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394-793.mp3
This is tape number ET52 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one, entitled, "Response to Life."
Pitts Theology Library
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
I'm continuing how thinking together on certain aspects of the 139th Psalm. And today, how
precious are thy thoughts unto me oh, god? How precious are thy thoughts? The worth of life
abounds in all I see. The kernel of the seed holds in its place a swinging door, through which the
boundless energy of living substance flows, forming itself in root and stalk, in branch and fruit.
The germ in the egg awaits the fulfilling moment. A gentle tug, a brooding urge, and unhurried
push to full creation-- then living form of chick or bird or child. A whisper in the mind like a
voice floating in the hills calls to itself kindred thoughts from far off places. Ideas take shape and
form, forming within their vital wall their strange insistence. They pull, they push, they drive,
command until, at last, they are the master in the house and the whole course of a man's life is
channeled into regions he does not know, nor scarcely understand.
How precious are thy thoughts unto me, oh, God? The response to goodness, the urge to
minister, the quickened willingness to bless, the deep rejection of the evil deed revealed, the pull
of the clear thought and the honest desire, an all-embracing tenderness cradling the kindly act,
the far flung hope comprising myriad strands of all man's dreaming, the hard rebuff to all that
mocks and scorns, the whole surrender of the center of consent to lose life only to find it again.
How precious are thy thoughts unto me, oh, God? How great is the sum of them?
To be able to think is a miracle. Ideas, invisible things, take their shape in many ways, and many
ages, many climbs, and then they land in your mind. And, in your mind, they began to work,
grow, develop, until at last, they spill out in acts and deeds. Ideas are very strange things.
They come from afar. They are born within. They take possession of the mind and order the
body to behave in certain ways. Now, when an idea comes into the mind, it orders all things to be
its servant-- if it be a central idea. If it be what is called a hard idea. And, very often, we get these
ideas that influence the life in ways that are not deliberate.
You may remember in "Faust" when Foust is about to drink the poison potion because he feels
that he has exhausted all learning. As he lifts the goblet to his lips, he hears through an open
window the songs coming from a chapel hard by. These songs-- or this song, this music is like
the music which crept into his mind and spirit when he was a child.
He was scarcely aware of the fact that he was exposed to this early music, that it had embedded
itself in his mind and spirit, but here it was. And, as soon as he hears the voices singing, a whole
flood of memories of earlier experiences-- everything in his past that was related in quality and
tone to the insight and the impact of this early music upon him is now activated. And these
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things stand over against that which is working in his mind causing him to commit suicide. And
he drops the goblet and goes on with his life.
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How precious, also, are thy thoughts unto me oh, God? What kind of thoughts, what kinds of
images are you storing up in your mind? What kind of idea bank do you have? Are they ideas
which have to do with the things in life that have irritated you, that have made life difficult-- all
the negative experiences that you have had with other human beings-- have you kept a carefully
accumulated body of this kind of data so that the things which you store up through the years are
all the things that you dislike as you have lived your life?
If that is the case, then, it is these things that you have stored up in terms of ideas and images and
pictures as you have lived through the years. It is these things that create the inner climate of
your life. It is these things that provide the atmosphere through which you look out upon the
world. And, if this is the case, then the kind of structuring, ordering of your response to life in
general is determined by the quality of these kinds of things which you have accumulated and
held fast at the central place in your mind. And this means, you see, that what you think, then, of
people-- what you think of situations which you contemplate is not just the result of the
particular idea on your mind or the situation on your mind, but it is the quality of all of the
atmosphere that has been generated through years of the accumulation of a certain kind of
thoughts, a certain body of ideas.
Now, if you have made a habit of gathering unto yourself things upon which you may feed with
meaning and significance-- great ideas, great and breathless moments of beauty that have been
visited upon the human scene through the gifted minds and tongues and pens of poets and
dreamers and prophets-- if these are the things upon which you feed, then a climate of that kind
is is generated and it is through this kind of climate that you look out upon the world.
