1
10
12
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/0c8834938a0d069c845061021b62f763.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=12h70y1aIEoDPpmHCxsBnKYx6F4%3D
d3e14ccb3b004caefeae9531a0acfe7d
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-811.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.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is my final broadcast until next September. I wish to express my personal appreciation to all
of you who have taken the time to write letters or postal cards, or make telephone calls
expressing appreciation for the weekly broadcasts. I wish for each of you a full, and restful, and
creative summer.
Because tomorrow is Memorial Day, I have chosen to read several poems having to do with
some aspect of this particular celebration. As the overall phrase covering what I shall read, I'm
using two lines from Hermann Hagedorn's poem about the unknown soldier.
And these lines are, we died, but you who live must do a harder thing than dying is. For you
must think, and ghosts shall drive you on. The first thing that I'm reading is from John
Drinkwater's "Abraham Lincoln", and Lincoln is speaking. I beg you not to harass yourself,
ma'am. I too believe war to be wrong. It's the weakness, and the jealousy, and folly of men that
make a thing so wrong possible.
But we are all weak, and jealous, and foolish. That's how the world is and we cannot outstrip the
world. Some of the worst of us are sullen, aggressive, but clumsy and greedy pirates. Some of us
have grown out of that, but the best of us have an instinct to resist aggression if it won't listen to
persuasion. You may say it's a wrong instinct. I don't know. But it's there, and it's there in
millions of good men.
I don't believe it's the wrong instinct I believe that the world must come to wisdom slowly. It is
for us who hate aggression to persuade men always against it and hope that, little by little, they
will hear us. But in the meantime, there will come moments when the aggressors will force the
instinct to resistance to act. Then we must act earnestly, praying always in our courage that never
again will this thing happen.
And then we must turn again and again to persuasion. This appeal to force is the misdeed of an
imperfect world. But we are imperfect. We must strive to purify the world, but we must not think
ourselves pure, above the world. And the next that I shall read is from the Arizona poet of the
desert, Badger Clark. This is about the Civil War.
My father prayed as he drew a bead on the gray coats. Back in those blazing years when the
house was divided. Bless his old heart. There never was truer or kinder, yet he prayed while
hoping the ball from his clumsy old musket might thud to the body of some hot eyed young
southerner and tumble him limp in the mud of the Vicksburg trenches.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
That was my father, serving the Lord and his country, praying and shooting whole heartedly,
never a doubt. But now, what about me in my own day of battle? Could I put my prayers behind
a slim Springfield bullet? Hardly, except to mutter, Jesus, we part here. My country calls for my
body and takes my soul also. Do you see those humans herded and driven against me?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Turn away, Jesus, for I've got to kill them. Why? Oh, well, it's the way of my fathers. And such
evils bring some vast, vague good to my country. I don't know why. But today, my business is
killing. And my gods must be luck and the devil till this thing is over. Leave me now, Lord. Your
eye makes me slack in my duty. My father could mix his prayers with his shooting, and he was a
rare, true man in his generation. Now, I'm fairly decent in mine, I reckon. Yet if I should pray
like him, I'd spoil it by laughing. What is the matter?
And then this by Edna St. Vincent Millay, written when she was a young woman. And as I
understand from an article which I read concerning her many, many months ago, she herself is
alleged to have repented the mood of this poem. Of this fact, I'm not sure, but I state it because I
feel that it should be said. And the poem is called "The Conscientious Objector".
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall. I
hear the clatter on the barn floor. He is in haste. He has business in Cuba, business in the
Balkans. Many calls to make this morning, but I will not hold the bridle while he cinches the
girth. And he may mount by himself. I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flicks my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran. With his
hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp. I shall die, but that
is all that I shall do for death. I am not on his payroll. I will not tell him the whereabouts of my
friends, nor of my enemies either. Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to
any man's door. Am I a spy in the land of the living that I should deliver men to death?
Brother, the past word, and the plans of our city are safe with me. Never through me shall you be
overcome. I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. And finally, this from John Bunyan,
"Mr. Valiant for Truth". After this, it was noised about that Mr. Valiant for Truth was taken with
a summons, and he had this for a token that the summons was true, that his picture was broken at
the fountain.
And then he said, by my sword, I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage. And my
courage and skill to him that can get them, my marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness
for me that I have fought his battles. Who will be my rewarder? I shall die, but this is all that I
shall do for death. I am not on death's payroll.
[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]
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-811.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Selections for Memorial Day (WB-7B), 1964 May 29
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-811
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Selections for Memorial Day (1964-05-29)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1964-05-29
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reads three poems written by various authors speaking to subjects of war, conscientious objection, aggression, and violence. Each of these poems are read as a reflection upon the Memorial Day holiday. The first poem, by John Drinkwater, deals with aggression as it is related to war. The second poem, by Badget Clark, deals with a young man's decision to fight in the Civil War. The third, and final poem, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, speaks to conscientious objection while hiding a black child from people of power. Each of these poems emphasize Thurman's commitment to an anti-war ethic, pacifism, and the religion of Jesus.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
aggression
America
anti-violence
anti-war
Badger Clark
citizenship
civil war
consciousness
death
Edna St. Vincent Millay
evil
Herman Hagedorn
holidays
John Drinkwater
poem
prayer
soul
war
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/4a37f373ea324922bd308dee2291d1f6.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=e0EETmCUvlDXPpQIXi3yyTXFdc4%3D
734cc6e88a3e87dfad370973492178e5
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-787.mp3
This is tape number ET43 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one entitled, "Resistance to the Social Order."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
I'm reading this morning two paragraphs from Olive Shreiner's "From Man to Man." These
words are very appropriate for this season. On that broad road of opposition to law and authority,
along which stream the millions of humanity too low to grasp even the value of laws and
institutions about them, resisting them from an ignorant and blind selfishness which makes them
believe they are improving their own condition by violating them.
There are found walking men of a totally different order-- white robed sons of the gods with the
light on their foreheads, who have left the narrow paths walled in by laws and conventions not
because they were too weak to walk in them or because the goals to which they led were too
high, but because infinitely higher goals and straighter paths were calling to them-- the new
pathfinders of the race. These men, who rise as high above the laws and conventions of their
social world as the mass who violate them fall below, are yet inextricably blended with them in
the stream of souls who walk in the path of resistance to law.
From the monk Telemachus, who, springing into the Roman arena to stop the gladiatorial
conflict, fell violating the laws and conventions of his society-- a criminal, but almost a god. Up
and down all the ages man has been on earth, there have been found these social resisters and
violators of the accepted order-- the saviors and leaders of men on the path to higher forms of
life. It is true that if persistently and with the rigor from which none escaped alive you could in
every land exterminate the resisters of social law, you might at last produce a race on earth in
which even the wish to the power to resist social institutions will have died out.
Your prisons might be empty, your hangman and judges without occupation, but what would you
have done? Seeking to cut out humanity's corns, to remove its cataract, to amputate its diseased
limbs-- your world would have put out its eyes, cut off its tongue, maimed its legs-- unable to see
or move or express, its heart would beat slower and slower and death would come. There is no
net which can be shaped to capture the self-seeking, ignorant violator of law which shall not also
capture in its measures the hero, the prophet, the thinker, the leader, the life of the world.
The year is 1935, the place is a small village in the native state of India called Bardoli. The
setting is a tent in an open field, over which flies the flag of the Indian National Congress. And
in this tent, a small group of people are gathered together-- Mahatma Gandhi, his secretary, two
of his most trusted leaders, and three Americans representing a delegation of friendship to the
students of India, Burma, and Salam.
We had been talking with Mr. Gandhi for 3 and 1/2 hours. At the end, when we were ready to go,
he said, will you do me a very special favor? And, as spokesman for the group, I said, yes, if it is
within our power to do it. He said, I'd like for you to sing a song for me. And I said, I don't sing,
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
but I'll try for you. What song do you want? He said, will you sing, "Were You There When
They Crucified My Lord?"
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Because, he said, I feel that in this spiritual-- and here I speak as a Hindu-- in this song, there is
an insight about Jesus of Nazareth, which has been a source of comfort and inspiration to me
through all the years of my life since I first encountered his life on the pages of the gospel.
We sang the song. And, as we sang, this group of Hindu men sat with their heads bowed and
their hands in the attitude of prayer or greeting. And, when it was over, for some three or four
minutes, there was no sound, only the feeling of the quality of the prayer which was surrounding
us. I have thought about that many times since-- that the experience that is being enunciated or
underscored or felt or talked about all over the Christian world today is an experience that stands
at the center of human life, that transcends the categories of doctrine and dogma and theology,
even the categories of any particular faith.
And that is that society takes two attitudes which really, in some, are one attitude towards two
groups of people with which it has to do. Those who violate the law, who stand over against the
established order, and who feel that the things that they do represent their strength as contrasted
with the weakness of the order by which they are surrounded-- they regard the whole order as
their enemy. And anything that they can do in order to level things out, they are under some
judgment to do.
And we classify these people as criminals-- as people who have no respect for law and order.
They are positive and destructive. And over against them, or along beside them, there is another
group of people who also are violators of the law, but they transcend the law. They are always
thinking about a time when the contradictions of the society by which they are surrounded will
be wiped out. They're thinking of a time when all of the tensions by which men are surrounded-tensions created by their collective arrogances and bitterness and hostilities-- will be resolved.
And they stand out on the horizon and, each is a threat to the society, so that the society tries to
lift the valleys-- to fill it in so that these people who are regarded as anti-social in that sense will
be lifted up to a sense of community. And it also tries to scale down the peaks-- those people
who are always on the horizon pointing to a better day whose judgment stands over against the
society. Now, these are the two.
So along beside the very good man who is being killed by his society because he disturbs the
conscience and makes the mind uneasy and jolts the spirit and gives to the society a sense of
collective guilt-- and those who are the reckless violators of all the decencies of life-- and a man
must make up his mind. And this is the meaning of today, in essence.
A man must make up his mind the things for which he is willing and able to stand with his life
and the thing against which he is willing and able to stand. And when he makes up his mind and
takes his position, he must be prepared to absorb all the violences that will be poured out upon
him because of his position. It is then that he discovers one of the most important and intimate
secrets about human life-- and that is that death is not the worst thing in the world.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
There are some things in life that are worse than death, and one of those things is to be unwilling
and unable-- because of fear or because of weakness-- to stand by the thing which you know to
be true and right, and to take the consequences for it. For, if a man does not do that-- if he is
unwilling to do that, then something within him begins to disintegrate, and his very heart begins
to rot.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
For what do you stand, really? And are you willing to back the thing for which you stand with
your mind, with your heart, with your resources, with your life? If you are, you join the great
army of those who stand as the pathfinders and in the ranks of those who are the redeemers of
the world.
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 ET43 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, "Self Realization and Acceptance."
