For millions of men and
women in many climbs, this phrase and this symbol are forever one with Jesus, the prophet from
Galilee. When the preacher says as a part of the last rites-- I am the Resurrection and the Life. He
is reminding us all of this ancient wisdom upon the night view of the world, a day view must
follow.
This is the time of year when we are reminded, as children of nature, that there is a fundamental
rhythmic movement in life. The coming of winter, the coming of spring, the coming of summer-this constant rhythmic movement gives to all of the children of nature the raw material for the
basis of their hope about the meaning of life.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
It is a rather extraordinary thing, to me, that even though men think that the ideas and the
thoughts and the insights which they have are created in some independent way in their own
minds-- that there is a gulf and, perhaps, a desert between the life which they live as creatures
and the life that is of the mind and of the spirit.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
But, a closer scrutiny reveals the fact that much of the permanent insights in the mind, and much
of the ground of meaning which men distill into ideas and concepts, are rooted in man's
experience as a creature-- man's experience as a child of nature. So, the insight with which we
have to do this morning is rooted in the total experience of man-- the notion of beginnings and
endings.
See, the sense that the contradictions of life are not final things-- that all of man's life is caught in
a movement, in a process, in a kind of supporting rhythm. Which, if he understands, becomes the
background for supporting the most searching ideas of his mind and the philosophy by which his
spirit may be guided. Thus, there is a sense of alternative, a sense of the other that is not being
experienced in the present-- a sense of the potential possibility that is wrapped up in the days that
are yet to come.
And always in this potential, in this possibility, there is a sense that something will emerge that
will alter what one is going through in the present. And this is really the ground of hope for the
human spirit. I think this is one of the elemental and, perhaps, gross reasons that always during
periods of violence, during periods of war when all of life seems to be mad and men are devoting
all of their waking hours and their dreams to violence and the destruction of each other-- always
in the midst of this kind of madness, some voice or voices rise to talk about another kind of life-another way of life.
And this is really what is meant by the growing edge of man's experience. It is this sense that the
day view follows the night view-- that keeps the individual going, that keeps him hard at his task,
that keeps him from despairing. We see this dramatized in a very simple way with the coming of
spring. There is a certain kind of oak tree, for instance, that holds the leaves. All during the
winter, you see them in the midst of the woods. Every tree is stripped, but these oak trees still
hold their leaves. The leaves are dead, they are brown, they are lifeless, but all the storms of
winter cannot tear them away. They hold despite all the violence.
And then one morning when you wake up, you look out and you see that all the leaves have
fallen-- that something within the tree itself that for all the weather has been dedicated to holding
the leaves in place is now relaxed because there is a movement deep in the heart of the tree that
pushes these dead leaves aside and new leaves come.
Now this is the way of life. This is the way of your life and my life. And it is important, then, to
remember that there is always the renewal, always the possibility of something more significant
that will emerge tomorrow than one has experienced today. This is the ground of hope. This is
the thing that is meant by the coming of spring.
And this really is, in essence, the meaning of the Christian doctrine about the significance of
Easter-- the night view will not stay. It is followed by the day view.
2
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
This is tape number ET25 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two entitled, "Thank God for the Fall of the Year."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
For many of us, the fall of the year is a time of sadness. And the long memory all around us,
there are the evidences of fading, of withdrawal, of things coming to an end. What was alive and
growing only a few short days or weeks ago seems now to have fulfilled itself and fallen back
into the shadows. Vegetation withers, but there is no agony of departure. There seems to be only
death and stillness in the fall.
Those who have been ill all summer seem to get a deepening sense of foreboding in the fall
sometimes. It is the time of the changing of the guard. It is the season of the retreat of energy. It
is a time of letting go. It is the period of the first exhaustion. It is the period of the storms, as if
the wind itself becomes the avenging angel too impatient to wait for the coming of death and the
quiet fading of bird and flower and leaf.
The rain is not gentle in the fall, it is feverish, truculent, and vicious, often. All the fury of wind
and rain are undertoned by a vast lull in tempo, and the running down of all things. There is a
chill in the air in the fall. It is not cold, it is chilly, as if the temperature cannot quite make up its
mind. The chill is ominous-- the forerunner of the vital coldness of winter.
But the fall of the year is more than all this-- much, much more. It marks an important change in
the cycle of the year. This change means that summer is past. One season ends by blending into
another. Here is a change of pace accenting a rhythm in the passing of time-- how important this
is.
The particular mood inspires recollection and reflection. There is something very steadying and
secure in the awareness that there is an underlying dependability in life-- that change is a part of
the experience of living. It is a reminder of the meaning of the pause and the plateau. But fall
provides something even more. There is a harvest-- a time of in-gathering, of storing up in
nature.
There is the time when there must be a separation of that which has said its say and passes, that
which ripens and finds its meaning in sustaining life in other forms. Nothing is lost. Nothing
disappears. All things belong, each in its way, to a harmony and an order which envelops all,
which infuses all. Fall accentuates the goodness of life, and finds its truest meaning in the
strength of winter and the breath of spring. Thank God for the fall.
Beginning next Friday morning and until sometime in February, the regular Friday morning
broadcasts will be by videotape. In about 10 days, Mrs. Thurman and I will begin the second
phase of the two-year leave, which I have from Boston University as dean of the chapel, for the
3
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Transcription
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purpose of conducting what is called a wider ministry-- that is for the purpose of going to
different parts of the country and the world and sharing and learning as one creative process.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is a kind of fulfillment or, at least, an added dimension of an emphasis, which has been a
part of our lives for three decades. It is the fundamental concept-- I suppose it is a concept, it's
more than a notion. It takes on the character of a belief and a conviction, that experiences of
unity-- meaningful experiences of unity between peoples are more compelling than all of the
ideas, concepts, notions, prejudices, beliefs that separate them, that divide them.
Now let me repeat this-- it is a conviction that experiences of unity-- meaningful experiences of
unity between peoples are more compelling and convincing than all of the things that separate
them, that divide them. And, if these experiences-- these meaningful experiences of unity-- can
be multiplied over a time interval of sufficient duration, then they can undermine any barrier of
any kind that separates one man from the other.
It is on the basis of this fundamental conviction by which our lives have been guided, that the
wider ministry functioned in different parts of the United States north and south and east and
west and in Canada-- having experiences of unity between all kinds of religious groups-- Jew
and Gentile-- between people of different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, different kinds of
schools, different kinds of institutions, and always the fundamental notion was at work. And
now, beginning in a few days, we shall go to another part of the world.
From about the 1st of October until the second week in December, I shall be lecturing at the
University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria doing special work in the philosophy of religion in the
department of religious studies in a university which is about 60% Muslim. In addition to the
public lectures that will be given, I shall be conducting special tutorials in the philosophy of
religion for advanced students. And, from there, we shall spend some time in the near east,
paying particular attention to conversations with certain hassidic rabbis-- this strain of mysticism
that is fundamental to certain aspects of Judaism.
