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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."
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
I'm 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,
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but I'll try for you. What song do you want? He said, will you sing, "Were You There When
They Crucified My Lord?"
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
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<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-787.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
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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394-787
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Resistance to the Social Order (1962-04-20); Self Realization and Acceptance (1963-11-08)
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1962-04-20
1963-11-08
Description
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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.
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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?
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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.
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[BELLS RINGING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm continuing from Jane Steger, Leaves from a Secret Journal. About the tree, what I want to
know is why the sap ever started to run up the tree, up the trunk, along the limbs into the buds to
spread them out into leaves. Perhaps the way to find out would be to get inside the tree one's
self-- a nebulous personality to run with the sap up the trunk, out the limbs, into the leaves and
maple keys. And there, hear the command to stop.
The end is as amazing as the beginning. Why does the urge of life cease with leaves and seed
vessels? How does it know when to stop when its type is completed? If this command to halt
didn't come at the right moment, the breath of life that is in the tree might go on beyond leaves
and bloom into all sorts of green, fantastic abortions that would spoil the type.
The beginning is a marvel. The ending is an amazement. And I suppose that was, in the mind of
God, the finished thought of a maple tree, as definite and complete as its spark of life in the seed,
although He no doubt sent the thought forth in several types before the present one was achieved.
It is a miracle that trees stop with themselves, that maple trees are only apple trees-- that maple
trees are only maple trees, that apple trees are only apple trees, and oak trees are only oak trees.
The urge of life might so easily have flowed on into a green maelstrom of confusion-- a sort of
wild, crazy quilt of creation.
The same, of course, is true of every type. Why do pigs stop at pigs and human beings at human
beings? Of course, we human beings still have animal tendencies, and no doubt we are potential
angels, but in spite of what we have, then, or may be, we are human beings. Each type may have
come up from something else and be slowly drifting on to another development.
Nevertheless, at each stage, it is itself and not a confused medley. As I sit writing, I am
surrounded by numberless finished articles-- books, chairs, tables, desks-- all of which were
conceived by the mind of man. Then, as I look out into the garden, I see infinitely more things.
An innumerable company-- grass, trees, flowers, bushes-- all of which the mind of God created
and all of which are separate, distinct, and finished, with no confusion, no intermixing of forms.
Truly, the finished type is an astonishment. I never really thought of it before. The urge of life
always amazed me, but I never until now realized the marvel of it stopping when each creation is
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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.
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It might, that is, if at the back of creation was nothing but a blind force. How can anyone believe
that? One might possibly if one thought only of the initial urge of life, but surely not when one
sees it always stopping in definite forms and definite types.
Look at that fat dictionary over there on the shelf, so solemn and well-informed. Do I think that it
was created out of chaos? No, I don't think so. Did anyone ever see a trumpet vine forget its type
and try to overflow into something else-- into a maple tree, for instance? Or a maple tree forget
that its urge to life should stop with sharply pointed leaves rather than with round edges of an
oak?
Nobody ever did unless the types had been crossed by outside interference. What keeps them all
so loyally true to their own plan? Surely, if there were nothing but a blind urge at the back of
them, they would long ago have lost their way in the maze of life and gone off into a confusion
of all kind of chaos.
This is a rather extraordinary and exciting notion to my mind, and it is well worth our reflecting
upon. It is true that the beginning of life is quite miraculous. As a matter of fact, the big the idea
of beginning is itself as a concept almost beyond the grasp of the mind.
But as fundamentally exciting as may be the notion of beginning, it is even more astonishing-this built in quality that seems to be inherent in any particular form of life that tells that form of
life how it is to shape itself and when it is to stop developing. Suppose your foot did not ever
stop growing, that there wasn't anything that you could do to stop it. It would be quite a fantastic
arrangement.
But there is built in the very life structure of the body something which, in recent times,
biologists, or cytologists more specifically, have discovered. And they call it a certain quality in
the cell. A coding, C-O-D-I-N-G-- a coding in the cell that determines what the development of
the organism will be-- which cells will become eyes and legs and feet and hair and what the
dimensions are.