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
I'm reading from "The Inward Journey." Fierce, indeed, is the grip by which we hold on to our
lives as our private possession. The struggle to achieve some sense of individuality in the midst
of other people and other things is very grim. We are always surrounded by persons, forces, and
objects which lay siege to us and seek to make of us means to their ends-- or at least to their
fulfillment. The demand is ever present to distinguish between the self and not self.
There are moments of enthusiasm when with mounting excitement, we absorb ourselves in
something beyond ourselves. But, after this happens, we fight at length to get back home to come
again into the familiar place-- to be secure and our own boundaries. Again and again, the process
repeats itself, wearing down the walls that shut us in. Of course, a man may, by early resolution,
frustration, or bitter experience, withdraw more and more from all involvement.
By this process, he seeks to immunize himself against hurts, and from what seems to be certain
disaster. Behold such a man-- his spirit shrinks, his mind becomes ingrown, his imagination turns
inward. The walls surrounding him become so thick, that deep within he is threatened with
isolation. This is the threat of death. Sometimes his spirit breaks out in reverse by giving voices
to inward impulses, thus establishing by the sheer will to survival a therapy for the corrosion of
his spirit.
For all of this, religion has a searching word. Deep within are the issues of life, it says. The rule
of God is within, it says. If thou hast known the things which belong unto thy peace, it says,
there is a surrender of the life that redeems, purifies, and makes whole. Every surrender to a
particular person, event, circumstance, or activity is but a token surrender-- the temporary
settling of the life in limited security.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
These are not to be ignored, but they are all passing and transitory. They end in tightening the
wall of isolation around the spirit. They are too narrow, too limited, and, finally, unworthy. The
surrender must be to something big enough to absolve one from the little way and the meager
demand. There can be no tranquility for the spirit unless it has found something about which to
be tranquil. The need for a sense of peace beyond all conflict can be met only by something that
gathers up into itself all meaning and all value.
It is the claim of religion that this is found only in God. The paths to him vary, but the goal is
one. One of the contributions of which we are aware as coming from modern sociology is the
notion that we are not born human-- that we become human in a human situation. It is in the
moment when the individual finally is able to distinguish not merely between the self and the not
self-- between the this and the that-- but when he is able to see in the not self, which is maybe his
mother, his nurse, or his sister or brother, to see himself and to discover himself in the other
person-- as if he moved quite without awareness or without self consciousness, as it were, into
the life of the person closest to him.
And then, standing there, looks back upon himself and says, oh, that is I. Now, this is the
process-- so that we need each other in order that we may be ourselves. This idea that the human
spirit can abide functioning in isolation is one of the great delusions. We cannot abide isolation.
Even when we become emotionally disturbed so that more and more we withdraw from life and
there is what may be regarded as a kind of inward turning of the mind and the gazing of the self
on the inward parts-- so much so that there is no contact with the outer world-- no contact with
other human beings.
And the phrase that is used is that the person has withdrawn from reality. The person has
somehow, because of his malady, has become disassociated from the external factors in his
environment which confirm him. Now when this happens, and all the doors of the cells seem to
be completely closed and sealed, then a miracle takes place. Deep within the psyche of the
individual, a therapy begins to move. And what happens? The individual hears voices. This
keeps him somehow in communication.
Even though he's out of contact with all reality and out of contact with every other person, and
he's all pulled within himself-- when he gets deep in the center of himself, here he hears voices.
And these voices establish what? Establish a sense of community for the sick psyche. And, if this
keeps on and if this holds its place until at last these voices can be stilled by the sounds of voices
that are outside of him, he is cured.
Now, we cannot abide in isolation. I remember when my younger daughter was a baby and she
decided one day that she would express her hostility towards my sister by hitting or doing
something. And my sister did not respond in any way, she just looked at her and took it. And
then my daughter became almost hysterical. She said, why don't you fight me back? Why don't
you hit me? Why don't you do something to let me know that you know that I'm here?
For, if you let me know that you know that I am here then, in that knowledge which you have, I
can find the clue to the knowledge of myself. We cannot abide isolation. We must find ways to
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
break down the barriers that shut us in, because we need the acceptance of the other in order that
we may be able, at last, to accept ourselves.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is the word of religion that this is how God relates to man-- as one of the wonderful minds
of the past expressed it-- thou hast made us for thy self, and our souls are restless till they find
their rest on thee. And, in fact, it may be that the Greek god himself cannot abide the splendid
austerity of isolation. And it may be that in order for God to be God in his world, he must come
to himself in me and in you and in others.
And when he comes to himself in me, then it means, at last, that I can find my way into the
meaning of myself in him. We cannot abide isolation. We are made for each other. We are made
for community. We are made for God, and I cannot be what I must be without him, and he
without me.
Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
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
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-787.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Resistance to the Social Order; Self-realization in Acceptance (ET-43; GC 11-30-71), 1971 Nov 30
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-787
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Resistance to the Social Order (1962-04-20); Self Realization and Acceptance (1963-11-08)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1962-04-20
1963-11-08
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reflects upon Olive Schreiner's "From Man to Man," and his time spent with Gandhi. Each of these reflections speak to Thurman's conception of truth, namely, what happens when one is forced to reject truth. For Thurman, justice, resistance, prosperity, etc. all find themselves hubbed in a longing for the truth to be manifested.
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads and reflects from his work, "The Inward Journey." He notes that all of humanity is on a journey towards God, and that on this journey one cannot travel alone. He notes that one can never abide when experiencing isolation. It is through one another that one finds themselves and God, and vice-a-versa.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
Bardoli
death
development
From Man to Man
Gandhi
George Cross
heart
Hinduism
inclusivism
India
individuality
Isolation
justice
life
mysticism
odyssey
Olive Schreiner
oppression
personalism
prayer
process
prosperity
protest
reality
resistance
satyagraha
spirituals
Telemachus
The Inward Journey
truth
universalism
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/126feedc34953a5d951582c730b8dd5d.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=gmPHC8Pe%2B4Qt1%2BAVxeAuZT3nX%2FE%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
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
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
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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-
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
- 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
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-781.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
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-781
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Creative Order in Life (1963-09-27); The Great Exposure (1963-02-15)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963-09-27
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.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
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
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/2feeea58befe91d124a3c7e6ec31cbb6.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=lmhP2lf6v0x6P7%2BZP0d5JBr3Cbw%3D
f2fc60f3ddf32b043751160c54757c72
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-774.mp3
This is tape number ET 17 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1 entitled, The Intentional Life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYS]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, o Lord, my
strength, and my redeemer.
I'm reading from The Inward Journey. For whatsoever plans I shall devise for my own peace, my
life cannot be without war and affliction. It is natural to have a plan for one's life. The mind is
always trying to make sense out of experience.
This is true even when that does not seem to be a pattern or plan on the basis of which an
individual lives his life. There are some people who by temperament are so orderly that no action
is contemplated by them in the absence of a well-defined plan. If such a person is making a
simple journey, careful attention is given to every detail of schedule and of events in which he is
likely to be involved. For him, each day is ordered between the hours of waking and of sleeping.
There are others for whom planning comes hard. They put off every detail until the last minute
and move through life in a kind of breathless confusion. They depend upon chance and the
particular circumstance to determine what must or must not be done. There is a sense in which
their lives are lived in a state of extended crisis.
But whether one falls into one of the other category or somewhere in between, there is a sense in
which one's life moves within the structure of pattern and plan. Particularly this is true of one's
life as a whole. There are things that one finds meaningful and things that one likes or dislikes.
There are goals that are kept before one-- vocation, personal, fulfillment, and family life, status,
position, prestige, or the like.
In such contemplation of goals, there is a normal tendency to exclude the things that would make
for conflict and turmoil and to include the things that will make for peace and tranquility.
Thomas a Kempis reminds us that it is the nature of life and man's experience in life that there be
what he calls war and affliction. This is not a note of pessimism and futility. It is rather a
recognition that conflict is a part of the life process.
Whatever may be the plan which one has for one's life, one must win the right to achieve it.
Again and again in the struggle a man may experience failure, but he must know for himself that
even though such is his experience the final word has not been spoken. Included in his plan must
be not only the possibility of failure, but also the fact that he will not escape struggle, and
conflict, and war. Mr. Valiant For Truth in Pilgrim's Progress says, "my sword I give to him that
shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks
and my scars I carry with me to be a witness for me that I have fought his battle who will be my
rewarder."
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is a very commonplace remark to say that life has to be intentionally lived on the basis of plan
and order. Sometimes this seems to be untrue as far as our observation of a particular person is
concerned. But whether or not we are aware of the precise order on the basis of which we are
living, whether or not we are aware of the particular goal that provides a point of other than self
reference around which our life revolves, the fact remains that at the profoundest level of our
living there is always at work a very well-defined pattern trend drift which is made up of a series
of choices sometimes deliberately undertaken, sometimes quite unconsciously arrived at.
But nevertheless, a man's life is made up in its profoundest aspects of a cycling series of small
patterns which become a design, and these patterns very often are determinative of the kind of
future which one has. This means, then, that failure is a very important aspect of living. An
individual who finds that as he stands on the threshold of some moment of fulfillment or when
he feels that he is at last coming into his own and then suddenly everything goes wrong-- he
misses a turn in the road, or something of that sort.
When this happens, the individual becomes painfully aware that his failure may be due to some
moment of inattention on his part, something that breaks down within him, but with reference to
which he has a very sustained responsibility. Sometimes the failure may be due to the operation
of forces that are not under the control of the individual. There is, of course, a sense in which we
are victims of circumstances. There is a sense in which we are so involved in the operation of
impersonal forces that determine, often in detail, how we will perform, how we will behave,
what we will do. And we find that this takes place even as we watch it in a manner that is
powerless to alter.
Now in this sense, then, it seems to me that failure may result from the operation of forces over
which we are unable to exercise any control and the peculiar quality of our responsibilities shifts.
In the first instance, our failure was due to a breakdown of responsibility on our own part. We
were unable to take the full orb responsibility for the particular act because of some moment of
variation or some moment that caused us to be deflected from our goal and our purpose.
But this is another kind where I have done all that I can do and I know that I have done my very
best, and yet beyond my power to determine or control, things happen, events seem to move in
and push me around. Now when this happens, then I must be very careful to be aware of one
important insight. And that is that again and again there may be-- and mark my words, I say that
there may be-- a radical distinction between failure on the one hand and being mistaken in the
thing that I am undertaking, being mistaken in the thing that I am trying to do.
Now, this may seem like a subtle distinction, or it may seem like a splitting of hairs. But it is a
very authentic aspect of man's experience. Let me repeat it, that failure may be something which
I must hold in mind as being a part of my experience precipitated by incidents, persons, forces
that are not responsive to my mind, and responsive to my desires, and responsive to my will.