And then from there, all the way around to Hawaii for preaching at the Church of the Crossroads
and for serving as Billings Lecturer on community at the University of Hawaii. Each year at the
beginning of the year, we invite you to send in your name and address by post of card or letter or
by telephone expressing your interest in receiving a transcription of the weekly broadcast. We try
to keep the list living and vital and current.
This year, through the courtesy of the station, some 325 or 50 persons have received the
transcription each week. And this will be continued if you let us know. You will receive, also, a
letter from my office enclosing a self-addressed postal card to assist you in this process. We hope
that during the winter, you will have a significant and fulfilling experience, and that life will be
even more gracious to you than you deserve. And this is saying a great deal.
If, for any reason, you wish to write to me as growing out of your reaction to any of the
subsequent broadcasts, just direct the letter to my office at 300 Base State Road or to the station.
And, in due course, these letters will be forwarded to me. And as far as my energies and
resources permit, I will be very glad to answer them.
4
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Transcription
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I wish to express an appreciation for all of the very wonderful words through letters and
telephones and postcards which you have sent expressing your appreciation for the service. And
those of you who pray and who believe in prayer, I hope that you will remember us in your quiet
time.
Pitts Theology Library
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
5
�
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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/394-779.html" ></iframe>
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Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Supporting Rhythm of Life; Thank God for the Fall of the Year (ET-25; GC 11-23-71), 1971 Nov 23
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1970s
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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Identifier
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394-779
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Supporting Rhythm of Life (1962-04-13); Thank God for the Fall of the Year (1971-11-23)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1962-04-13
1971-11-23
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman reflects upon wisdom, and the ways in which wisdom is grounded upon "the reflection of a person gazing deep into the heart of their own experience." This personal experience, Thurman explains, can be understood in both theological and ecological terms; relating human experience to the movement of the seasons, and the life of Jesus of Galilee.
This recording within the We Believe Series marks a transitional point in Thurman's career as the Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University: a two-year leave to participate in what he calls his "wider ministry." He draws upon ecological themes of seasons in order to articulate the way in which life transitions without one's consent. He notes that the "Fall of the Year" provides an opportunity for "recollection and reflection," and uses this recording as an opportunity to do so.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
becoming
Boston University
creativity
day view
Easter
ecology
energy
experience
fall
Galilee
George Cross
growing edge
harvest
holidays
Ibadan
Jesus
Muslim
New Year
Nigeria
night view
potentiality
rain
recollection
reflections
rhythm
seasons
spring
Sue Bailey Thurman
symbol
transition
unity
wider ministry
winter
wisdom
-
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4141fcff9b2cc8eee082f4db67bba07e
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-776.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 20, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled, "Our Little Lives, Our Big
Problems."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading this morning from Meditations of the Heart. "Our little lives, our big problems, these,
we place upon Thy alter. The quietness in Thy temple of silence again and again rebuffs us.
For some, there is no discipline to hold them steady in the waiting and the minds reject the
noiseless invasion of Thy Spirit. For some, there is no will to offer what is central in the
thoughts. The confusion is so manifest, there is no starting place to take hold. For some, the evils
of the world tear down all concentrations and scatter the focus of the high resolves.
War and the threat of war has covered us with heavy shadows, making the days big with
foreboding, the nights crowded with frenzied dreams and restless churnings. We do not know
how to do what we know to do. We do not know how to be what we know to be. Our little lives,
our big problems, these, we place upon Thy alter.
Brood over our spirits, Our Father. Blow upon whatever dream Thou hast for us that there may
glow once again upon our hearts the light from Thy alter. Pour out upon us whatever our spirits
need of shock, of lift, of release, that we may find strength for our days, courage and hope for
tomorrow. In confidence, we rest in Thy sustaining grace which makes possible triumph in
defeat, gain in loss, and love in hate. We rejoice this day to say our little lives, our big problems,
these, we place upon Thy alter."
I remarked in our meditation last week that each of us must deal with our lives on the basis of
two dimensions. First, there is the image which we have of ourselves. And it was about this that
we talked last week.
Now this morning, I want to think about the second dimension. We must deal with ourselves on
the basis of our fact. To state it in a more comprehensive term, it would be something like this,
that each of us must have a sense of fact with reference to his facts.
Now, it is comparatively easy to have a sense of fact with reference to other people's facts. We
are functioning all the time in the light of the readings which we make from our sense of fact, of
other people's facts. We are sensitive to their wrongdoings, their attitudes towards us. We are
sometimes, not always, critical and judgemental as we deal with the raw materials of their facts
as we encounter them in the living of our facts.
1
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Transcription
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But the burden of my idea this morning is that we must have a sense of fact with reference to our
fact, with reference to our own fact. In other words, I must accept my fact. Now, it may be very
different, and often it is, from the image that I have of myself. My fact is the raw material, the
raw stuff, out of which I make all the meanings that I have with reference to what my life is
saying by what my life is doing.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, when I accept my fact, it means that I call all of the elements in my fact by their true name,
what may be regarded in the estimate of others as something that is unscrupulous, as a dealing
that is not quite ethical, not quite on the level, to use the phrase. When I raise the same question
about myself, I may call it shrewdness. I may call it cleverness. I may tone it down so that as it
turns up in the context of my living, it glows. It has a significance and a meaning and a
wholeness which I may not allow as I react to your sense of fact, for instance.
So I must call what I see in me by its true name. And in doing this, I'm able to assess my facts in
terms of my intent. Again and again, I discover that the thing that I intend to do, the thing that I
will to do, as it moves out from me seeking to fulfill itself in the context of my experience,
becomes adulterated, becomes watered down, becomes something perhaps so different from
what I intended. When the words leave me, there's a grace and a wholeness and sometimes a
healing and a beauty in them. But by the time they reach the object towards which they are
going, something has happened to them.
Now, I must deal with this aspect of the difference between the deed itself, the fact itself, and
that which is my intent. And all the time, I must bring the deed under the judgment of the intent
until at last, the deeds become the lung through which the intent breathes or the manifestation of
the intent.
The second thing is that I must, in my sense of fact, recognize that I will not give myself up. It is
true that I may not, as I think about it, be as good as my mother thinks I am or as my friends
think I am or as someone else thinks I am. But despite this fact, despite the fact that I have an
inside knowledge of what it is that I am, in true essence, I do not give myself up.
I do not relax my hold on myself. I cling to myself with an abiding enthusiasm because this is all
I have. To state it almost crassly, I am stuck with me. For better or for worse, I must negotiate
the time interval of my living with the stuff that I am.