This is one of the great reasons why, whether a person believes in a daily life of devotion,
whether you are a person who believes in prayer as a form of religious experience and expression
or not-- if you want to live a full and healthy life so that your outlook will be fresh and full of the
distilled wisdom of all the ages, each day of your life you will set aside some moment, some time
when you will expose yourself to some of the great images, the great pictures, the great thoughts
that have blessed the minds of other men.
I will fly in the greatness of God as the Martian flies, filling all the space twixt the marsh and the
skies. By so many roots as the marsh grass sends in the sod, behold, I will lay me a hold on the
greatness of God. Some such idea as that, and there are many others. Gather unto yourselves
those ideas that inspire, that breathe wisdom and tenderness and kindness and love. And these,
then, will create in you a climate and an atmosphere through which you will look out upon the
world and interpret the things that come into your life from day to day. How precious are thy
thoughts unto me, oh, God?
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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This is tape number ET52 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two entitled, "Responsibility for Action."
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
Pitts Theology Library
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In the morning's mail, I received a Gaelic blessing, which I will share with you before I begin the
regular part of the program. May the roads rise with you and the wind be always at your back.
And may the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand. This morning, we come to the end of our
consideration of the 139th Psalm. We are thinking together about the last stanza. Try me and
know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
Judgment seems far removed from act and deed. Trumpets from the past sound warning notes.
The day of judgment-- prepare to meet that God. Beyond the gates of modern life, ancient myths
couched in dogmas old mold and rot in silent gloom. The end of time-- god on his throne to
judge mankind and the man alone stands before the judgment seat. The sky, a canopy above,
heavenly hosts, angels, archangels in ceaseless flight bathed forever in eternal light blazing forth
from the throne of God-- such is the ancient myth.
No man is free to live unmindful of an impending doom-- or so it seems. There is a timeless
warning in the far off world. The bitter truth returns in many forms. No deed, no act stands by
itself alone. In born and blood and nerve and cell, in all the imagery of mind-- in sound of voice,
in wrinkled brow, standing, sitting, waking, sleeping, laughter or tears-- the imprint of thought,
the registry of deed remain for all man's days.
There is a tight circle in which man moves. Nothing escapes. Soon or late, somewhere some
when, the doer and the deed together sit. The ancient myth renews its truth, and the man stands
alone before the judgment seat. Try me, oh, God, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any
wicked way in me.
The idea that life is a pilgrimage in responsibility is an old idea. The notion that to live is to be
responsible is a notion that is deeply ingrained in man's experience of life. And yet, there is
always the tendency to seek ever devious ways by which one may escape the responsibility for
one's own action.
This is elemental responsibility. This is primary responsibility. And, in a sense, it is absolute
responsibility. I am responsible for my own deeds and, yet, there is something that is so full of
awe about the fact that I am always trying to find ways to circumvent the relentless logic of the
fact. When I was a boy, I had two sisters-- one was older, one was younger. I was fortunately
placed because whenever I was being held accountable for something that I had done, I could
always say that I did it because I came to the rescue of my little sister and it really wasn't my
fault or responsibility, but hers. Or, I could say that I was acting under the influence of my older
sister and, therefore, it was not my responsibility but hers.
Always, there is this tendency to shrink from taking responsibility for one's own actions. But it is
a mark of maturity, a mark of growth to be willing to do what, in the last analysis, one has no
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live option except to do-- namely to take responsibility for one's own actions. Now this is a
psychological thing. It's a nice phrase to use to describe it, but it is also written in the organism,
it is written in the body. The nervous system itself registers the moment by moment encounter of
man with the living texture of his experience.
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For instance, if you became emotionally disturbed and you went to see a psychiatrist or an
analyst, one of the things inherent in the procedures that are used is something which has to do
with taking you back very slowly over the whole history of your life. Every single incident as
nearly as you are able to sense it is reproduced, because somewhere in the story of your life is the
source of the thing which, in the present, is giving you the difficulty or the trouble.