Now, when this happens I must not read into the quality of my intent I must not read into the
integrity of my own purpose this failure. I must keep a clear distinction between the integrity of
my intent, the clarity of the vision or the goal that is before me and the failure to achieve it or to
accomplish it.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
The distinction, then, between failure on the one hand and being mistaken on the other is a very
important and crucial distinction. And then it is important to remember that ultimately, the
responsibility for living my life on the basis of some kind of intent, some kind of plan is my
responsibility. And it doesn't matter how much of life I have before me or how little. There is a
quantity of responsible integrity that always is mine.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
If I have only one day, it is my responsibility to put into that day as much of my intention, as
much of my purpose, as much of my planning as I am able to muster. If I don't, then it means
that I drift through the day and I must live the day anyway. And therefore, I should so live that at
the end of a day-- and any day may be my last day-- at the end of a day, I can say as I assess it,
this day I put into my actions, I put into the hours clear intent, clear purpose. Whether I was able
to fulfill the purpose or fulfill the intent or not.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my redeemer.
This is tape no ET 17 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side two entitled, Life is a River.
[MUSIC PLAYS]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
The contemporary poet Langston Hughes has written a poem which he calls Rivers. "I've known
rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has
grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut
near the Congo, and it lulled me to sleep. I saw the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to
New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers-ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers."
It is a very convenient and, I think, rather universal way of contemplating the meaning of life, by
thinking of it in terms of a river, in terms of the meaning of a river. Of course, it is not an
absolute thing that analogies will be altogether accurate, but there is to be found an insight here.
If we think of life itself as being like a river, a river has a very simple beginning.
The Mississippi River, for instance, begins in some quiet, snowy cove in the northwestern part of
the United States. It moves down across the broad expanse of the continent, growing in depth,
and breadth, and in turbulence, gathering along its way many tributaries, a wide variety of
substances until at last it empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico and then to the sea-- the far off
call all waters hear. This is the way of the river.
Human life is the same way. Your life, my life began very simply, and then after a period there
was a great eruption and we were born. And then the process of simplicity started over again, but
not quite as elemental as before. And as we grew in years, our lives became more involved in the
experiences of living, the raw materials by which we were surrounded beat in upon us, and we
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
brooded over the stuff of these raw materials shaping always that which will become ourselves.
Until at last we, too, come to the end.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The depth, the breadth, the turbulence-- these are a part of the experience of man even as they are
part of the experience, and the development, and the unfolding of the river. The analogy is
complete in the second instance because a river has storms, has times of turbulence, times of
drought. There are times when it seems that the tranquil behavior of the river has been forgotten,
winds blow, squalls come. The river becomes one turbulent monster, reckless of all
consequences, blind to good and evil.
It moves on its relentless way. It is the storm of the river. And one watching this behavior of the
river would find it hard to remember that the river ordinarily moves along with calmness and
with a dispatch bearing on its bosom traffic of ship and boat, always working, as it would seem,
for the fulfillment, and the nourishment, and the sustenance of man.
But when the storm comes, all of that is temporarily forgotten. My life and your life are this way.
We are moving along day by day, quietly attending to our business, going through the
established routine or pattern of our days, loving our friends, reacting in various ways to those
who are not our friends, pursuing our limited goals or walking in the light of our far off visions.
This is the way of life.
And then sometimes without notice, without any warning, a vast shadow crosses the path. Health
becomes sickness suddenly. Death moves in and takes from the circle someone to whom one
long and happy adjustment has been made over many years. It is the time of storm and stress of
the river.
At such times, men wrestle with the depths of their agony and their suffering, and it is then that
they are liable to think and to feel that this, after all, is what life means. That there is no God,
there is no such thing as good, but life is a skinning-- a grinning skull and crossbones, having no
meaning, fulfilling no purpose, involving the individual in its impersonal maneuvering as if the
individual were just a puppet in the hands of some kind of monster.
This is the flood time of the river. And when that comes, one forgets about the more tranquil
times. One tends to forget about the meanings which one sensed about life and the waters were
quiet. When one had a long stretch of time in which to move gently into the process of living and
experiencing.
But it is of the essence of the flood time in the life of man to remember what he experienced
when there was no flood time. It is the sense of peace and tranquility which is a man's when he is
not in the flood time that may hold him to his course when the waters rise and overflow the
banks.
The analogy is complete in the third instance because a river has a goal, and the goal of the river
is the sea. It is a matter of extraordinary significance, and yet very commonplace that all the
waters in all the rivers in all the lands come out of the sea, and all the waters in all the rivers in
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
all the lands go to the sea. That out of which the river comes is that to which the river goes. The
source of the river and the goal of the river are the same.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is the way of man. It is the insight of religion that man's life comes out of God and that
man's life goes to God. God is the source and the goal of life. Thus Augustine says, "thou hast
made us for thyself and our souls are restless till they find their rest in thee."
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the river. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young, I built
my heart near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've
seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers. Ancient, dusky rivers. My
soul has grown deep like the rivers.
[MUSIC PLAYS]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my redeemer.
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
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-774.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Intentional Life; Life is a River (ET-17; 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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-774
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
The Intentional Life (1962-05-18); Life is a River (1961-03-24)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1962-05-18
1961-03-24
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman uses his text, "The Inward Journey," to discern what it means to live a life of intentionality. He holds up the orderly life and the life of crisis as the two ways one may live their life. He continues that regardless of one's life orientation, that one must wrestle with the reality of failure being embedded into the human experience. Thurman notes that life is a pattern that is continually unfolding, revealing a wider pattern, and that one's recognition of this pattern comes from an intentionally lived life.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman uses Langston Hughes' poem, "Rivers," to speak to human experience. Thurman discusses the analogy of human life as a river flowing, flooding, and resting.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
agony
Augustine
Congo
contemplation
death
design
essence
experience
flood
goal
goals
integrity
inward journey
journey
Langston Hughes
life
meaning of life
Mississippi River
New Orleans
order
pattern
pilgrim's progress
responsibility
Rivers
soul
storm
tension
Thomas a Kempis
turbulence
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/cabbe20a68eb450506dd430404fff71d.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=KjRA5b%2FfqQ3e7FxK82TdGVMCGiI%3D
7be2a1e95758eb74f7c09c848e71e5ef
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-768.mp3
This is tape number ET6 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one entitled "The Crucifixion."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[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]
Practically all over the world today, there are groups large and small observing Good Friday. I
want to read two paragraphs from the hand of God by McCall, and make one or two comments
about the significance of this day in terms of the personal experience of Jesus of Nazareth. "And
you said hanging there, man is a fearful contradiction against himself. I should rather be here
with my faith in Him than elsewhere sharing His unbelief. By this fidelity to the God in me, man
may yet hear me calling to God in Him.
God is everything to man, everything. To the measure that he does not know it he has nothing.
And then the silence came down again. Sitting there, I watched you a little while longer,
Galilean.
Then I said, you dreamed a dream that was resented. And rather than betray it, you bore right
onward and received the shock of man's resentment in yourself. You are killed by men's sin. And
as I said that, I noticed how a leafless shrub, growing gaunt from the stones shuddered in the
bleak wind that of a sudden moaned and passed. I rose up and I walked over to you.
And I said Galilean, God wins when men believe in Him and in man like this. This is God's
victory. This is how God is mediated into the world. This is how the sin of the world will be
taken away.
But how much of himself should a man give? How much of himself should a man give? You did
not answer me. And in the awful stillness, I saw your head was sunken on your breast. There was
no more for you to give."
There are many significant and far reaching interpretations, theological and philosophical in
character, that are given to the meaning of the crucifixion of Jesus, the cross, and the whole
drama of Christianity as it confronts the human spirit. But the comments that I would make to
you are very simple and very human comments. The first is that we see in the crucifixion of
Jesus the logic of the kind of life he had lived.
Step by relentless step, following the full orbed implications of the religious experience which he
had following the fall orbed implication of his commitment to his father and to the Kingdom of
God, he landed outside the city wall between two fields. The event of his death cannot be
separated from the logic of his life. It is of one piece, following the sort of life that he followed,
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
given his kind of life. It was, but a consistent part of the logic of that life that he would run
counter to the forces that stood for the things against which he stood with his life. So that the
cross the crucifixion belongs to the pedestrian movement of the life of the master.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The second thing it is interesting and significant to me personally, in the whole experience is that
here it seems that he made one of the profound discoveries of the human spirit. And that is that
death is not the worst thing in the world. There are some things in life that are worse than death.
As soon as a man is brought to the point that he places the highest possible premium upon his
own physical existence, he is for sale. Dictators know this.
Why is it that they surround the climate in which their people live with an atmosphere which
says that your physical existence is a great moment? It is after all, a transcendent moment. It is
the most important thing so that you must guard your physical existence with all of the resources
of your personality. Now once this is settled in the mind so that death becomes the monster, then
all men need to do who wish to control you is to threaten to kill you. If they threaten to take your
physical life, and you have placed a transcendent premium upon your physical life, then anyone
who is able to bring an end to your physical life, you will give to that person any hostage,
principles, character, morality, values, everything.
But if on the other hand, a man recognizes that death is an experience in life, it is not something
that happens too life, then this means you see, that death is one of the events in life. It is episodic
in character. It is eventful in character. And then as much then as it is the common experience of
man, that no event is ever able to contain all that you mean by your deed, all that you mean by
your life. There is no experience that you ever had that is quite able to contain all of you.
Some margin of you is leftover so that with reference to all experience, you are both a participant
in the experience and an observer of yourself as a participant. Participant, observer-- this is how
we deal with the raw materials of our experience. Now if death then is one of the events in life, if
it is one of the experiences of life, then why should man's encounter with death be other than his
encounter with any other experience which is eventful and experiential in life?
It is for this reason I think that many times men can be aware of the fact that they are dying right
up to the end, because the observer dimension of their personality is aware of the participant
aspect of their life. Now Jesus discovered this so that when he had to face the hard choice of
going straight through to the fulfillment of the will of God in his life and heart and mind and
spirit, death became a little thing. This is not to suggest that he did not want to live, no, no.
But it is to say that given the commitment of his life, rather than to betray it, rather than to lose
the grounds of his integrity so that with reference to the quality of his own living, he would not
have an attitude that was negative and meaningless. He died. Some things in life that are worse
than death, this is the second thing.
Now the third and final comment that I wish to make is this, that very often, it is in the midst of
the suffering and the midst of the pain, and in the midst of the tragedy, in the midst of that which
is so excruciatingly devastating in the impact upon the lives that it seems as if there is no release
or [INAUDIBLE] from the relentless pressure. In the midst of such circumstances, the human
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
spirit has a wonderful dimension. It is able to deal with the pain of life with the tragic
consequence of life, with all of the misery and the pathos and the ache of life with creativity.
Now what do I mean? Simply this, that the pain of life, the peace, that passes understanding very
often is the peace that comes when the pain of life is not relieved.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is the peace that comes shimmering on the crest of a wave of pain. It is the spear of frustration
transformed into a shaft of light. This is his discovery. And I speak with great reverence because
of it.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight or Lord, my
strength, and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET6 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust this is side
two entitled Good Friday.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord, my strength and my
Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
There is still something to me almost incredible in the idea of a young Galilean peasant.