Now, there's a third thing. I recognize that so much, so much, much, that is not good flows from
me out into the world, affecting the lives of others, that this knowledge of the not-good that
flows from me to others gives to me a charity, a tenderness, an understanding of the not-good
things, as it were, that flow from other people to me. Now, let me state this again. So much that
is not good flows from myself out to others that I am learning slowly how to be charitable
towards others for the not-good things that flow from them to me. I must accept my fact, a sense
of fact with reference to my facts.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
2
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 20 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled "Periodic Rest."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading from my book The Inward Journey. "The need for periodic rest is not confined to
mechanisms of various kinds. Rest may be complete inactivity when all customary functioning is
suspended and everything comes to a pause.
Rest may be a variation in intensity, a contrast between loud and soft, high and low, strong and
weak, a change of pace. Rest may be a complete shifting of scenery by the movement of objects
or the person. All things seem to be held in place by the stability of a rhythm that holds and
releases, but never lets go.
Under this same necessity lives the mind, as well. There is an inner characteristic of mind that
shares profoundly in the rhythm that holds and releases, but never lets go. Rest for the mind
takes many forms. It may come in the change of material upon which it works. It may be ranging
widely and irresponsibly over strange areas of thought.
It may be tackling a tough problem with more than the customary intensity. It may be
daydreaming, that strange and wonderful fairyland of sugar plums and candies. It may be the
experience of being swept to a perilous height by a sudden gale that rushes in from some distant
shore or of being caught in the churning spiral of a water spout that moves up from some hidden
depth. It may be all, any, or none of these, but something else again.
Rest for the mind may be a part of its activity. Thus, working and resting are a single thing.
Perhaps this is true because the mind takes its energy neat, in a manner direct and immediate.
Now, under the same necessity lives the spirit, as well. There is no clear distinction between
mind and spirit. But there is a quality of mind that is more than thought and the process of
thought. This quality involves feelings and the wholeness in which the life of man has its being.
There is no need to tarry over the correctness of definition or even over the preciseness of
meaning. What is being considered is what a man means totally when he says, I am. This self
shares profoundly in the rhythm that holds and releases, but never lets go.
3
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There is the rest of detachment and withdrawal when the spirit moves into the depths of the
region of the great silence, where world-weariness is washed away and blurred vision is once
again prepared for the focus of the long view, where seeking and finding are so united that
failure and frustration, real though they are, are no longer felt to be ultimately real. Here, the
presence of God is sensed as an all-pervasive aliveness which materializes into the concreteness
of [? Communion, ?] the reality of prayer. Here, God speaks without words and the self listens
without ears. Here, at last, glimpses of the meaning of all things and the meaning of one's own
life are seen with all their strivings. To accept this is one meaning of the good and great line from
the book, 'Rest in the Lord, O rest in the Lord.'"
I think it was Professor Hawking, formerly professor of philosophy at Harvard University, who
first gave wide currency to a very familiar and ancient experience of man, experience of the
human spirit. And the term that he used to capture the meaning of this universal aspect of man's
living experience was the principle of alternation. And by this, he meant, as all men have found
and have experienced, that we pick up the responsibilities of our lives and carry them, and then
we put them down.
We pick them up. We put them down. There is this principle that defines the rhythm of man's
life. Another way of putting it-- on again, off again; on again, off again.
Now, interestingly enough, this is a necessity that is built into the nature of the organism. And I
think indeed, it is built into the nature of any kind of mechanical instrument or device or
machine, the need for working it and resting it, for providing the things that will give to the
intensity of the function a break, as the broken field runner on the football field. He runs, and one
of the reasons why it is so difficult to counteract him and to pin him down is that he breaks his
speed, but he breaks his speed within the rhythm of his movement.
Now, this seems to me to be fundamental to our bodies. We work and we sleep. We work and we
rest.
It is fundamental to our minds. If we are students, we study and then we stop studying. Or we are
reading and then now and then, we close our book or we leave our book open and look far into
the distance, letting our eyes rest, and let our minds range in a leisurely manner over some of the
material that we've followed with great intensity.
The same sort of rhythm is true in relationships. If we are too full of togetherness. In the
relationship that you have with another human being who is very close to you, if in that
relationship, there is no room for breathing, no rhythm in the relationship, but it is always full of
the same kind of intensity, pretty soon, there is an exhaustion. And when that exhaustion takes
place, it is so difficult once again to rehabilitate it and give to it meaning and the significance
that it had.
Now, the same thing is true in one's spiritual life, in the way that we handle the problems of our
spirit. There is a quality in us that's like the quality of the eager beaver. We pounce upon a thing
and we stick with it and will not take a moment to break the intensity of it. And pretty soon, there
is a weariness that comes.
4
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And interestingly enough, it is a weariness that starts on the edges, on the outer edges of the
experience, and works slowly towards the center. And when it gets to the center, then the whole
context is flattened out and full of exhaustion. Therefore, in the living of your life or even in the
living of any person's life, to practice the principle of periodic rest, the principle of alternation-carry your burdens with [? full-on ?] responsibility, making room on your shoulders for the load
which is your load.
But now and then, put it down. Let it rest. And then pick it up again. Or you may carry your
burden on one shoulder and then change it over to another shoulder.
This is the principle. On, off. Pick it up, put it down. And once this becomes the rhythm of the
movement, the respiration of your spirit, then many crooked paths will become straighter and
heavy burdens will be lighter. This is the law of life.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-776.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Our Little Lives, Our Big Problems; Periodic Rest (ET-20; 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
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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394-776
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Our Little Lives, Our Big Problems (1963-01-25); Periodic Rest (1963-03-22)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963-01-25
1963-03-22
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "Meditations of the Heart," working with the tension between factuality and intention. In this tension, one must accept their "self-fact" in order to navigate a faithful deed or image.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "The Inward Journey," reflecting upon the significance of rest and restoration. He uses philosophical and ecological imagery to portray the significance of daydreaming, making sense of the cosmos, and finding integration in one's own life.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
aliveness
altar
communion
creativity
daydreaming
detachment
discipline
fact
fairyland
image
individuality
intention
interconnectivity
meditations of the heart
mind
pacing
raw materials
reality
rest
rhythm
solitude
spirit
Stephen Hawking
sugarplum
waiting
withdraw
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/07afc8d8c5cbd06e3fababde9176d46e.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711641000&Signature=pyIO8alZx5Xrr25K3mCcx%2BB8nZQ%3D
f0189dcf51165dbe7c76603a97552304
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-770.mp3
This is tape number ET10 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one entitled "The Country of the Heart."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
I'm continuing my reading from Jane Staeger's "Leaves from a Secret Journal." Last night, as I
was thinking intently about the spirit of God within each one of us-- and especially of that spirit
as within myself and in life-- a curious, quite definite feeling came over me as though I had
entered into another country, flowed out into something wider, past, as it were, to another plane.
There was nothing strange or unnatural about it, nor was there the slightest mental confusion.