This is a part of the Constitution that is inherent in the cell itself. And in reading some time ago
about the growth and development of eels, I was amazed at the discovery that some of the
investigators were trying to determine, why was it that certain eels that came up from the
Sargasso sea, born there, five miles below the surface of the sea, found their way all the way up
to the Atlantic?
And some of the eels moved to the right and went to Europe. Some of the other eels came to the
United States-- to Virginia and North Carolina, to the fresh waters there. What determined which
way the eel should go? What determined the European eel and the American eel, as it were?
Well, these scientists discovered that the eels that had 11 or fewer vertebrae always came to
Virginia and North Carolina. If they had 12 or more vertebrae, they always went to Europe. The
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ticket-- the ticket-- was in the vertebrae. Now, this means that all of life is fundamentally
structured and grounded in order, that there is inherent in the creative process that which when
life realizes itself, its potential has been actualized.
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Now, this gives to us-- it should give to us a very simple but profound confidence in the life
process itself. And in my language, it should give us the confidence in the Creator, confidence in
God, for it would seem to me that if all other manifestations of life, including my own body,
have this order built into it, why should not the experiences of my life, the growth of my life, all
of the things would have to do with my mind and spirit, why should not they then be in
accordance with what to me is the will and the purpose-- and for my mind-- the creative dream of
God?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET28, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2, entitled, The Great Exposure.
[BELLS RINGING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart. Sometimes, there's only a 60 second divide between
youth and maturity, childhood and adulthood, strength and weakness, life and death. That life is
vulnerable is the key to its longevity.
We are surrounded every day by the exposure to sudden and devastating calamity. Despite all
efforts to the contrary, there is no device by which we may get immunity from the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune. Here is a man in the full prime of active life, with all the strength
and vigor of a rounded maturity. Disease strikes. He withers and dies quickly, without warning
and often without premonition.
Here is a carefree, happy child, surrounded by all the love that wise devotion and careless rapture
can give. A plane crash. Both parents perish. And what at 10 o'clock was a child becomes at
10:01 a desolate creature shunted across the great divide that separates hope from hopelessness,
dependence from independence. Thus it goes in one vein.
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Or here is a person from whom all the lights had long since gone out. The way ahead is no way.
A sharp, sudden turn in the road or a chance encounter in the darkness and everything's changed.
Life is vulnerable. Always, there is the exposed flank.
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Sometimes much energy is spent in a vain attempt to protect oneself. We try to harden our fiber,
to render ourselves safe from exposure. We refuse to love anyone, for instance, because we
cannot risk being hurt. We withdraw from participation and the struggles of our fellows because
we must not get caught in the communal agony of those around us.
We take no stand where fateful issues are at stake because we dare not run the risk of exposure to
attack. But all this, at long last, is of no avail. The attack from without is missed. And we escape
only to find that the life we have protected has slowly and quietly sickened deep within because
it was cut off from the nourishment of the great exposure.
It is the way of life that it be nourished and sustained by the constant threat, the sudden rending,
than welcome each rebuff that makes life's smoothness rough. It is a very commonplace
observation to say that as we live, our lives are caught up in a pattern of logic and order, reward
and punishment, reaping and sowing.
So fundamental is this kind of rhythmic balance in the very grain of our feeling tones and our
thought patterns that automatically we elect, as it were, to project this generalization in to an allinclusive way of life, so that when we do something, we expect it to balance itself in something
else.
I remember when I was a little boy, I broke my arm. It was in the summer. The doctor put my
arm in splints, as it were. And for three or four weeks, I was unable to participate in the things
that ordinarily engaged my time and attention.
And I wondered why, if I had to break my arm, it would not happen during the school year when
I could get mileage out of it. But it happened at the time when school was out and all the
wonderful things were going on in the summer. And then I began to go over in my mind-tutored, you see, by this balance about which I'm talking, reward and punishment, action and
reaction, antecedent and consequence-- and I wondered, what deed had I committed that was of
such enormous consequence that it had to be balanced by a broken arm at the peak of the
summer time?
This notion, you see, that we are in a rhythm of reward and punishment, and it operates
sometimes in our working philosophy. We say that if we are very good, then good things will
come to us as a result of it; that a good man, a worthy man, a man who has integrity and who
lives up to the most far reaching demands of his integrity, that man would not be subject to the
great exposure as a man who pays no attention to these things.