Imagining that he could bear on his own shoulders the burden of the entire world, all that had
already been done, and suffered and all that was yet to be done and suffered, the sins of Nero, of
Alexander VI, and of him who was Emperor of Rome and priest of the sun, the sufferings of
those whose names are legion, and whose dwelling is among the tombs, oppressed nationalities,
factory children, thieves, people in prison, outcasts, those who are dumb under oppression and
whose silence is heard only of God.
And not merely imagining this, but actually achieving it, so that at the present moment all who
come in contact with his personality, even though they may neither bowed to his altar or kneel
before his priest, in some way find that the ugliness of their sin is taken away and the beauty of
their sorrow revealed to them. These are the words of Oscar Wilde from Dr. Fundus.
And then these words from a British poet. They are words that are placed upon the lips of the
brothers of Jesus. Going from Nazareth, where? To the Jordan Valley. Leaving your home and
your trade, your own kinfolk. For what? For an unwashed preacher, a ranting hermit who
sacrificed family and wealth, and a seat in the priesthood for locusts and prophecies.
Why? You are mad, insane, selling your life for a whim, for a religious frenzy. Yes, you're mad.
Will you share his faith and his filth? Outcasts like him, rejected by brother and friend? A life of
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
rebellion hunger, a shameful death? If the thought of that leaves you unmoved, then remember
us, your brothers and sisters, the mother who gave you birth. See her there standing in tears
forsaken, bewildered, left by her first born, you the head of the household.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Think of her neighbors looks, the humiliation, her fears and her griefs. What? What do you say?
Whoever obeys the will of my father in heaven is my brother, my sister, my mother. By the God
of Israel, would you preach at us? Your ministry start at home? Better recall if you can, your
father in Nazareth. Your pledge to him, your promise of filial care. You shall honor your father
and mother.
Remember that when you mouthed your texts. Remember that and carry forever the shame of
your father's children. It is no accident of human history that Good Friday or Holy Week, as it is
known in the Christian faith and tradition, must forever be a part of the mood and the time
interval of Passover. For it must always be remembered that whatever may have become the
great and transcending meaning of the life and the teachings and the whole integrated fullness of
the life of Jesus of Nazareth as he lived and functioned in the world of time and space on this
planet, he was a Jew, and therefore, Christianity is is rooted and grounded in this basic
monotheistic approach to the meaning of life and the meaning of existence, the meaning of
grace, and the meaning of redemption.
Today is Good Friday. And always on this day I am reminded not merely of the drama of this
occasion, the death, the crucifixion, all the extended agony of that timeless interval, but also I am
reminded of the life of which this crucifixion was a part. The crucifixion was the logic of the life
that the master lived.
There are two or three very simple things which seem to me we might gather for our own
meditation and reflection as we contemplate the events of this day. And the first to which I
would call your attention is the tremendous discovery of which it seems to me he made. And the
discovery which he manifested in the manner by which he entered into the encounter with death.
And that discovery is an ancient one.
But it stands in his experience and in a strange and wonderfully magnificent light. And what is
that discovery? The discovery is that death is not the worst thing in the world. I repeat that. That
death is not the worst thing in the world. That there are some things in life that are worse than
death.
This idea that to live and to regard living as the extension of the time interval of a man's
existence, and to live without dignity, without integrity, without any deep sense of the integrity
of the self, to accept life on any terms that life may offer. And to say yes to whatever life hands
one. This is what I'm talking about.
The discovery that death is not after all the worst thing in the world, that there comes a time-there may come a time in a man's life when he must cast his vote either to live with the dignity
and the strength and the character and the insight of a man with convictions, with a sense of the
dignity of his life, or to die. And when this choice is before one, then one may reflect upon the
meaning of the events of this day. The tremendously universal disclosure that a man's physical
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
life does not represent that upon which he should place the highest premium, the integrity of his
spirit, the integrity of his soul, the meaning of his route.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is the thing that abides. Now the second rather significant discovery that is made here
belongs to the whole panorama of man's dealing with frustration and pain and suffering. And
there are two aspects to this insight. And the first aspect is that whatever may be the
contradictions of life, of your life or my life, at any particular moment in time, these
contradictions must not be regarded as final, as ultimate things, that there is no absolute and
thoroughgoing dichotomy between the things that we regard as working against life and the
things that we regard as working for life, that life is contained in a vast creative continuum.
And the conflict between the contradictions of life is of necessity, a limited and a temporary one.
And the second thing that follows is that there is a dimension of the human spirit that is capable
of absorbing all of the violences of existence. One of the earlier men wrote about it in this way.
He talks about the difference between the peace that one can understand and the peace that
passes understanding.
He says in substance that if a man is hungry and gets food to eat or is alone then finds a friend,
he can understand the sense of physical well-being that comes over him. This is a peace that
makes sense. It belongs to a rational pattern. But the peace that passes understanding is the peace
that comes when the pain of life is not relieved. It is the peace that comes shimmering on the
crest of a wave of pain.
It is the spear of frustration transformed into a shaft of light. Here the master discovers the peace
that transcends the pain and conflict, because that which spoke to his condition and which he
reflected, is something that is as eternal as God. It is his discovery. And it may be yours and
mine.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and 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
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-768.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Crucifixion; Good Friday (ET-6; GC 11-16-71), 1971 Nov 16
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
In the first meditation, where it says "Inaudible," the word that Thurman uses is "surcease."
In the second meditation, the name of the Oscar Wilde reading that Thurman presents is "De Profundis."
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-768
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
"The Crucifixion" (1959-03-27); Good Friday (1964-03-27)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1959-03-27
1964-03-27
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman uses Oswald W.S. McCall's "Hand of God" to reflect upon Good Friday. Thurman utilizes a historical interpretation to makes sense of the life and death of Jesus, stating that "the event of his death cannot be separated from the logic of his life."
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman uses Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis" to make sense of Good Friday. He again dwells upon the historical Jesus, the implications that following Jesus would have upon one who was living in the first century, and the significance of Jesus' death.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
agony
crucifixion
De Profundis
death
experience
God
Good Friday
Hand of God
historical Jesus
holiday
Holy Week
human spirit
interpretation
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth
Jordan Valley
legion
logic
oppression
Oscar Wilde
Oswald W.S. McCall
participation
Passover
personality
reverence
sovereignty
suffering
theodicy
transcendence
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/917c9e09c5616be155524b1c23c6bdd6.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=v0k8%2BJOowmbWBsndtKisfKEhYXw%3D
3b8ba2e69078f15ab0fc42c1a80b7287
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-766.mp3
This is tape number ET4 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Salute to the New Year.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[BELLS TOLLING]
[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 beginning this first meditation for the new year by reading from Meditations of the Heart.
"There is always something impressive about a new start. Think how fortunate it would be if
time was not somehow divided into parts. Suppose there were no day, only night. Even in parts
of the world and near the North Pole, there is a six month day and a six month night.
Or suppose there were only winter or only summer or only spring. Suppose there were no
artificial things, like months, so that we could not be mindful of the passing of time. Suppose
there were no years, just the passing of hours with no signposts to mark them into units of
months and years. Then there would be no new year.
The beginning of another year means the end of a year that has fulfilled itself and passed on. It
means that some things are finished, rounded out, completed forever. It means that, for some of
us, sudden changes have taken place that are so profound in their nature that we can never be
what we were before.
There is something so final, so absolute, about a year that is gone. Something of it remains in us
that we take into the year that is next in line. But the new year means a fresh start, a second wind,
another chance, a kind of reprieve, a divine act of grace bestowed upon the children of men.
It is important to remember that whatever the fact may have been, it cannot be undone. It
remains a fact. If we have made serious blunders, they're made. All our tears cannot unmake
them. We may learn from them and carry our hard won lessons into the new year.
We can remember them not with pain, but with gratitude that, in our new wisdom, we can live
into the present year with deeper understanding and greater humanity. May whatever suffering
we brought on ourselves or other people teach us to understand life more completely and, in our
understanding of life, to love life more wisely, thus fulfilling God's faith in us by permitting us to
begin this new year."
It is always a fateful thing to stand at the beginning or even to have a sense of beginnings. It
means that there stretches out before us areas of living and thinking and experiencing that have
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
not been explored by us and with reference to which always there are the possibilities undreamed
of.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The sense of the future is very important in the living of life in the present, for it means that we
have been chosen, as it were, to have another chance, to improve our lives, to make fresh
mistakes, to make new friends, to gain wider and deeper experiences.
This sense of the future is very important in terms of man's total adventure-- one of the reasons
why, for instance, we shrink from death, one of the reasons why all of the religions of the world
know that they cannot address themselves, finally, to the deepest needs of the human spirit until,
somewhere in their theology or their dogma or their aspiration or their teaching, a recognition is
made of what physically death in and of itself implies.
For the thing that is dreadful, to use that word, about man's encounter with death is that it seems
to man that the future is cut off. And if there is no future, then the present and the past begin to
lose their meaning so that all of the religions of the world have something important and crucial
to say about the future. For, if it, they can address themselves to the place of the future in man's
total experience. Then they can deal totally with man.
Now there's something else that's very important. The sense of tomorrow is a part of the sense of
the future. Suppose you did not have tomorrow. Then, had you thought about what this would
mean to how you would interpret your past and how you would interpret your present?
For always and when, for instance, when you were young, very young-- say nine, 10 years old-you knew that whatever may be happening to you at that moment or whatever your past has
meant to you, the real possibility of your life remained to be explored.
So when you were nine years old, you said, the thing that I'm looking for really I can't get until
I'm in my teens. And then when you got into your teens, you said, no, I haven't had enough time
yet so that I can't experience it until I'm in my 20's. And then, when you were in your 20's, you
said, well, now, there's some things that can only come with a certain kind of maturity. So it'll
have to come in my 30's-- and on and on and on.
I said, when I get there, the struggle will be over. But when I got there, I found that the struggle
was not over, that the struggle will not be over, no, not even in death. This is the place of
tomorrow. It means that I can bring to bear upon the next day all that I have learned and gathered
or accumulated from all of the other days of the past.
So the poet says, I go to prove my soul. I see my way as birds, their trackless way. I shall arrive.
What time? What circuit first? I ask not. But unless God sent his hail, his sleet, or fireballs, I
shall arrive. He guides me and the bird in His good time.
Now this sense of tomorrow has something else to say about your life and about my life. It says
that it may be possible for me to select those aspects of my past which seem, to me, to be
excellent, to be worthful, but which I did not realize as being excellent or wistful when I was
going through them.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
I can't select these now, in the present, and prepare myself to build upon them in the future so
that the meaning of my life then becomes identified not merely with what I have experienced,
not merely with what I am now experiencing. But the meaning of my life can be identified with
that which is yet to come.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It means that I have one more chance to do tomorrow in a manner that is more significant and
more expressive of my true intent, things that would improve upon all that I have known in the
past.