This suggests, you see, that in the unfolding of life, in the growing of individuals, everything
counts. Nothing walks with aimless feet. As Tennyson places upon the lips of Ulysses-- I am a
part of all that I have met, yet all experience is an arch where through gleams that untraveled
world whose margin fades forever and forever when I move. This is a fact of life. And, translated
in terms of religious significance, it says that life is a responsibility, and that the living of life is a
responsible act.
It is a small wonder, then, that a man like Conrad says it was always a serious thing to live and to
live life seriously-- to live it responsibly. And this is radically different from taking life seriously.
Taking life seriously may result in brooding and all kinds of internal congestions and disorder.
But to live life seriously is to be involved at each critical step in the responsibility for what that
step initiated in you or what that step set going in the world.
Now, there is still another dimension here. Man does not only live his life responsibly. Not only
are we responsible for our own actions, but something that is again and again overlooked, and
that is that man is responsible for his reactions to life. Now this is different, you see-- the first is
a man is responsible for his actions. He must pick up the tab for his action. Or, as the prose poem
suggests, there comes a time when the doer and the deed together sit.
But there is something more-- man is responsible for his reactions to the experiences and to the
events of his life. Now, it is true that again and again, a man may encounter experiences which
are not responsive to his will-- however good that will may be. We are always surrounded by
forces that seem to be impersonal in character-- forces that mold us and shape us but are not
responsive to our will. Forces that do not seem to be quite sensitive enough or capable enough of
taking this into account.
But, nevertheless, they involve us, they make their impact upon us, and we are responsible for
our reactions to the events of our lives. I cannot determine what will befall me. I am a creature of
life, I am a creature of my time, I'm a creature of my period. I am involved in processes that do
not arise within me and are not responsible to me. But, nevertheless, there is a measure of
autonomy that I have-- a margin of integrity. And that is what I shall do with the events of my
life-- how I shall react to the raw materials of my experience.
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And, as I react to them, this reaction goes into the making of my life. Search me, oh, God, says
the Psalmist, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked
way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-793.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Response to Life; Responsibility for Action (ET-52; GC 12-2-71), 1971 Dec 2
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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394-793
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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"How Precious Are Thy Thoughts..." (1961-01-13); Try Me and Know My Thoughts (1961-03-17)
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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1961-01-13
1961-03-17
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reflects upon the line "How precious are thy thoughts, O God," found within Psalm 139. Thurman uses this verse in order to poetically wax the miracle that is having a mind. In this recording, Thurman suggests that because the mind orders the body, that it is significant to discern what the mind of God consists of. It is in the discerning of God's mind that one finds the content of devotional posturing: wisdom, tenderness, and love.
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from a Gaelic Blessing, and the concluding stanza in Psalm 139, attempting to make sense of the content of a faithful human existence. He uses these reflections in order to emphasize his understanding of the interrelatedness of life, and the ways in which action and reaction are essential to both human flourishing and human suffering. Here, Thurman places great emphasis on responsibility, indicating that to live a life is to participate in a responsible act.
Contributor
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Dustin Mailman
action
birth
Conrad
ecology
egg
experience
fact of life
Faust
freedom
germ
imagination
interconnectivity
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
judgement
memory
mind
myth
new life
Psalm 139
psychiatrist
reaction
responsibility
salvation
Tennyson
Ulysses
wind
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394-786.mp3
This is tape number ET 42. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled "Intentional Living."
Pitts Theology Library
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm beginning this morning by reading a meditation from my book Meditations of the Heart. "No
man is an island. No man lives alone. These words from a poem by John Donne have been set to
music and have become the theme of a variety of radio programs which are concerned with
aspects of social responsibility.