Now, this is one of the aspects of our experience, but it does not exhaust the possibilities. It is
true that there is reward and punishment, that the law of antecedent and consequence does
operate. But as it would seem to me, that over and above this kind of balance or this kind of
order, this kind of moral structure, there is what may be called a random movement in existence-
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- a movement which does not seem to take into account the private predicament, the situation of
the individual as an individual, but it involves him because he happens to be present and
available at the critical moment.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The Master talks about this when someone ask him concerning a child that was born blind. His
disciples said, was this child born blind because of the sins of his parents? And the Master
countered with a very interesting comment. He said, the people on whom the tower at Siloam fell
and were killed, were they any more guilty than the people on whom the tower didn't fall?
And the inference is, no, they were not more guilty, but they were under the tower and the others
were not. This is an extraordinary something with which you are dealing. There is no protection
against the great exposure. We as living beings in this world, again and again, are exposed to the
operation of impersonal forces over which we are unable to exercise any control-- forces that are
not responsive to our wills, however good and insistent those wills are.
Given this situation, which is a part of the human predicament, it is within the resources of the
individual and it is one of the tremendous insight of religion that there is always available in God
strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be. And this is not some Pollyanna remark,
but it is the studied wisdom and the garnered experience of generations of men that the test of
life is often found in the degree to which we are able to absorb the hammerings of the great
exposure without at the same time destroying our joy.
There is in God strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The preceding program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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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
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394-781
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Creative Order in Life (1963-09-27); The Great Exposure (1963-02-15)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1963-09-27
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
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Dustin Mailman
angels
balance
biology
chaos
childhood
coding
completion
confidence
consequence
constitution
creativity
death
development
ecology
epistemology
experience
Jane Steger
journey
leaves from a secret journal
life
maturity
meditations of the heart
moral structure
North Carolina
personality
pigs
Sargasso Sea
seasons
snakes
trauma
tree
urge of life
Virginia
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/b54a426e10606ee9e558a1bf60a7d1bd.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711707600&Signature=scuPWiTtSEgEWtG%2FWNRyV9oC4%2Bs%3D
b23515ab06b72160012b5d49a266759b
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-767.mp3
This is tape number ET5 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled, "The Child and Religious Meaning."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[CHURCH BELLS CHIMING]
[INAUDIBLE].
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
For many years, I have used the thing that I am about to read now as the important element in the
dedication services that are held in connection with the dedication of children, particularly
babies. And I want to read it and make one or two simple comments about it.
"Thus a child learns, by wiggling skills through his fingers and toes and to himself, by soaking
up habits and attitudes of those around him, by pushing and pulling his own world. Thus a child
learns, more through trial than error, more through pleasure than pain, more through experience
than suggestion, more through suggestion than direction. Thus a child learns, through affection,
through love, through patience, through understanding, through belonging, through doing,
through being.
Day by day your child comes to know a little bit of what you know, to think a little bit of what
you think, to understand your understanding, that which you dream and believe and are in truth
becomes your child. As you perceive clearly or dully, as you think fuzzily or sharply, as you
believe foolishly or wisely, as you dream drably or goldenly, as you are unworthy or sincere,
thus your child learns."
And then, "I am the child. All the world waits for my coming. All the earth watches with interest
to see what I shall become. Civilization hangs in the balance. For what I am, the world of
tomorrow will be. I am the child. I have come into your world, about which I know nothing.
Why I came, I know not. How I came, I know not.
I'm curious. I'm interested. I am the child. You hold in your hand my destiny. You determine
largely whether I shall succeed or fail. Give me, I pray you, those things that make for happiness.
Train me, I beg you, that I may be a blessing to the world."
"The truth of God shall be upon thy heart, and thou shalt teach them to thy children, and shall
talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest in the way, and when thou
liest down, and when thou risest up. Train your child in the way he should go. And even when he
is old, he will not depart from it."