So as we move into the new year, let us move into it face forward, greeting the future with hope
and aspiration. Let us not back into the future, looking at the past, saying to ourselves that,
whatever the future may be, it cannot, in any sense, be as good as the past.
No. The golden age is not in the past, was not yesterday. The golden age is tomorrow. Let us
salute, then, the new year.
[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 ET4 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 2, entitled The Strength to Be Free.
[BELLS TOLLING]
[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]
During this month, many people in different parts of our country will be thinking about freedom
and its meaning because of the national holiday that falls within the month. As a background for
our thought about a certain aspect of freedom, I'm reading two paragraphs.
"Give me the strength to be free. The thought of being free comes upon us sometimes with such
power that, under its impact, we lose the meaning that the thought implies. Often, being free
means to be where we are not at the moment, to be relieved of a particular set of chores or
responsibilities that are bearing heavily upon our minds, to be surrounded by a careless rapture
with no reminders of costs of any kind, to be on the open road with nothing overhead but the
blue sky and the whole day in which to roam.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
For many, being free means movement, change, reordering. To be free may not mean any of
these things. It may not involve a single change in a single circumstance. Or it may not extend
beyond one's own gate, beyond the four walls in the midst of which all of one's working hours
and endless nights are spent.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It may mean no [INAUDIBLE] from the old familiar routine and the perennial cares which have
become one's persistent lot. Quite possibly, your days mean the deepening of your rut, the
increasing of your monotony, and the enlargement of the areas of your dullness. All of this and
more may be true for you. Give me the strength to be free.
Often, to be free means the ability to deal with the realities of one's situation so as not to be
overcome by them. It is a manifestation of a quality of being and living that results not only from
understanding of one's own situation, but also from wisdom in dealing with it. It takes no
strength to give up, to accept shackles of circumstance so that they become shackles of soul, to
shrug of the shoulders in blind acquiescence. This is easy.
But do not congratulate yourself that you've solved anything. In simple language, you have sold
out, surrendered, given up. It takes strength to find the high prerogative of your spirit. And you
will find that, if you do, a host of invisible angels will wing to your defense. And the glory of the
living God will envelop your surroundings because, in you, He has come into His own."
Give me the strength to be free and to endure the burden of freedom and the loneliness of those
without change. There is the freedom of the innocent, those who have not yet entered into any
measure of responsibility, whose lives are free from cocking care, from any of the burdens that
are generated by the necessities of growth and maturity.
It is the freedom of the little child whose childhood has been guaranteed by adults. For if a little
child is not permitted to experience childhood-- not merely to be a child chronologically, but to
experience childhood-- then he is forced to deal with his environment as if he were an adult.
And if a child is forced to deal with his environment as if he were an adult, then certain very
important biological and psychological processes that should be going on within the organism of
the child are interrupted. And the nervous system of the child becomes warped and twisted and
sometimes even gnarled so that the child grows up now with this lack of the experience of
childhood and becomes antisocial.
He has what may be called an angry nervous system, where there is not guaranteed for the child
the be carefree freedom, if I may put it that way, of innocence. The society pays a terrible toll for
as long as this child lives.
There is another kind of freedom. It is the freedom that is the result of responsibility-- the
freedom to be responsible, first, for your own action. And this means growth in maturity, growth
in wisdom.
When I was a boy, I had two sisters. One was older and one was younger. And I found it a very
convenient arrangement. Because whenever I was reprimanded for doing something, I could
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
always say that I did it to help my younger sister out. Or I did it because of the influence of my
older sister, always dodging the kind of necessity that belongs to the responsible individual,
namely to take responsibility for one's own action.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now there is another kind of responsibility with reference to action. And that is a responsibility
for one's reaction. It is true that I cannot determine the influences or the forces that will be
brought to bear upon my life.
There are events which catch me in their agonizing grapple with which I am unable to exercise
any kind of control. These events are not responsive to my will, however good and kind and
generous and holy or persistent my will may be.
Now, given my set of involvements, given the impersonal forces that are brought to bear upon
my life because of the very nature of my existence at the time and place that finds me, as a result
of all of these things, I cannot have any determinative influence.
But one responsibility that I do have and that is I am responsible for my reaction to the things
that happen to me. This is in my hands. And I can react with acquiescence. I can react as if I am
a poor, undernourished victim of circumstances. Or I may deal with the raw materials of my
experience with the creative integrity of a responsible mind and personality.
Now there is another kind of freedom still. And that is the freedom of option. Freedom
fundamentally, in its most crucial definition, means the sense of alternative, the sense of option.
Now I may not be able to act on the option. But if I maintain a sense of option, I am still free.
Now this is important. For where there is no sense of option, where the individual is stripped of
all choice, when all opportunities for alternatives are eliminated, then the individual is not free.
Therefore, any society that is dedicated to freedom as our society theoretically is dedicated to
freedom must, above all else, guarantee for the individual a persistent and consistent sense of
alternative so that he is under no necessity to conform without any option being available to him.
He must have a sense of option if he would be free. Give me the strength to be free and to endure
the burden of freedom and the loneliness of those without change.
[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]
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
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-766.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Salute to the New Year; The Strength to be Free (ET-4; GC 11-16-71), 1971 Nov 16
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-766
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Salute to the New Year (1962-01-05); The Strength to be Free (1960-07-01)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1962-01-05
1960-07-01
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman draws from his work "Meditations of the Heart" to reflect upon the meaning of a new year. He suggests that each passing year is a "year that has fulfilled itself and passed on," and is filled with change, fresh starts, grace, and hard lessons. In the passing of the previous year, Thurman suggests, there is an "opportunity to love life more wisely," noting that both the past and the future are "Golden Ages."
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman draws from his work "Meditations of the Heart," to reflect upon the content of freedom, as the July 4th holiday approaches him and the original audience. He waxes over the variety of expressions of freedom: freedom as release from a current moment, freedom as a wide-open road, freedom as responsibility which leads to growth in wisdom. While discerning these forms of freedom, Thurman returns to a mantra, "Give me the strength to be free and to endure the burden of freedom and loneliness of those without change."
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
angels
beginnings
birds
change
child
completion
conformity
death
Fourth of July
freedom
friendship
future
God
gratitude
holiday
innocent
life
maturity
movement
new start
New Years Day
organism
re-ordering
responsibility
seasons
soul
strength
time
tomorrow
understanding
unity
wisdom
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/decb4a37f64896ea09c004af866a9ade.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=Qt3svrq79vGM9F245JmkbfPZD3M%3D
056406b1b52b85c5936d0cd8aa88ff5c
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-220_A.mp3
And there is-- there is a faith that is given, faith in God. And there is a faith that is accepted. And
when I accept that which is, given then, I have found that which is able to answer all of the
deepest and most searching needs of my life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And one of the chapters in Jesus and the Disinherited, I try to put this into words, the thing that
perhaps more deeply than any other experience of my life stands behind as the image and the
qualitative overtone of all that I've been trying to say.
You may recall it, those of you who've either heard it or read it, but it was the year of the great
comment, Halley's Comet in 19-something, 8, 9, 10, 11, somewhere. And I had not seen the
comet, because I had to go to bed at sunset. Some of the older boys, or younger boys whose
parents were less disciplined than mine, permitted their sons to stay up later than sunset and they
had seen it. They told me about the comet.
We were living in a little town in Florida called Lake Helen. It was a sawmill town. And my
stepfather was an operator at the sawmill. And one day, when he came home for lunch, he was
telling my mother about a strange man who had come down to the office. The man who owned
the sawmill was a man whose name was Conrad.
He came to Mr. Conrad's office, selling what he called comet pills. And if you took the pills
according to direction, when the tail of the comet struck the Earth, you would be protected. So
Mr. Conrad had bought a supply of these and distributed them to his strategic personnel, so that
when the bottom dropped out of everything, he could start business. And my stepfather was one
of these strategists.
He brought some of the pills home. The next night, I was awakened by my mother. And she
asked me if I wanted to see the comet. So I dressed very quickly and walked with her out into the
back yard. And there in the sky I saw this giant. It was near the time when the comet was almost
ready to circle the Sun, so that it was all tail and no head.
And this tail spread out in a misty fan-like fashion across the heavens. And I watched this in the
way that perhaps a bird must watch the eyes of a snake when he's charmed. And then, I said,
mama, what will happen to us when that thing falls out of the sky?
And not hearing any word from her, but I felt her hand tighten on my shoulder. And I looked up
in her face and one bit of moisture dropped on my cheek from her eye. And I saw in her face
something that I had seen on there one time before. And that was when I walked into a room
without knocking and I found her kneeling by her bed in prayer and the moonlight fell across her
face.
And then, she said, nothing will happen to us, Howard. God will take care of us. Now, I have
lived hard since those days. And I know that life is as hard as pig iron. I have not worn blinkers.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
But the insight of my mother, simple, unsophisticated sensitive, creative, free insight is after all
the ultimate warrant that the spirit of man has to say not only about the meaning of life, but about
the meaning of death.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. Leave us not alone. Oh, God of our spirits, leave us not alone.
[CHOIR SINGING]
2
�
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/6ddbaea156339e760bf3b46b2156c4bf.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=%2BJgclAsOzP%2BYz1LNFGVxu9MQ2q0%3D
294c1f78e933f9a4d3b042294ad24245
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/.
Description
An account of the resource
An image of Halley's Comet, taken on May 29, 1910, by Professor Edward Emerson Barnard at Yerkes Observatory, in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. Published in the New York Times on July 3, 1910.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Professor Edward Emerson Barnard
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halley%27s_Comet_-_May_29_1910.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halley%27s_Comet_-_May_29_1910.jpg</a>
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/5b83b80cc4d89a2fa46163561ded53b9.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=H8js%2Fq50FFS5ubS%2Bu7866ZE%2Fw%2FU%3D
8ab129d72c9f4f2b32746ddd6fa8b9af
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Featured Thurman Recordings
Description
An account of the resource
This collection highlights individual lectures, sermons, interviews, prayers, and meditations given by Howard Thurman throughout his professional career.
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/394-220_A.html" ></iframe>
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
Cathedral of St. John, New York City, New York
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1950s
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-220_A
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
The Witness of God (conclusion/excerpt) (St. John's Cathedral), 1959 Dec 6
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1959-12-06
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Description
An account of the resource
In his conclusion to “The Witness of God,” Thurman discusses how deep faith is experienced at the moment that one chooses to accept the faith that God gives. Such faith is brought to life by a penetrating sense of confidence in God’s will. In the candid words of Thurman’s mother who soberly said to him during a moment of disquiet, “God will take care of us,” she echoes, he believes, the ultimate expression of all that humanity could offer regarding the meaning of life and death.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-8233379.8650622 4983443.4345006))
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dr. Tim Rainey
death
faith
Halley’s Comet
life
Spirit of Man
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/4ff91af2e1098b10305f096b29ed915c.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=wDqN6FsxUCx7vkLCnHrYxfYiwGE%3D
2740920b1cbc4639654f090249f1c8dc
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-185_A.mp3
[BELLS RINGING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words out my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm beginning today another facet of our discussion of working philosophies of life, and will 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 shone, 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 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 asked, "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 now talk anymore about such things," said the first leaf. The other replied, "No, we'll be.