It is of crucial importance for each person to consider how he relates himself to the society of
which he is a part. For many people, and at times for most of us, it is a part of our dreaming to be
let alone, to be free of all involvements and the responsibilities of life and for others. This is but
natural. Often, the mood passes. Sometimes we say that our personal load is so heavy that it is all
we can do to look after ourselves, with all that that entails.
Even as we express such ideas, we are reminded of a wide variety of events that we are never
ourselves alone. We are not an island. We do not live alone.
There is no alternative to the insistence that we cannot escape from personal responsibility for
the social order in which we live. We are part of the society in which we function. There can be
no health for us if we lose our sense of personal responsibility for the social order.
This means that there must be participation in the social process and that, quite specifically, such
participation means that wise and critical use of the ballot must be made, the registering of our
intent to share responsibly in government. The moral inference is that there must not be a
condemnation of the political process of society if we have been unwilling to stand up and be
counted on behalf of the kind of government in which we believe and to which we are dedicated
and for which we are willing to work and sacrifice. Where social change seems to be urgent, we
must share in that process as responsible, law-abiding citizens. The ethical values by which we
live must be implemented on the level of social change.
This calls ever for a careful evaluation of the means to which we give our support. The means
which we are willing to use must not be in real conflict with the ends which our values inspire.
Practically, this means that if we believe in democracy, for instance, we must not be a party to
means that make use of bigotry, prejudice, and hate. We must search and find the facts that are
needed for judgment and cast our lot on the side of the issues which we are willing to embrace as
our private and personal ends.
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In working on behalf of such ends, we are morally right as we see the right. We shall not
cooperate with or be a party to means that seem to us evil, means that we would not use in our
personal and private life. In this sense, then, we are our brother's keeper, for we will not demand
of any man that he do on behalf of society as a whole what as persons we would be loath to do
ourselves if we were in his [? place." ?]
Pitts Theology Library
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It is a matter of very great and searching importance, as we think about our own private and
personal working paper, to make a decision or decisions which will render our position with
reference to life and its values very clear. There is one fundamental option available to all of us,
and that option is this. We can decide the things for which we will stand with our lives, with our
resources, with our mind, with our will, with our dedication, and the things against which we will
stand.
Now, this is a very crucial and intimate area of life. I'm not talking about the things that we do as
a part of the facade of our lives. I'm not concerned about the things that we do that are prestigebearing, that will cause us to be seen in the proper light so that our private commitment will not
interfere with the kind of public advance or social advance which we wish to experience either
for ourselves or our children or our families. But rather, am I thinking about the fundamental
decision of a man's life in which he comes to a point of focus with reference to the things in
which, most fundamentally, he believes and for which he is willing to work, to make sacrifices,
if need be, to suffer, if need be, to live.
Now, this is the important thing. Have you decided the things for which you will stand with your
life and the things against which you will stand? Do you know the sense in which you wish to be
counted on the side of the things which to you are most meaningful? Or have you left this to
someone else to decide for you?
There is something very thrilling and exciting, exhilarating, about taking a stand so that you
announce that it doesn't matter where anyone else stands; this is my position. And on behalf of
my position, I am willing to act, to think, to live. Now, you may say, with reference to the great
world in which you are living, that there are so many issues, so many demands, that it's hard to
get the facts. It's hard to know. It may be that the social process is so very complex and
complicated and the way that responsibilities are delegated in our society just you, John Doe
Citizen, may not be able to give expression to any fundamental conviction.
My only reply to that is suggested perhaps by something that was written many years ago by
T.R. Glover. He was discussing the decline of the Roman Empire. And he insisted that the
Roman Empire did not fail, did not collapse, because there were no crops or because of a lack of
rainfall or even because of the mass pressure of the barbarians on the frontiers.