I was perfectly aware of myself and of the surroundings of my room. But the point of
consciousness appeared to have slipped from my head to my heart-- from thought to emotion,
perhaps. This is the country of the heart, I found myself exclaiming. It was a further glimpse of
an experience I had had several months ago, which was half a dream, and half the thoughts
following immediately upon awakening.
In the dream part, I saw a sort of field or prairie dotted over with what appeared to be the
burrows of animals leading into the ground. But I seemed to know that in reality, these were not
animal runs, but were human personalities through which, if one walked, one would emerge into
another world. I waked them, but still strong upon me was the belief brought back from the
illuminating depths of sleep that every human being is a gateway into another world-- a world
which we enter by walking through ourselves.
That is-- by sinking deeper and deeper into ourselves, pressing open one door of consciousness
after another, I am convinced that there is a wonderful world-- a wider, richer life, a more intense
joy and beauty close at hand-- almost in touch of us-- which our blind eyes and blinder hearts
have not the grace to perceive. As we plod along our anxious road, we never lift up our eyes to it
or open our ears to its melody. And yet, sometimes, our hearts tell us in a vague wistfulness that
we have missed the way-- have somehow wandered from the path, and are very far from home.
When I sit on the porch of an evening in late summer, the air is filled with the rasping of the
Katydids. There they are in the locust trees almost in hand's reach of me and, yet, we are in two
different worlds. I have some small knowledge of their world, but what have they of my world?
They might, indeed, entirely deny my very existence, yet there we are out in the same summer
night side by side. Just as I am close to the Katydids, so I believe that there is another world and
other beings as close to me of whose existence I guess as little as those jolly green fiddlers in the
locust streets guess of mine.
This world, which I believe to be there just beyond the gray veils of our present consciousness, I
have called the country of the heart. Every now and again, we catch glimpses of it and know that
if we might enter into it, we should not find ourselves as here strangers and wanderers, but spirits
returned to our larger selves in the place where we belong unutterably and exquisitely at home.
The higher we get in the scale of development, the further we seem to get away from this. This is
because our own self-consciousness-- our trying, as it were-- to manage things for ourselves
confuses our consciousness of him.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There is another dimension to the insight with which Jane Staeger is wrestling here, she talks, of
course, about the thin veil that separates our world from another world-- the feeling that the
consciousness of the individual is the opening from a larger world of life and meaning is not a
new idea. It has been expressed in many ways. And the thing that is so amazing and exciting to
my kind of mind is the fact that this sort of notion is a part of the materials of much of what is
going on in the whole scientific development that is upon our world.
We have discovered, for instance, over and over again that there is a way by which it is possible
to communicate with animals, even though we do not speak their language as such-- they do not
speak our language. But it seems as if any form of conscious life is but a manifestation of life.
And the difference in expressions of life is the difference in the context of the manifestation.
Now, when I was a boy living in Florida, I had a rather extraordinary experience that illustrated
this at another level. One day, I went across the way to visit my chum. And, as I started around
the house, his father rapped on the window pane and urged me to come around and come through
the front door. And when I came into the front door and into a room where the father was
standing, he pointed through the open window to the backyard. And there in the backyard, my
chum's little baby sister, about three or four months old, was sitting in the sand playing with a
rattlesnake.
She would pull the snake back as he would try to crawl away. She would turn him over on his
back, and they were having a delightful time. The father sent me out to stand on the other side of
the house and my chum was standing on the left hand side so that we would not let any adult
come around to introduce in to this elemental experience of the ground of vitality, a principle of
disturbance, fear, anxiety. So that when this principle is introduced, each form of life jumps, as it
were, back into the tight context of its manifestation and looks out through that context at the
other. And this creates fear and enmity.
Now this is one of the extraordinary things about life that my life and your life represents a
separate and distinct consciousness. My thoughts, the history of my life-- all of the manifold
context by which my life gets its meaning and its significance and the manifold context by which
your life gets its meaning and significance-- these are but the facades of life.
But, whenever you have an intimate, primary experience with another human being and you get
past the point when you are trying to relate to each other by the symbolism of words or by tokens
of testing, there does come a moment in the relationship when it seems as if you and the other
person relate to each other by going down and coming up on the inside of the other person rather
than trying to relate across this way.
Now, this notion is that all of life is one, and that wherever I am able to penetrate behind the
particular facade-- wherever I am able to go behind the context of differentiation, I come upon
the same ebb and flow of creativity, the ground of being, the ground of vitality in which all of the
individual expressions have their meaning and their significance. And, in the language of
religion, it is this ground that God provides, and those who are expressive of it are expressions of
him.
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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.
This is tape number ET10 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust this is side
two entitled, "Death-- a Part of Life."
Pitts Theology Library
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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.
I'm beginning today another facet of our discussion of working philosophies of life. And we'll do
the broadcast, which was interrupted last week. The leaves were falling from the great oak at the
meadow's edge. They were falling from all the trees. One branch of the oak reached high above
the others and stretched far out over the meadow.
Two leaves clung to its very tip. It isn't the way it used to be, said one leaf to the other. No, the
other leaf answered, so many of us have fallen off tonight, we are almost the only ones left on
our branch. You never know who's going to go next, said the first leaf. Even when it was warm
and the sun shown, a storm or a cloudburst would come sometimes, and many leaves were torn
off, though they were still young. You never know who's going to go next.
The sun seldom shines now, sighed the second leaf. And, even when it does, it gives no warmth.
We must have warmth again. Can it be true, said the first leaf-- can it really be true that others
come to take our places when we are gone? And, after them, still others, and more and more? It
is really true, whispered the second leaf. We can't even begin to imagine-- it's beyond our
powers. It makes me very sad, said in the first leaf. They were silent a while and then the first
leaf said quietly to herself-- why must we fall?
The second leaf asked, what happens to us when we have fallen? We sink down, down. What is
under us? The first leaf answered, I don't know. Some say one thing, some another, but nobody
knows. The second leaf asks, do we feel anything? Do we know anything about ourselves when
we are down there? The first leaf answered, who knows? Not one of all those down there has
ever come back to tell us about it. They were silent again.
Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other-- don't worry so much about it. You're trembling.
Oh, that's nothing, the second leaf answered. I tremble at the least thing now. I don't feel so sure
of my hold as I used to. Let's not talk anymore about such things, said the first leaf. The other
replied-- no, we'll let it be, but what else shall we talk about? She was silent but went on after a
little while-- which of us will go first?
There's still plenty of time to worry about that, the other leaf assured her. Let's remember how
beautiful it was, how wonderful when the sun came out and shown so warmly that we thought
we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew and the mild and splendid nights-now the nights are dreadful, the second leaf complained, and there is no end to them. We
shouldn't complain, said the first leaf gently, we've outlived many, many others.
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Have I changed much? Asked the second leaf, shyly but determinedly. Not in the least, the first
leaf assured her. You only think so because I've gotten to be so yellow and ugly, but it's different
in your case. You're fooling me, the second leaf said. No, really, the first leaf exclaimed eagerly.
Believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there maybe a little yellow spot,
but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer-- believe me.
Pitts Theology Library
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Thanks, whispered the second leaf, quite touched. I don't believe you, not altogether, but I thank
you because you're so kind. You've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand
how kind you are. Hush, said the other leaf, and kept silent herself, for she was too troubled to
talk anymore. Then they were both silent-- hours passed.
A moist wind blew cold and hostile through the treetops. Ah, now, said the second leaf. Then her
voice broke off. She was torn from her place and spun down. Winter had come. And then one
other thing to go along with this-- this is called "A Song of Living."
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die. I have sent up my gladness on wings to
be lost in the blue of the sky. I have run and leaped with the rain. I have taken the wind to my
breast-- my cheek, like a drowsy child, to the face of the earth I have pressed. Because I have
loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die. I have kissed young love on the lips, I've heard her song
to the end, I have struck my hand like a seal in the loyal hand of a friend. I have known the piece
of heaven, the comfort of work done well. I have longed for death in the darkness and risen alive
out of hell. Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I give a share of my soul to the world where my course is run. I know that another shall finish the
tasks I must leave undone. I know that no flower, no flint was in vain on the path I trod. As one
looks on a face through a window through life, I have looked on god. Because I have loved life, I
shall have no sorrow to die.
Death is a common part of the experience of all living things. It represents a radical form of
failure-- the failure of the organism. All life moves in a cycle from birth to its end, and the cycle
is a very logical one-- birth, babyhood, childhood, youth, manhood, maturity, old age. But death
is not a part of this cycle.
Death, in some sense, is outside of the cycle, for it may invade the cycle at any particular point-babyhood, childhood, youth, manhood, old age-- death is outside the cycle. Soon or late, than,
every human being must come to grips with the fact of death as a part of his experience of life.
Now, this does not mean that the contemplation of death should bring morbidity. It does not
mean that it is something of necessity that needs to be dreaded. But it is something which has to
be faced.
Therefore, all religions of any kind, however significant they may be, know that they must at
some point, if they are to meet the deepest needs of the human spirit, they must give to the
human spirit some insight, some feeling tone, some preparation for dealing with this fundamental
and basic aspect of life. There are two or three very simple suggestions that I would make about
the meaning of death.
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Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
In the first place, death is something that belongs in the human experience-- and all experience,
whatever the nature of the experience may be, each person is aware that he deals with his
experiences at two levels-- as a participant, as a person who's doing what he is doing, and also as
a person who is observing himself as he does what he is doing. So that this two-fold dimension is
the way in which all human beings relate to the experiences of their lives-- as an observer of
themselves participating in the things that they are doing.
Now, it seems to me all aspects of life, every phase of life in this sense is episodic. It is
something that the individual is experiencing, but no phase of life is capable of containing all
that the individual is. There is a margin left in which the individual as the observer is never
completely involved in the thing that he is doing. Now, death is one of the events in life, and it
belongs in the category of events and the scale of events. And, therefore, even with reference to
death, the individual is a participant in his own death, but there is a sense in which he stands
outside of it.
For the human spirit has the ability to detach itself from the body. Now, this means, then, that
death is something that takes place in life. There is a sense, you see, in which life and death are
twins, are aspects of something larger that we call life. But, unfortunately, we must use the same
word. So that there is a sense in which life and death are one. There is a sense in which life
contains both life and death.
Therefore, death is a thing which happens not to life, but which happens in life. It is an
experience in life, but there is a sense in which a man knows that something within him is never
quite penetrated, never quite touched, never quite involved in the experience which he is going
through. Therefore, all religions insist, then, that which is most fundamentally representative of
the human spirit is that which transcends both time and space, transcends all events. And it is this
dimension that is eternal, and it is this fulfillment through which human life goes that causes
them to feel that they are experiencing eternal life.
Because I have loved life in this sense, then, I shall have no sorrow to die.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and Divine Redeemer.
5
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Dublin Core
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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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Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-770.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Country of the Heart; Death - A Part of Life (ET-10; GC 11-19-71), 1971 Nov 19
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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394-770
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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The Country of the Heart (1963-09-20); Death - A Part of Life (1961-05-12)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1963-09-20
1961-05-12
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from Jane Steger's "Leaves from a Secret Journal." He attempts makes sense of the makeup of one's own life through the lens of ecology and biology. Using examples such as trees and DNA, Thurman explores the depths of the "order" of human existence.
n this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman draws upon a parable of two leaves at the end of the Fall season. The two leaves are in conversation with one another, pondering questions of why they must die and who will take their place when they die. After reading this parable, Thurman reflects upon the ways in which all of creation's lived experience participates in death; rendering death as an event that happens in one's life, not something that happens to oneself.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
A Song of Living
angels
biology
chaos
coding
common experience
completion
confidence
constitution
creativity
ecology
epistemology
experience
Jane Steger
journey
leaves
leaves from a secret journal
life
North Carolina
Oak Tree
parable
peace
personality
pigs
Sargasso Sea
seasons
snakes
transcendence
tree
urge of life
Virginia
working paper
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/b54a426e10606ee9e558a1bf60a7d1bd.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711641000&Signature=g7HlB1elr35RStK6ySfZgFbSreQ%3D
b23515ab06b72160012b5d49a266759b
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-767.mp3
This is tape number ET5 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled, "The Child and Religious Meaning."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[CHURCH BELLS CHIMING]
[INAUDIBLE].
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
For many years, I have used the thing that I am about to read now as the important element in the
dedication services that are held in connection with the dedication of children, particularly
babies. And I want to read it and make one or two simple comments about it.
"Thus a child learns, by wiggling skills through his fingers and toes and to himself, by soaking
up habits and attitudes of those around him, by pushing and pulling his own world. Thus a child
learns, more through trial than error, more through pleasure than pain, more through experience
than suggestion, more through suggestion than direction. Thus a child learns, through affection,
through love, through patience, through understanding, through belonging, through doing,
through being.
Day by day your child comes to know a little bit of what you know, to think a little bit of what
you think, to understand your understanding, that which you dream and believe and are in truth
becomes your child. As you perceive clearly or dully, as you think fuzzily or sharply, as you
believe foolishly or wisely, as you dream drably or goldenly, as you are unworthy or sincere,
thus your child learns."
And then, "I am the child. All the world waits for my coming. All the earth watches with interest
to see what I shall become. Civilization hangs in the balance. For what I am, the world of
tomorrow will be. I am the child. I have come into your world, about which I know nothing.
Why I came, I know not. How I came, I know not.
I'm curious. I'm interested. I am the child. You hold in your hand my destiny. You determine
largely whether I shall succeed or fail. Give me, I pray you, those things that make for happiness.
Train me, I beg you, that I may be a blessing to the world."