But what else shall we talk about?" She was silent but went on after a little while. "Which of us
will go first?"
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
"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 shone so warmly that we thought
we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid
nights."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
"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 the many, many others." "Have I
changed much?" asked 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 may be a little yellow
spot, but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer, believe me." "Thanks,"
whispered the second leaf, quite touched. "I don't believe you, not altogether. But I think 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. "I--"
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 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
should have no sorrow to die. I have kissed young love on the lips. I've heard his song to the end.
I have struck my hand like a seal in the hand of a friend.
I have known the peace of heaven, the comfort of work done well. I have longed for death and
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 I shall finish the task 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 to 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. At babyhood, childhood, youth, manhood, old age.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Death is outside the cycle. Sooner or later, then, every human being must come to grips with the
fact of death as a part of his experience of life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, this does not mean that the contemplation of death should bring mobility. 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. In
the first place, death is something that belongs in human experience, in 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 has a person who is doing what he is doing, and also as a person
who is observing himself as he does what he is doing.
So 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's a sense, you see,
in which life and death are twins or 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's 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's going
through. Therefore, all religions insist, then, that that which is most fundamentally representative
of the human spirit it 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 the human life
goes, that cause men to feel that they are experiencing eternal life. Because I have loved life in
this sense, then, I shall have no sorrow to die.
[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.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
4
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-185_A.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Death a Part of Life, 1961 May 12
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-185_A
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Death a Part of Life (1961-05-12)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1961-05-12
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman draws upon a parable of two leaves at the end of the Fall season. The two leaves are in conversation with one another, pondering questions of why they must die and who will take their place when they die. After reading this parable, Thurman reflects upon the ways in which all of creation's lived experience participates in death; rendering death as an event that happens in one's life, not something that happens to oneself.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
A Song of Living
common experience
death
experience
leaves
life
Oak Tree
parable
peace
transcendence
working paper
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/3e0f86d724d2a5ffed46151f7903ff95.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=A6i7eVELijJmwO1dqmUHXwz5D9Y%3D
80af8a1d910698d5c897d21cea2e00ba
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-094_B.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The basics then to any understanding or appreciation of what it is that the mystic is seeking to
affirm, I think, is the knowledge that all of life is one, but all of life is not identical. And what
one does with one's self-consciousness is to seek to reestablish a sense of continuity that has
been lost or eclipsed in the experience of self-consciousness. And the mystic then finds that his
approach to meaning, to religious meaning, are two meanings. It's through the gateway that
connects one form of life with every other form of life.
When we undertake to classify mysticism in the conventional ways-- nature mystics, other kinds
of mystics-- what we are really saying initially is that behind the flower, or the dog, or the cat, or
the man, is always, at all times, the one thing. And it may be, you see, that if he can-- "he,"
meaning the mystic-- can become aware of this ground in himself, then this becomes the clue to
making the same discovery in other manifestations of life.
And he says that using an analogy of the river. That all the water in all the land comes out of the
sea, and all the water in all the land goes back to the sea. And that out of which the river comes is
that into which the river goes. Whether the stream is a rivulet, or a lake, or a sea, or heavy
clouds, snow, dew, moisture in any of its manifestations, all of it comes out of the sea and all of
it is on its way back to the sea. Every stream hears and feels the pull of the sea.
Now, this is essentially the ground of the mystic's position. That we shall see as we work along
together that the categories by which he defines his position may, in themselves, seem to be
absolute.
Many years ago when I was in India, I went to visit, to spend two or three days at [INAUDIBLE]
University. And I had wanted to go there because I wanted to spend some time with a Dr. [?
Singh, ?] who was the head of the Department of Oriental Studies at Santiniketan.
And he was the greatest living authority in Hindu in India on the medieval period and Hindu
mysticism period of the poet Kabir who wrote, "I laugh when you say that a fish in the water is
thirsty. Do you see the real or the true? Go where you will from [INAUDIBLE] to
[INAUDIBLE]. If you have not found your soul, the world is unreal to you." It was [? Singh's ?]
great translation of some of the poetry of Kabir that [INAUDIBLE] followed.
But at any rate, the time came and I went to see him. And we sat on the floor, which was the
custom. And we began talking for three hours. We visited.
And when 12 o'clock came, or 12:15, he said, we'd better stop now because the young people are
coming to take you to lunch, and then we will get together after lunch. And as I was getting up
off the floor, sort of massaging my charlie horses, he said, I see that you are smiling. I said, yes,
and you're smiling also. And he said, I think we're smiling about the same thing, but suppose you
tell me first?
So I said, I'm smiling because we've spent three hours of our lives that we will never get again
sparring for position. You from behind your Hindu embattlement will step aside and draw a bead
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
on my Christian citadel, and then dodge back behind your embattlement, and I'm doing the same
thing. So he said, yes, that's it. When we come back this afternoon, let's be wiser than that.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
So when we came back and we began talking, a very curious thing happened. Something
happened to me then that had not consciously happened to me before. In one creative sweep of
my mind, I took his Hindu fact into account. And with one creative sweep of his mind, he took
my Christian fact into account. Now, having rid ourselves in that sense of the binding intensity of
our context, we were free then to relate to each other out of the same ground.
Now, it is for this reason I jump way ahead, two to three weeks from now [INAUDIBLE], that a
mystic is always a threat to the formal structure that the religious institution takes. How to say
this? You can understand how he would want, he would feel the necessity for bypassing any go
between that would stand at the gate of entrance into his holy of holiness.
He is also puzzled and bedeviled by the necessity for having to reduce his experience to units of
comprehension for the mind. It is also for this reason that he finds it most difficult to deal with
any demand for proof. And it is his insistence that all categories of whatever comes-- and these
categories include dogma, theologies, all categories of any kind, in essence, are creations of the
mind. They are what the mind does when it draws a bead on the dynamic character of religious
experience and is forced to extract from its dynamism that which is conceptual.
And this at once creates what is perhaps the most embarrassing dilemma for the mystic. How
may he establish an empirical validation for his religious experience? Another way of putting it
is, how may he protect himself from self-deception? How can he deal with the fact that in
something as [INAUDIBLE] as is his sense of participating in an ultimate destiny, how can he
deal with that in a manner that will guarantee that he's not mistaken?
It may be, you see, that we are not old enough on the planet yet to know how to protect ourselves
from self-deception. And the mind does all kinds of things in an effort to do this. We set up all
kinds of categories, all kinds of little labs for doing dry runs on our insights. But it may be, it just
may be, that there is no guarantee of getting self-deception.
And it may be further that it is the nature of mind, M-I-N-D, to insist that there be established
categories for protecting yourself from being deceived. How may I be sure in any manner that is
external to myself? Or am I driven to accept the integrity of the experience itself as its own
validation? Of course, what is characteristic of the mystical's experience is also characteristic of
religious experience.
We wanted to be sure. But in the nature of the case, how may a person be sure when he's dealing
with that which to him is ultimate? There are no categories of the mind by which this can be
embraced for validation. Well, that's enough.
I'd like to begin by taking a quick look in retrospect concerning the basic assumptions about
which we talked last time. I am approaching it from a slightly different angle in order that more
likely be thrown on it, hopefully.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Man is a space binder and a time binder. As a space binder, he is concerned with phenomena that
take place within the sweep of his senses. He's concerned with sense data. He's concerned with
trying to make sense out of the external world of fact by which he's surrounded.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And this predisposition to make fact out of the stuff, the conglomerates of his experience and his
world, is characteristic of mind itself. It is the way the mind deals with the data of experience.
Everything that he sees, every contact that he has, external to himself, he is concerned about
giving some rationale to it so that when he observes it, or when he reacts to it, he does not seem
to himself to be stupid. It is the nature of mind.
And I think-- of course, I'm not sure. I don't think anyone knows, really. But I think that this
characteristic of mind to reduce everything to intellection, to units of understanding and
comprehension, is rooted in the reference that I made yesterday to the fact that for a long time,
how long we do not know, the mind, as a separate experience of the individual, did not exist.
This characteristic for order, for rational understanding, I think, is a holdover from the time when
the mind, without any distinction, was a part of the organism. And since-[DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES]
This is the right place.
[LAUGHTER]
No, he'll find it. Now, where was I? Oh, yes.
Since the body, through millions of years, committed harmony, integration, order, to memory, as
it were, so that we become aware of any part of our body only when that part of our body is out
of community. For instance, as long as my little fingers, I'm not aware of it. I become aware of it
only when the harmony is broken. I may be an idiot, borderline or actual. I eat and digest my
food without any reference to mind, to conscious deliberation as such, because there is an
automatic process that seems to take place.
Now, it seems reasonable to me that if through millions of years when the mind was body-bound,
it, too, was a part of this organic harmony, this organic integration, this organic synthesis. Now,
when self-consciousness came and the mind began to act as if it were a separate entity-- "it"
meaning the mind-- carried into this new expression, this new form of activity, the inherent
structural conditioning that makes it always look for some kind of order.
So the little child asks, why? Why? Why? And then when you tell him or her why, that is simply
the prelude to the next "why." Always, the mind is trying to make sense, order, harmony out of
the conglomerates of its experience.
Now it would seem then, to me, that there is a-- I can't think of the word I want-- that there is a
half-used harmony. That isn't what I mean, exactly. There is a relationship that's vague which
doesn't say anything. A relationship between the external world of things and objects, and the
mind that observes these things. The mind, therefore, is always trying to find in the external data,
the rational principles so that it can understand it.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
This is the basic philosophy for all therapy. When you go to the shrink, for instance, and you
start to tell him your story, he insists that you take him by the hand and lead him backwards
through your story. Because he is trying to find where in your past did the divisive principle
occur that results now, 25 years after, of a certain kind of behavior that you can't integrate.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now this is the nature of the mind. And this is the characteristic behavior of man, the space
binder. He is a denizen of the world. He is a part and parcel of all of the objects in the world that
was external to himself. But he always feels that he can penetrate the mystery that these
represent to his mind and understanding.
Now this presupposes a-- in my thought, at any rate-- single continuum out of which all the
objects arise, and of which all the objects emerge, and this is a part of what we were talking
about yesterday. But you see, the things-- to jump-- the things that are true, for instance, in any
religion are to be found in that religion because the things are true. They're not true because
they're in the religion.
Now, let me say it again. The things that are true in any religion are to be found in that religion
because the things are true. They're not true because they're found in the religion.