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
In presenting your child for dedication to God, you acknowledge your responsibility to your
generation and to future generations to see to it that his life will have a free chance to be a
blessing, and not a bane. You will develop and keep alive in him a sturdy confidence in the truth,
positive faith in life, and an abiding trust in God. You will not lie to your child, nor deceive your
child, so that under all circumstances, your child may depend upon the integrity of his mother
and his father.
And then there follows these words, I dedicate you to God, and to the fulfillment of your life in
the religious faith and tradition of your mother and your father. May it be said of you, as it was
said of the baby Jesus long ago, that you increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with
God and man, so that all who come to know you in the days ahead will find in you a benediction
breathing peace.
Now it is very important, I think, that children should grow up in the religious faith and tradition
of their parents, in order that the roots in which the family's life is sustained and by which it is
nurtured can be available as resources for the child. This is not to say that when the child
matures, when the child rounds out his development, and goes on his way with all of life opening
out before him in many of its splendors and many of its disillusionments, that he will not want to
make the authentic decision for himself. He will not want to say yes to this or no to that. I think
this is important.
But the most crucial thing, it seems to me, is for the child to have a sense of being rooted, being
grounded in some kind of holding tradition, so that when he is ready to deal creatively and
effectively with what, to him, will be increasingly the meaning of life, when he is ready to
project the lines along which he expects to live his life, he will have a sense first of being at
home somewhere, being grounded in something. So that when he moves, he moves from
something that has contained him, has steadied him, has given to his organism, as it were, the
same kind of rhythmic beat that sustained his mother and his father through the generations.
For I believe, you see, that a man cannot be at home anywhere, anywhere, unless he is at home
somewhere, standing from within the context of belonging. He can project himself into the
unexplored, into the unknown. And feel his way always having a kind of monitor, which will not
be a judge, but will provide perspective in the light of which he can define the movements of his
life.
Very simply put, if you were moving your furniture from one home to another, and if the movers
brought all the furniture that is to go into the living room, and put it in the middle of the floor,
and then you came in to arrange it, it would mean that you would have to set the furniture up in
some kind of order. And then decide what is the order that will be satisfactory to you. You look
at this chair, said, oh no, that chair doesn't belong there, but belongs over here. Or the divan
doesn't belong there, but it belongs at this place. In other words, if you have an order to start
with, then standing within that order, you are able to determine what, for you, is the authentic
order.
But if you have no order out of which you are trying to make order, then you must make some
order out of the chaos. And then from that order that you make out of the chaos, fashion an order
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
that is more in keeping with your heart's desire. And again and again, we find that there isn't
perhaps enough concern, enough energy, enough vitality, in order to make all of these steps.
Therefore it seems to me that the birthright that every child is entitled to have is a context of
religious meaning that will define for him what it is that he is seeking and where he may find it.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET5, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, "Our Children Are Not Things."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart. It is in order to think about children and our
relationship to them. Often we underestimate both our influence and our responsibility with
reference to children because they do not seem to be mindful of our presence, except in terms of
something to resist. The world of the adult is in some ways a different world from that of a child.
We bring to bear upon life the cumulative judgment garnered from our years of living of trial and
error, of many, many discoveries along the way.
It is from that kind of context that we judge the behavior of children. But they have not lived.
And there is much that can be known and understood only from the harvest of the years. This
fact should not blind us to the profound way in which we determine, even in detail, the attitudes
and the very structure of the child's thought. If we are good to the child, and to other people, he
will get from us directly a conception of goodness more profound and significant than all the
words we may use about goodness as an ideal.
If we lose our temper and give way to hard, brittle words which we fling around and about, the
child learns more profoundly and significantly than all the formal teaching about self-control
which may be offered him. If we love a child, and the child senses from our relationship with
others that we love them, he will get a concept of love that all the subsequent hatred in the world
will never be quite able to destroy. It is idle to teach the child formerly about respect for other
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
people or other groups, if in little ways we demonstrate that we have no authentic respect for
other people and other groups.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The feeling, tone, and insight of the child are apt to be unerring. It is not important whether the
child is able to comprehend the words we use, or understand the ideas that we make articulate.
The child draws his meaning from the meaning which we put into things that we do and say. Let
us not be deceived. We may incorporate in our formal planning all kinds of ideas for the benefit
of the children. We may provide them with tools of various kinds. But if there is not genuineness
in our climate, if in little ways we regard them as nuisances, as irritations, as things in the way of
our pursuits, they will know that we do not love them, and that our religion has no contagion for
them.