"The truth of God shall be upon thy heart, and thou shalt teach them to thy children, and shall
talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest in the way, and when thou
liest down, and when thou risest up. Train your child in the way he should go. And even when he
is old, he will not depart from it."
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Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
In presenting your child for dedication to God, you acknowledge your responsibility to your
generation and to future generations to see to it that his life will have a free chance to be a
blessing, and not a bane. You will develop and keep alive in him a sturdy confidence in the truth,
positive faith in life, and an abiding trust in God. You will not lie to your child, nor deceive your
child, so that under all circumstances, your child may depend upon the integrity of his mother
and his father.
And then there follows these words, I dedicate you to God, and to the fulfillment of your life in
the religious faith and tradition of your mother and your father. May it be said of you, as it was
said of the baby Jesus long ago, that you increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with
God and man, so that all who come to know you in the days ahead will find in you a benediction
breathing peace.
Now it is very important, I think, that children should grow up in the religious faith and tradition
of their parents, in order that the roots in which the family's life is sustained and by which it is
nurtured can be available as resources for the child. This is not to say that when the child
matures, when the child rounds out his development, and goes on his way with all of life opening
out before him in many of its splendors and many of its disillusionments, that he will not want to
make the authentic decision for himself. He will not want to say yes to this or no to that. I think
this is important.
But the most crucial thing, it seems to me, is for the child to have a sense of being rooted, being
grounded in some kind of holding tradition, so that when he is ready to deal creatively and
effectively with what, to him, will be increasingly the meaning of life, when he is ready to
project the lines along which he expects to live his life, he will have a sense first of being at
home somewhere, being grounded in something. So that when he moves, he moves from
something that has contained him, has steadied him, has given to his organism, as it were, the
same kind of rhythmic beat that sustained his mother and his father through the generations.
For I believe, you see, that a man cannot be at home anywhere, anywhere, unless he is at home
somewhere, standing from within the context of belonging. He can project himself into the
unexplored, into the unknown. And feel his way always having a kind of monitor, which will not
be a judge, but will provide perspective in the light of which he can define the movements of his
life.
Very simply put, if you were moving your furniture from one home to another, and if the movers
brought all the furniture that is to go into the living room, and put it in the middle of the floor,
and then you came in to arrange it, it would mean that you would have to set the furniture up in
some kind of order. And then decide what is the order that will be satisfactory to you. You look
at this chair, said, oh no, that chair doesn't belong there, but belongs over here. Or the divan
doesn't belong there, but it belongs at this place. In other words, if you have an order to start
with, then standing within that order, you are able to determine what, for you, is the authentic
order.
But if you have no order out of which you are trying to make order, then you must make some
order out of the chaos. And then from that order that you make out of the chaos, fashion an order
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that is more in keeping with your heart's desire. And again and again, we find that there isn't
perhaps enough concern, enough energy, enough vitality, in order to make all of these steps.
Therefore it seems to me that the birthright that every child is entitled to have is a context of
religious meaning that will define for him what it is that he is seeking and where he may find it.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET5, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, "Our Children Are Not Things."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart. It is in order to think about children and our
relationship to them. Often we underestimate both our influence and our responsibility with
reference to children because they do not seem to be mindful of our presence, except in terms of
something to resist. The world of the adult is in some ways a different world from that of a child.
We bring to bear upon life the cumulative judgment garnered from our years of living of trial and
error, of many, many discoveries along the way.
It is from that kind of context that we judge the behavior of children. But they have not lived.
And there is much that can be known and understood only from the harvest of the years. This
fact should not blind us to the profound way in which we determine, even in detail, the attitudes
and the very structure of the child's thought. If we are good to the child, and to other people, he
will get from us directly a conception of goodness more profound and significant than all the
words we may use about goodness as an ideal.
If we lose our temper and give way to hard, brittle words which we fling around and about, the
child learns more profoundly and significantly than all the formal teaching about self-control
which may be offered him. If we love a child, and the child senses from our relationship with
others that we love them, he will get a concept of love that all the subsequent hatred in the world
will never be quite able to destroy. It is idle to teach the child formerly about respect for other
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people or other groups, if in little ways we demonstrate that we have no authentic respect for
other people and other groups.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The feeling, tone, and insight of the child are apt to be unerring. It is not important whether the
child is able to comprehend the words we use, or understand the ideas that we make articulate.
The child draws his meaning from the meaning which we put into things that we do and say. Let
us not be deceived. We may incorporate in our formal planning all kinds of ideas for the benefit
of the children. We may provide them with tools of various kinds. But if there is not genuineness
in our climate, if in little ways we regard them as nuisances, as irritations, as things in the way of
our pursuits, they will know that we do not love them, and that our religion has no contagion for
them.
Let us gather around our children and give to them the security that can come only from
associating with adults who mean what they say and who share in deeds, which are broadcast in
words. It is in order to make the first casual comment about how we relate to children to say that
so often the most fundamental relatedness to the child is an unconscious one. We are functioning
all the time as adults, creating a climate in which our children live, from which they get
important clues as to what things mean.
A child can gather so much more from the tone of our voice, or from what we do with our eyes,
when we are saying our thing, than from all the formal words that we may utter directly to the
child, which words, as they move from our lips, have as their purpose the shaping of an image
and the mind of the child. No, the image again and again is shaped almost unconsciously. The
child absorbs it from the environment.
We may say all of the words that we can conjure up about how wonderful it is to have respect for
other people and to love people, or even to love someone who is close at hand. But if the child
sees the deed, if the child is present when the sharp word is given, if the child is there when the
conversation goes on behind the other person's back, all of this goes into the shaping of the
inward parts of the mind and the spirit of the child. I learned so much more about prayer, for
instance, from my mother than any of the words that she ever used in teaching me little prayers,
or in teaching me to pray by something that I saw one night when I rushed into her room, and
was so excited that I forgot my manners and did not knock at the door beforehand. I simply burst
into the room.
And there she was kneeling beside her bed in prayer. And the moonlight came through the
window across her face. And what I saw in her face said to me about the inner meaning of the
prayer experience what all the teaching in the world could never have said. Now over and above
these unconscious teachings, and these unconscious influences, something must be said about the
direct and the conscious thing that is done. For instance, it is of absolute and-- how shall I [? say
it?-- ?] crucial importance that we do not ever lie to our children.
So that the child knows that even though his words may be weak, his words may be full of
mixtures of fantasy and fancy and imaginings, all of the things that come out of the magic of the
child's mind, but if he knows that when his mother speaks, or when his father utters the word,
that this is dependable, that this is the truth, so that the child has something against which he can
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put all of the pressure of his life, of his days, of his energies, and not feel that this thing gives,
that here is something that is dependable.