It is not the context-- back again to yesterday. It is not the context that determines the integrity of
the observation. It is not the context that ultimately gives meaning to the significance of the
phenomenon. Now, if this is true, then wherever you find these things, they're true without
regard to the context. So anywhere, anytime, doing anything, a man may come upon the burning
bush and hear a voice say, take off your shoes because the place where you are now standing is a
holy place.
Now man, the space binder, is a part and parcel organically and time-space wise of the world in
which he's living and functioning. And he looks for order. He looks for harmony. But he tries to
penetrate the object to see if, in the mystery of the object, he can behold the clue to its meaning.
And this is very important and very necessary.
But man is more than this. Man is a time binder. That there is a dimension in man and the human
spirit that cannot be bound-- or contained is a better word, perhaps-- by any state, condition, any
property, properties, that the organism may have. And it is this time binding quality of mine, and
from my point of view of the spirit, that enables the mind to project itself in all sorts of ways that
transcend the things that separate it from the object that it is beholding [INAUDIBLE].
Since we've been sitting here, you have gone into all yesterday, into 5 o'clock. You go back and
forth. Space means nothing. You move at will.
There's a quality about personality that transcends all external boundaries. That equality that
recognizes that in all experience, the man himself is not merely a participant, an actor, but he is
also an observer of himself as an actor. There is a margin of you that is never quite contained in
anything that you may be about, or anything that you may be doing at a given time.
For instance, suppose I ask you, name one deed which you can perform or you performed which
represents you-- completely, totally, utterly. One deed that contains all that you mean by "you."
Whatever your name, before the sound leaves your lips, you will remember that, oh, that doesn't
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
include so and so and so. This aspect of me is not included there, so you start over again. You are
never quite able to be completely absorbed in the action, or the act.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, before we are through with our journey, you will see that there are some mystics who in
the mystic's experience of union seem to indicate that this has happened. As a time binder, you
are an observer and a participant in your acts. And if we think of all life as being made up of that
which is eventful, a series of events, and in as much as no single event is quite able to contain all
that you are, there is a sense that in which you stand outside of the event. And this has farreaching significance in man's interpretation of death, just to-- what's the word-- to digress a
minute.
If death is an event in a series of events to which the human spirit is exposed, or in which human
life is involved, and if it be true that always a margin of me stands outside of the event,
observing the events, then it seems reasonable to me that death and the sequence of the eventful
would not be an exception to the rule. And I think for this reason a man may be aware of his
dying to the last solitary fraction of a time-space interval as if it was something taking place that
he is observing, but not consumed totally, utterly and completely by it.
Now, we may regard this aspect of man's personality as time binder as a part of the mystery of
human life. I don't know, but it may be. The only thing of which I am confident is that there is an
aspect of personality that cannot ever be contained in the context in which that personality is
living and functioning.
And this is why, for instance, to digress again, all tyrannies are bound to fail, because there is a
margin of the self that cannot ever be contained. In the event, however terrifying and terrible the
event may be, and a part of the whole psychology that energizes the effort of men to control
other men is wrapped up right there. If we can find a way to reduce the personality and to the
grapple of a time-space interval and hold, then the life's going to be destroyed. But as long as
there is this margin, it threatens anything it undertakes to control it and dominate it.
What is a [INAUDIBLE]? Stone walls do not a prison make, or-- what is it-- iron bars, the cage-what's the rest of it? You're all students. You know.
[LAUGHTER]
If-- oh, come on, somebody. You don't know that? I don't remember it, but-[LAUGHTER]
Stone walls do not a prison make, or iron bars, a cage. If I have-- well, I'll make it up. If I have
freedom in my mind and in my soul, I'm free. The angels alone who dwell above enjoy such
liberties. That's the notion, that there is a dimension of me that can never be contained in any
time-space interval to which my life is exposed, because I am a time binder.
Now, when we deal with the major assumption about life that seems to me to be fundamental to
the mystic's quest, we come upon this notion expressed in other ways and at other levels. You
may have read in Life magazine before the funeral that--
5
�
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/394-094_B.html" ></iframe>
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
University of Redlands, Redlands, California
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Tagore's university; Dr. Singh; Benares to Mathura; Singh's great translation; Tagore followed; whatever it is; as critical as - GL 5/20/19
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1970s
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-094_B
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
On Mysticism, Part 2 (University of Redlands Course), 1973
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13042600.321303 4037296.9410534))
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1973-02
Description
An account of the resource
This recording is the second lecture in our collection of ten that Howard Thurman gave at the University of Redlands in 1973 on the topic of mysticism. Thurman indicates that this lecture functions as a means to point the listener towards practical approaches to mysticism through lenses of psychology, philosophy, and religious experience. In this recording, Thurman notes that innate within the human identity are the categorizations of "Space Binder" and "Time Binder." Space Binder speaks to meaning making in reference to the external world. Time Binder speaks to the transcendent reality of existence that both observes and reacts. Each of these designations function as tools to make sense of one's participation in reality, while also transcending the limits of human conception.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
death
deception
dualism
ecology
embodiment
epistemology
fact
freedom
harmony
India
integration
intellect
interconnectivity
Kabir
mind body
mystery
mystical union
mysticism
Nature of Mind
oneness
ontology
order
panentheism
personality
pragmatism
relationality
river
space binder
synthesis
Tagores University
temporality
time binder
transcendent reality
universal truth
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/da18746a8d05661305b27d6c6ec67186.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711623000&Signature=iiC3tk69a8a136eGrpKEWwIhyQg%3D
75152e064174c7145f52ca62eb6a434f
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-081_A.mp3
That's the jumping off place for our thinking this morning. And where do you want to die?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Who is Jesus [INAUDIBLE] very confusing thing to me. I sense that you were talking about one
Jesus-- but that there's more than one Jesus, depending on who you are. If you're on of the
disinherited, there's a certain Jesus. If you're one of those who has inherited everything, there's
another Jesus.
Or you can be disinherited and Jesus hasn't come to you. You haven't found Jesus. That's another
Jesus. Or you can have everything you want to be inherited, and not have found Jesus. So there
are four Jesus's at least.
And I can see that you were in a sense lucky, to get a certain meaning out of the life of Jesus.
[INAUDIBLE]. But other people aren't lucky. They haven't put the two things together. They
don't have the same sort of relationship that you have.
I suppose that any person who grows up in a culture that is, in a very general sense, a culture
such as Western culture, Western civilization-- in which there is embedded in it the registration-of some kind of formal or informal recognition of, and relation to the faith in Jesus.
It is inescapable that the figure-- personality, the influence of man, whatever you say-- is so
much a part of the whole climate in which he grows up that what he thinks about Him may not
be formally encountered.
I think there's a difference between the presence of the founder of Christianity, as an influence,
and what an individual as a person decides that he must think about Him. [INAUDIBLE]
What I'm saying is it's entirely possible that a man may grow up, live, mature, and die without
ever having to deal with the Christian, as a Christian himself.
And even such person may be a member of the institution, the Church, without ever doing this. I
couldn't, perhaps because of the way I was put together. My mind had to find answers that were
satisfactory to it.
And in that sense, I may have been lucky. But I don't think that my luck, as you use the word,
would include the fact that He was in the climate of our whole culture. I wonder just among us
here this morning how many of us, as we have come along-- because we're all professionals in
here.
But I wonder, what is our particular witness, as to our confrontation with Jesus separated from
the worship, the celebration, all of those things? [INAUDIBLE]
At that point, I can probably isolate very easily three or four instances where this confrontation
has [INAUDIBLE] in my own life. One would have to do with the quality of my surroundings at
an early age, that I'm still struggling to understand today. The other had to do with a direct
participation in the civil rights movement-- based upon a commitment to the principals of non
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
violence, that I grasped at least a part of the meaning of who Jesus is. And the other has to with
my struggle with death.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, either one of these I could, I suppose, elaborate on pretty extensively. Now, these are not
the only experiences, but they are the ones that constantly point out to me on my journey who He
is. And without grappling with the question, I shudder to think what destructive path I might
have taken.
Now, on that first point-- I'm curious to know if you can sort out whether you came to an
embracing of the principles of, or the concept even, of non violence first, and then sought to
validate it-- in what you were taught, or thought about Jesus? Or, was it the other way around?
Do you understand?
It was the other way around. I saw it as an opportunity to act out, in a real sense, in a human
sense what was, up to a certain point, theory.
Say some more about that. Dig into that a little.
The love ethic of Jesus to me was real, before I made a decision to take the life and death risk, in
a city. And as far as I think for some of us, we were simply caught up in the drama of the
moment. So it was a thing to do it, because it looked like the thing to do. And to some extent,
even became fun. But that is a very passing kind of participation.
A more basic kind of participation is when it's anchored in something much deeper than that
particular moment. Therefore, when the peak of the civil rights movement is ended, as it has in
one sense, we continue still to relate to each other on those same principles-- black or white, or
black and white.
Now, if I'm reading you correctly you had made a primary discovery of the teaching, the
influence of, the impact-- whatever word you want to use-- of Jesus, in some personal, private
way. And what the civil rights movement provided for you was a testing ground for the validity
of a primary experience that antedated in your life the civil rights.
So the civil rights movement became the laboratory, in which you tested. Now I'd like to ask
you-- you can't answer it perhaps-- suppose it hadn't. Suppose that laboratory had not checked
out the experience which you were trying to [INAUDIBLE] you were trying to discover some
empirical basis for, what would have happened?
What do you think? Would you have abandoned your primary experience, or would you have felt
it that the limitation was in your experiences [INAUDIBLE] had failed you? But your
relationship with Him had not failed you. Can you talk about that?
There have been other experiences-- maybe not quite as dramatic-- maybe not as socially
dramatic-- where the laboratory takes place. Sometimes it's on a one-to-one relationship, where
you feel, and see, and experience the triumph of love. And it may not be triumphant in
relationship to that particular individual, but it might simply cause you to grow. Or it might be
triumphant, in terms of a surrounding situation. That misses a particular object of confrontation,
but it gathers unto itself so many other qualities and experiences.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
The thing that interests me in what you're saying is the basic assumption that you could not be
mistaken in your relationship to Him. The failure would be in something that went wrong in the
test tube in the laboratory.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
I don't think that mankind is mature enough yet on this planet to have worked out any guarantee
against self deception. And the mind insists upon establishing some other than self reference, for
the validation of the primary ethical or religious experience. You have to prove it, or accept the
fact that it cannot be empirically established-- if you were trying to do either in personal
relationships, or in the civil rights movement. You're trying to validate the integrity of your
primary experience [INAUDIBLE] Jesus. [INAUDIBLE]
Can we go expand that little bit, to say, I suppose my difficulty is I have not discovered anything,
within me or outside of myself, that could transcend a love experience. Now, there might be
something somewhere that can outdo love and we just haven't discovered it. But at this point I'm
even, I suppose, afraid to trust anything that's beyond that.
All right. We just want to have a dialogue between us, so don't feel under any kind of
embarrassment to jump in at any point. [INAUDIBLE] of something.
But let me blow the whistle on what you did, Howard.