Let us gather around our children and give to them the security that can come only from
associating with adults who mean what they say and who share in deeds, which are broadcast in
words. It is in order to make the first casual comment about how we relate to children to say that
so often the most fundamental relatedness to the child is an unconscious one. We are functioning
all the time as adults, creating a climate in which our children live, from which they get
important clues as to what things mean.
A child can gather so much more from the tone of our voice, or from what we do with our eyes,
when we are saying our thing, than from all the formal words that we may utter directly to the
child, which words, as they move from our lips, have as their purpose the shaping of an image
and the mind of the child. No, the image again and again is shaped almost unconsciously. The
child absorbs it from the environment.
We may say all of the words that we can conjure up about how wonderful it is to have respect for
other people and to love people, or even to love someone who is close at hand. But if the child
sees the deed, if the child is present when the sharp word is given, if the child is there when the
conversation goes on behind the other person's back, all of this goes into the shaping of the
inward parts of the mind and the spirit of the child. I learned so much more about prayer, for
instance, from my mother than any of the words that she ever used in teaching me little prayers,
or in teaching me to pray by something that I saw one night when I rushed into her room, and
was so excited that I forgot my manners and did not knock at the door beforehand. I simply burst
into the room.
And there she was kneeling beside her bed in prayer. And the moonlight came through the
window across her face. And what I saw in her face said to me about the inner meaning of the
prayer experience what all the teaching in the world could never have said. Now over and above
these unconscious teachings, and these unconscious influences, something must be said about the
direct and the conscious thing that is done. For instance, it is of absolute and-- how shall I [? say
it?-- ?] crucial importance that we do not ever lie to our children.
So that the child knows that even though his words may be weak, his words may be full of
mixtures of fantasy and fancy and imaginings, all of the things that come out of the magic of the
child's mind, but if he knows that when his mother speaks, or when his father utters the word,
that this is dependable, that this is the truth, so that the child has something against which he can
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
put all of the pressure of his life, of his days, of his energies, and not feel that this thing gives,
that here is something that is dependable.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The night may come, and the night may be long, and the night may be dark. And the next day, it
may be raining. Or the child may have a sore toe, or a sore foot. Or he may be disappointed
because of this thing or the other thing. But always back in the shadows of his mind is the deep,
rock-like confidence that my father is true. My mother is true. And what my mother says or what
my father says can be depended upon. And this provides an emotional security that in my
judgment, at any rate, is as profound and as stabilizing as the emotional security about which we
hear so much that comes from tender loving care, and from being regarded kindly and tenderly
and graciously by the parents.
The child wants to know consciously and unconsciously that there is something upon which he
can depend that has solidity, that against which he can put all of his tantrums, and all of his
pressures, and all of his little anxieties. And this thing holds. And this he gets directly from his
mother and his father, so that their words are yes and no. And when they speak, the child knows
that he is standing in the presence of that which is dependable. And it is this that gives him his
clue as to what God means in the world.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
The preceding was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
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/394-767.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Children and Religious Meaning; Our Children Are Not Things (ET-5; 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
394-767
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
The Child and Religious Meaning (1964-01-24); Our Children Are Not Our Things (1963-11-01)
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
1964-01-24
1963-11-01
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman utilizes Frederick J. Moffitt's "Thus A Child Learns," as a point of departure for his liturgy for the devotion of a child. Thurman notes that it is the "birthright" of every child to be given the tools "define for them what it is that they are seeking and where they may find it."
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects from his text, "Meditations of the Heart," to "think about children and our relationship to them." Throughout this meditation, Thurman explores the ways in which adults should listen to, teach, and learn from children.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
behavior
belonging
children
community
creativity
curiosity
dedication
dependability
development
developmental psychology
divan
experience
faith
family
Frederick J. Moffitt
furniture
genuine
goodness
habits
home
imagination
influence
intention
learning
life
love
meditations of the heart
moonlight
prayer
relationship
responsibility
self-control
teaching
Thus a Child Learns
tone
tradition
vitality