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The night may come, and the night may be long, and the night may be dark. And the next day, it
may be raining. Or the child may have a sore toe, or a sore foot. Or he may be disappointed
because of this thing or the other thing. But always back in the shadows of his mind is the deep,
rock-like confidence that my father is true. My mother is true. And what my mother says or what
my father says can be depended upon. And this provides an emotional security that in my
judgment, at any rate, is as profound and as stabilizing as the emotional security about which we
hear so much that comes from tender loving care, and from being regarded kindly and tenderly
and graciously by the parents.
The child wants to know consciously and unconsciously that there is something upon which he
can depend that has solidity, that against which he can put all of his tantrums, and all of his
pressures, and all of his little anxieties. And this thing holds. And this he gets directly from his
mother and his father, so that their words are yes and no. And when they speak, the child knows
that he is standing in the presence of that which is dependable. And it is this that gives him his
clue as to what God means in the world.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
The preceding was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
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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/394-767.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
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Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
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The Children and Religious Meaning; Our Children Are Not Things (ET-5; GC 11-16-71), 1971 Nov 16
Time Period
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1960s
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-767
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Thurman, Howard
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The Child and Religious Meaning (1964-01-24); Our Children Are Not Our Things (1963-11-01)
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1964-01-24
1963-11-01
Description
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In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman utilizes Frederick J. Moffitt's "Thus A Child Learns," as a point of departure for his liturgy for the devotion of a child. Thurman notes that it is the "birthright" of every child to be given the tools "define for them what it is that they are seeking and where they may find it."
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects from his text, "Meditations of the Heart," to "think about children and our relationship to them." Throughout this meditation, Thurman explores the ways in which adults should listen to, teach, and learn from children.
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Dustin Mailman
behavior
belonging
children
community
creativity
curiosity
dedication
dependability
development
developmental psychology
divan
experience
faith
family
Frederick J. Moffitt
furniture
genuine
goodness
habits
home
imagination
influence
intention
learning
life
love
meditations of the heart
moonlight
prayer
relationship
responsibility
self-control
teaching
Thus a Child Learns
tone
tradition
vitality
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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-654_A.mp3
[ORGAN MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[CHORAL SINGING]
It is no ordinary experience to withdraw from the traffic and involvements of our common life,
to sit together in the quietness of the sanctuary, each one of us with his own world of thoughts
and desires, the hopes, and dreams, and fears. It is good to confess in the quietness whatever
there is within us that cries out for confession and to feel in the act of confession that he who
hears and judges also understands and loves.
It is no ordinary thing to be free enough within to confess even to God that which cries out for
confession. It is wonderful beyond measure to be able to share the stirrings of thanksgiving
which we feel and to do this, each one in his own way, with the kind of confidence that makes it
unnecessary to custom make the language that we use, but to be able to say thanks to God with
no necessity for trying to impress Him with our thoughtfulness or to store up some form of merit
that will plead our case at other times when gratitude is lacking and Thanksgiving is far
removed.
It is it is no ordinary thing simply to say to Thee, oh, God, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank
you so very much, our Father.
[ORGAN MUSIC PLAYING]
Three times I've seen an ox driving to pull a heavily-loaded wagon up a hill, the blood and form
streaming from its mouth and nostrils as it struggles. And I've seen it fall dead under the lash.
In the bush and the cliff below, I've seen bushbucks and little long-tail monkeys that I love so
shot dead-- not from any necessity, but for the pleasure of killing. And the [INAUDIBLE], and
the honeysuckles, and the wood doves that made the bush so beautiful to me.
And sometimes, I've seen bands of convicts going past to work on the road and have heard the
chains clanking which went around their waists and passed between their legs to the irons on
their feet. I had seen the terrible look in their eyes of a wild creature when every man's hand is
against it, and no one loves it, and it only hates and fears.
I've gotten up early in the morning to drop small bits of tobacco at the roadside, hoping that they
would find them and pick them up. I had wanted to say to them, someone loves you, but the man
with the gun was always there. I had wanted to say this, but I did not dare.
Once I'd seen a pack of dogs set on by men to attack a strange dog that had come among them
and had done no harm to anyone. I'd watched it torn to pieces though I had done all I could to
save it.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Why did everyone press on everyone and try to make him do what he wanted? Why did the
strong crush the weak? Why do we hate, and kill, and torture? Why was life as it is? Why was I
ever born?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
I had a strange experience today that results in my plan. I had worked with a great deal of care
and discipline to isolate what it was that was in my heart and spirit to say about William Blake
and was about ready.
I listened to the 8:00 news for these things. I don't usually do it on Sunday morning, but I did this
morning. And I heard first about the epidemic of smallpox in Pakistan, and then the mass for the
burial of 3,000 or more people who were killed in the avalanche, and then that group of Muslim
men and a little child that was sitting on the sidewalk drinking coffee and all mowed down by
machine guns from a passing automobile, and suddenly, all that I had been thinking about Blake
seemed to disintegrate. And my mind began thinking about life and the reverence for life and
Albert Schweitzer, for some strange reason.
So what I want to do in the time that I have is talk about that. I've had for a long time a very great
admiration-- admiration is the wrong word, but a great feeling of quiet joy in the fact of the
existence of a man on our planet like Albert Schweitzer, and yet, I have had my problems in
thinking about him.
But this morning, as my mind began touching him, I could see him walking across the square in
his little town and being thunderstruck and convicted by the statue in the park of this European
and the African, half naked, standing, looking up in the European's face with a certain sense of
pleading and anguish, and how by the strange movement of the spirit of God in his life, he gave
up one aspect of fulfillment for himself and moved out into the heart of Africa with the amazing
and stupendous undertaking to try as one European to atone for all of the violence of all the
Europeans on the African continent-- and how I first heard about him.
My mind went back to that. I was sitting in my college dormitory, and I was reading On the Edge
of the Primeval Forest, and I read this. And then how incensed I was that over and over again he
regarded these Africans as children. And the phrase occurred here and there, and I didn't know
what to do with this, because I was living in an environment in which even though a man was 75
years old, he was regarded as a child, and I recoiled against it.
And then I began to see how it belonged to a pattern of thinking. I remembered the British
bishop, Bishop Colenso, who was translating the Old Testament particularly out of the
Pentateuch into the Zulu language. And he had a rather intelligent Zulu working with him on the
translation, and they came to the account of Noah and the ark, and all the animals.
And this Zulu man said to Bishop Colenso, do you mean to tell me that there were animals from
cool climates and hot climates, animals that lived in the water, animals that lived on land, all
coming into this ark at the same time? How do they get along?
And then Bishop Colenso, who had been wrestling with a new theory of the origin and the
composition of the Pentateuch, but had kept it under a bushel, because he did not want to incur
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Transcription
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the wrath of the Anglican church, but he bowed his hand, and he said in reply to the Zulu's
request, should the man of God tell a lie to a child?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And I began to feel that this notion of the children was a cultural thing that I must not take
personally, and yet, as I watched through the years, this has been a blind spot. I think this is,
perhaps, the reason why all the years of the work of this tremendous man for whom I have the
kind of reverence that I have for a few human beings in the world, in a sense-- why at the
twilight of his life there is no great group of Africans who have come up under his tutelage and
who are prepared to carry on the work of healing.