All right, go ahead.
You asked him, in essence, about this thing as a test. And in that very process you thrust upon
the whole experience an objective, which I would read not to have been there.
In other words, you didn't jump into the civil rights movement as a way of testing. As it turned
out, this was a form of expression, of a commitment, of a belief. But the original fascination of it
was not a Western oriented, may I establish scientific proof?
Now I say that in order to get back to something you did prior to that. Namely that-- and up to a
certain point we were exactly on the same page. You were a bit responsive to Howard's word
"lucky."
I would say that the luck you had, the luck I had, and perhaps the luck Otis had, is the luck of
being born into a disinherited community, where people way back identified with Jesus. And
from that point on, found that Jesus gave life to their meaning. And Otis and I are still stuck with
this kind of meaning. And what I hear Otis saying is that there is no other frame of reference
within which a black man can find meaning for his existence.
But more than that, how do you-- what is that causes one not to abandon that particular pursuit?
The fact that it is meaningful. Not that it tests out, in a cause and effect kind of testing, but
simply that it confers upon your life a sense of worth, of meaning, of usefulness, that isn't
otherwise available.
And if I were answering the question about suppose it hadn't worked out, I would have to say
that for many it did not work out. But it did not work out because they didn't enter the experience
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
with the same thing that you were talking about-- namely-- well, you called it self deception.
And I rather resist that. I have a feeling that there is something about this which is ultimate truth,
and that there is no other truth which can come close to it. But this is something I cannot prove,
except as I live it out and prove it for myself-- or confirm it for myself.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Yes. But what it seems to me you have to remember is that the individual may not be aware at all
that he is trying to validate something. He's trying to check it out, he's trying to prove it.
He's trying to establish some empirical [INAUDIBLE] He may not be aware of the fact that this
is what he's doing. What I'm saying is it is the nature of any primary religious experience, to
deal-- consciously or unconsciously-- with the necessity to demonstrate, to for instance.
I may not be aware of the fact that I'm caught in that kind of necessity, but it seems to me that it
is the nature of any primary experience-- to move out from the ground of that from primary
experience into the totality of the life that a man lives.
One of the old songs that we sang at our little church at home when I was a boy is, Salem says I
don't have any grace, I'm taking back to the starting place. I may not know that this is what I'm
doing.
But what I think is important for us who are thinking to realize is it is the nature of religious
experience-- I think primary really-- to for instance itself over and over again. And ultimately,
perhaps, against all evidence, to hold to it.
Let me say that another way. Because the first time you said, prove. To the extent that it is held,
just as you suggested, there's nothing about it that suggests the word prove. But it's the nature of
experience, that's what I'm saying. You don't know. You don't know that this is what you're
doing.
Well then, this is not rational conscious. And in that sense it's not proof.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
And I say that for a very good reasons. Because it seems to me that if one pushes it as a kind of
unconscious proof they want to engage the contradictory term, I would say that there is an
element of truth here. But there are a lot of other elements too.
For instance, you look at a person who's caught up in this foolishness about astrology. Now, they
are trying to prove that thing. But they have a certain ego invested.
We know where it's kept.
[LAUGHTER]
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
[INAUDIBLE]
--seem that judgmental. Let's ease into it.
Let's just say--
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[LAUGHTER]
I see persons after persons doing what you call for instancing. They're reading a personality. It
may be that there is some unconscious yearning for confirmation not at all completely
synonymous with proof, in the cause and effect sense.
But beyond that, there's a certain sense in which people have identified with the core of their
meaning. And there's an ego investment, in the sense that they are busy confirming themselves as
persons, in the process of confirming that with which they have identified themselves, by way of
meaning. So that when Jesus wins, you know, me and Him are so close, I gets glad.
Well, you see I think that one of the very simple reasons why Jesus had disciples is just from the
point you're making now. Somewhere in the world in which He was living, functioning, and
checking out-- because that's what life is-- there had to be a little body. And He could make dry
runs.
And from within that, project out here, where the assumptions are entirely different. The thing
that I'd like for us to maybe get at is that we do not ever escape the necessity-- which is a
necessity of mind-- to test, to try to immunize ourselves against being profoundly deceived at the
very core of our meaning and our commitment. That's what I think.
Yeah, I agree with that. But you talk about primary religious experience. It seems to me that
that's one sort of thing. And when you have any sort of primary experience-- religious
experience, experience with somebody that you love.
And at that point you are taking a look, trying to figure out what's happening in real truth. But
you step away from that. I mean, you don't have this religious, powerful experience all your life,
at all times. It's something that is an instant to me, or when the experience is happening.
But then you step back and look at it. And then you try to figure out what happened. This is not
the same as the experience. But if while you're having the experience you were busy trying to
evaluate it, you wouldn't be having the experience. Your mind wouldn't be focused enough.
You end the experience itself.
Right. You can't look at all of it. Evaluate it and say, well, am I doing the right thing? Is this
rational? Is this cool?
I think we have to go back to that statement that you made, that Jesus is in the climate, our total
culture, our whole culture. And out of this climate emerges certain assumptions.
5
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
And out of our experiences, seems to me we make certain affirmations. And in our experiences
on the basis of these affirmations, we bump into reality. At certain points enough, that we receive
certain confirmations about the original assumptions we have made.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
What happens if you look into what you're describing as reality, and you don't do this? And you
don't get it. That's what I mean. What happens then?
I think that the person-- and I can only speak out of my experience, as a boy who grew up
disinherited. In high school, my mother lay dying, as I was getting ready to graduate. We used to
graduate in white pants and blue coats.
And my father had bought my white pants and blue coat. That was all the money he had. But
they had put in an order for my ring. And I didn't have that ring, which was important to me at
the time. And my mother would ask me-- every morning I'd get up and go in there there and kiss
her. And she asked me about the ring. Now, growing up in this climate [INAUDIBLE] don't
worry about that. The Lord will make a way.
Now, that's an assumption, an affirmation I made. And I kept saying that, down to the last day
that I had to have that money. And the last day, she said, James, go into the bed. She said, Son,
I'm glad that you are graduating. [INAUDIBLE] look in the vase, on the counter there. And
[INAUDIBLE] and I was thinking about you, and your ring. Because I know you didn't have it.
You'll find money for your ring.
And this for me was a confirmation of my affirmation, predicated upon the assumption I made. A
few years hence-- maybe six years I'd been married to a young lady. She was taken from me in
20 seconds, in an automobile accident. [INAUDIBLE] going into a ditch.
And my little baby [INAUDIBLE] what happened to her coming out of the ditch, she wasn't
gone. And I would have fainted after I saw my wife was gone. My baby was injured. I was
injured. Now, something out of this experience up above my head, you know, hear music,
something spoke. I would have fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of God
[INAUDIBLE] And that picked me up, right there. You see what I mean? Which is confirmation
to me.
Now, what would have happened if I'd gone through the-- I didn't have time for rational process.
Now, what I think would have happened, Dr. Thurman, is even though I would not have had
total confirmation, I believe some kind of hope would have emerged-- even though it had been
shaking the foundation. But some kind of hope would have emerged. That's the best that I can
say that. I don't know what kind of hope can describe that. But hope out of that experience would
emerge.
One of the oldest definitions of hope is hope is an inlet between the lagoon and the ocean. It is
the thing that gives the ocean free and easy access to the lagoon, and the thing that gives the
lagoon free and easy access to the ocean. And I think that what you're describing is a very good
indication of that old, not new definition [INAUDIBLE]
6
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now, is it not possible that a man may come into the kind of experience that you describe, and in
that experience instead of having a confirmation of something with which he entered the
experience, [INAUDIBLE] maybe in that experience make the discovery for the first time.
Discovery of what? The validity of--
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Yes. The discovery of the thing which in the description we just had was confirmed-- that his life
was grounded in something, that transcended the events of his life. I think a man may come into
the kind of experience in which he discovers for the first time that there is something that
transcends the events of his life.
I'd like to get back to the other thing, because I think we still haven't answered Howard's
question. I resist-- seriously resist-- this whole business about man everlastingly testing. I think
people try on glasses, and they wear well.
In other words, any of these basic commitments are, as Jim has said, deeply embedded in the
culture-- for some people. Some people grow up in mixed culture. But there are people who
grow up in at least a family culture, let's say, in which these assumptions are very firm.
And more than a theory of existence, they are a lens with which we view reality. And this whole
business of testing, and what if you lose type of thing, isn't even at stake. Because there is a
sense in which-- and this is how blacks got through slavery, and all the rest of it.
The very existence of those lenses provides a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy about experience.
So if I die before I'm free from slavery, I still know-- with a kind of apocalyptic vision, if you be- that God is going to set all this business right. And if somebody says, you lost, look what
happened. You say, wait a minute, it gave me hope.
And we are always creating our own living space, by viewing that which is positive, excluded
from consideration that which is negative. And insisting that God still has time to act, in
validation of [INAUDIBLE]
The test may not be a planned, well thought out situation, where you say you tomorrow morning
at 8:00 AM I'm going to test the validity of the love ethic of Jesus, and really see if works. Now,
that to me is a rather narrow testing ground. But if life brings to you a series of experiences-- a
particular kind of event-- those experiences and events within themselves become tests.
And what do they test? Do they test the view, or do they test your commitment to the view?
How do you separate?
In other words, I'm constantly involved, as you know, in studying culture. And somewhere
between the world of cold, absolute cause-and-effect rational consciousness and the world of
simply being a creature of your culture, it seems to me there is a plane in which people live in
such a way that they confer meaning on their experience.
And the only reason some of them would ever arrive at the point of assuming that their meaning
had failed would be at some point when somebody jiggered with their original culture-- brought
7
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
in a competitive culture, and somehow chiseled away at your commitment. Because the
commitment, without something like that, lasts forever.
Yes. When a man moves like, that I think he has ants in his pants.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[LAUGHTER]
8
�
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/394-081_A.html" ></iframe>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
394-081_A
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Jesus and the Disinherited, Part 1 (Seminar Discussion) [Side A], 1975 Jan 22-23
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1975-01-22
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
Description
An account of the resource
This recording is a part of a seminar that took place in 1975 on the topic of Howard Thurman's inimitable text, Jesus and the Disinherited. In these recordings, you hear the voices of numerous students in conversation with Thurman. In this recording, Thurman opens with his reflections upon the tension between the temporal body of Jesus Christ, and one makes of Jesus' lived experience. Collectively, the classroom explores questions of the historicity of Jesus, the limitations of personal experience, the impact of Jesus' teachings on the Civil Rights Movement, hope, and the habitus of nonviolent strategy.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
apocalyptic vision
Civil Rights Movement
consciousness
culture
death
deception
disciples
ego
encounter
experience
expression
historical Jesus
hope
integrity
Jesus
laboratory
lagoon
love ethic
luck
nonviolence
ocean
personalism
personality
plurality
religious experience
risk
seminar
slavery
suffering
truth
validation
Western Civilization