If I, as a father, find it so difficult for me ever to realize that my children are no longer children,
how hard it must be for a man who regards men and women as children ever to shift. But this
must not blind me to the thing that stirred me this morning, and that is the insight which led him
to go to Africa, that flowered finally, and the phrase with which his life is identified, reverence
for life, the recognition of the will to live as manifests in all aspects of life, including the
individual person who experiences it.
And that life seems to be in a grim conflict with itself. That life lives by consuming itself, and
this, of course, may be the raw material out of which the spiritual insight, which has to do with
life everlasting, life eternal, may be grounded. I'm not sure. That life consumes life, and
therefore, life does not die. Individuals die. Manifestations of life die, but life does not die,
because life consumes its vitality over and over again.
And yet, when men become conscious of this, their own experience of life in themselves-- when
they become aware, personally aware, of what Schweitzer calls the will to live, then this
awareness of what is moving through them tempers their attitude towards themselves, and it
enables them always constantly to be working to try to further, and to develop, and to make
wider, the levels of consciousness of this will to live. And as it moves out with regard to other
manifestations of life, then the problem becomes more acute and more terrifying, doesn't it?
I want to reveal life. I want to put my-- how to say this-- my humanness, yes, my humanness, at
the disposal of any trapped life that's trying to extricate itself from that which threatens and
destroys.
And the thing that shocked me this morning as I listened to this broadcast was the fact that
without ever realizing it, my own heart had hardened in a way that frightened me. I found that I
wasn't moved except as to my mind by the spectacle of 1,400 people dying from smallpox, or
3,000 people buried by an avalanche, or eight or nine people mowed down by machine guns. I
had detachment with reference to this, as if either they were no longer part of the human race or I
was not a part of the human race.
But as I began to work myself back into some area of tenderness and sensitiveness, the whole
world of meaning of the thing that was threatening the very grounds of my own spiritual integrity
burst wide open. How can I put my life at the disposal of all the life that is trapped around it?
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Transcription
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How can my will to live make common cause with the will to live of the person in my world to
whose needs are exposed to me? How can I do this without drawing a line somewhere in order
that I myself may not be destroyed?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And I begin to feel then that the identification of my life, my humaneness, with the needs of
other forms of lives and human life may ultimately cause me to make the great decision that the
most significant thing that I can do to maintain and further life is to give up my own life. Then I
began to think further about all the other forms of life that are not human, and what right do I
have to take them. All the thousands, and thousands, and thousands of animals, because of the
far-reaching experimentations that have been done on them, I am able to enjoy a certain amount
of health now that would not have been true if this had not been done.
Is there any mood-- what I'm getting at-- is there any mood that will grow out of my own sense
of reverence for life that will enable me to keep alive and not lose my mind? To keep alive a
writhing, persistent sense of guilt when the necessity is upon me to do the violent thing on behalf
of some larger good that may be redemptive to a larger section of life? To keep alive my sense of
guilt and involvement in all the trapped life at all the levels and perhaps in order that I may be
able to respond to the trapped life at the human level?
I remember reading some years ago a statement [INAUDIBLE] biography in which she felt that
Christianity had somehow misunderstood one of the most important insights of Jesus, that
reverence for life, for human life, that kind of imperative that comes from that, this is rooted in
reverence for all of life, for the sparrow that falls by the roadside, for this or that, for the grass,
for the flowers. And she said that if human beings do not have a sense of guilt for the destruction
of so-called subhuman forms of life, then the way is open for them to have no guilt for the
destruction of human life.
For she says, if I say to myself I will kill this rattlesnake, because the rattlesnake is dangerous
and is a threat to me, the only thing I need to do is to redefine a man as a rattlesnake, and I can
kill him in the same way. That all I need to do is to define him so that he is no longer in the
human race, in the human family, and then I am free of guilt.
How can I keep alive my sense of guilt without bogging down so that it is always an incentive
that drives me in the widest possible dimensions of my living to seek out fresh ways by which I
may participate in acts of atonement for the redemption of individual life or group life? How can
I keep myself always exorcised that the life in me may not die, but that the life in me will join
through your need to the life in you?
And this little union is one very creative answer to all the aspects of life that are divisive and
destructive. And it may be that this joining of life-- my life and your life-- is an intimation of
what ultimately must be the way and the meaning of life for us all. And the dreamers have talked
about this, haven't they?
You've seen that ad, those of you who look at television, you've seen the ad of some chewing
gum, I believe, or something, of a lion walking down the streets in a town, and he walks into a
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
store, and looks around, and walks into another place. And people are going and coming. He's at
home, and they are at home.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
If this isn't ultimately what life is all about, then as I feel it today, it is better that there be no life- that there be no life. The lion and the lamb together. The child putting his hand over the hole of
an asp, and the asp relaxing its violent intent and not stinging the child.
That a man, by private and collective will and decision and as a result of what pushes up for him
within him, beats his sword into a plow shear and a spear to a pruning hook. I must find at the
level of my little life how I can do this-- that my heart will not get hard and that I may not be
indifferent to the anguish of life, forgive the weakness, redeem even that which we regard as
good, our Father, that we may find our way in to the order of life that will joy Thy spirit and
pleasure Thy mind.
[CHORAL SINGING]
5
�
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-654_A.html" ></iframe>
Location
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Where it says "inaudible" towards the end of the transcription, is the name "Olive Schreiner."
Time Period
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1960s
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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/.
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394-654_A
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Albert Schweitzer (9), 1962 Jan 14
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
Date
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1962-01-14
Description
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This sermon is the ninth of nine in a series of sermons given in Marsh Chapel that are titled "The Inward Journey." In this sermon, it appears that Howard Thurman intended to speak of Albert Schweitzer's work in relation to mysticism and religious experience; however, what we find in this sermon is Thurman reflecting upon the call of the religious leader in a time of societal unrest. He notes that there are two major events happening at this time: smallpox infesting Pakistan, and the murder of numerous Muslim men and children. He uses Albert Schweitzer and Olive Schreiner to reveal the significance of the religious practitioner giving their own life on behalf of those whom are suffering in place of a sermon that was expected (by the original audience) to be about identity, mysticism, and religious experience.
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Described by Dustin Mailman
Africa
Albert Schweitzer
Anglican Church
avalanche
Bishop Colenso
bushbacks
Christianity
cognitive dissonance
contextuality
creativity
current events
ecology
experience
incarceration
Jesus
kenosis
life
meditation
monkeys
murder
Olive Schreiner
On the Edge of the Primeval Forrest
ox
Pakistan
reverence
smallpox
the great decision
tobacco
vitality
William Blake
Zulu