But he said, rather, that the Roman Empire fell because the average Roman citizen had lost his
sense of personal responsibility, personal involvement, in and for the Roman society. They had
abdicated the private and personal prerogative to count, to throw the weight of their little life on
the side of the values which had meaning for them. And in the absence of this kind of positive
declaration, those persons who carried the large responsibility for the society were free to do as
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they please. And yet the decisions which these persons made became binding on those same
people who had abdicated their own personal responsibility.
Pitts Theology Library
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Therefore, if life is to be meaningful to you, if you are to have a fundamental self-estimate, if
you are to seem to yourself to count, to be essentially independent, then it follows that you must
make up your mind where you are, as you are, in your little world, with your little
responsibilities, with your little life, as it were, the things for which you will stand so that you
can be counted. And when you are counted, then this in itself is its own reward whether or not
the things for which you stand can in your lifetime find fulfillment.
It is madness to seek a land that has never been found before across an ocean that has never been
charted before. If Columbus had reflected thus, he would never have weighed anchor. But with
this madness, he discovered a new world. And so will you.
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 ET 42, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, "Man's Relation to the Social Order."
[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 a meditation from my book Meditations of the Heart. "No man is an island. No man
lives alone. These words from a poem by John Donne have been set to music and have become
the theme of a variety of radio programs which are concerned with aspects of social
responsibility.
It is of crucial importance for each person to consider how he relates himself to the society of
which he is a part. [AUDIO OUT] of us. It is a part of our dreaming to be let alone, to be free of
all involvements and the responsibilities of life and for others.
This is but natural. Often, the mood passes. Sometimes we say that our personal load is so heavy
that it is all we can do to look after ourselves with all that that entails.
Even as we express such ideas, we are reminded of a wide variety of events, that we are never
ourselves alone. We are not an island. We do not live alone.
3
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Transcription
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There is no alternative to the insistence that we cannot escape from personal responsibility for
the social order in which we live. We are part of the society in which we function. There can be
no help for us if we lose our sense of personal responsibility for the social order.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This means that there must be participation in the social process, and that quite specifically. Such
participation means that wise and critical use must be made of the ballot, the registering of our
intent to share responsibility in government. The moral inference is that there must not be a
condemnation of the political process of society if we have been unwilling to stand up and be
counted on behalf of the kind of government in which we believe and for which we are willing to
work and sacrifice. Where social change seems to be urgent, we must share in that process as
responsible, law-abiding citizens. The ethical values by which we live must be implemented on
the level of social change.
This calls ever for a careful evaluation of the means to which we give our support. The means
which we are willing to use must not be in real conflict with the ends which our values inspire.
Practically, this means that if we believe in democracy, for instance, we must not be a party to
means that make use of bigotry and hatred and prejudice.
We must search and find the facts that are needed for judgment and cast our lot on the side of the
issues which we are willing to embrace as our private and personal ends. In working on behalf of
such ends, which are morally right as we see the right, we shall not cooperate with or be a party
to means that seem to us evil, means that we would not use in our personal, private life. In this
sense, we are our brother's keeper, for we will not demand of any man that he do on behalf of
society as a whole what as persons, we would be loath to do ourselves if we were in his place.
The feeling of isolation, the desire to be let alone, to be free to go about one's own affairs without
involvement in the common life, is a perfectly natural feeling. There is always, present in each of
us, a sense that if we somehow could build a wall around ourselves, then we would be able to
attend to our business, to hoe our row, to find our meaning, and to live our lives. It would be
wonderful, I suppose, if this could be done in fact. But it happens that we live in a world in
which each individual is a part of a wider social context, a world in which each individual finds
his particular meaning, never in isolation, but always in some kind of human context. Therefore,
it is important, as we think about the meaning of our lives and the living of our lives, that we take
into account that we are a part of a social organism and that there is no aspect of our society that
does not finally come to us for our veto or our certification.
Long ago, an historian writing about the fall of the Roman Empire, T.R. Glover, by name, said
that the Roman Empire collapsed not because of a failure of the wheat crop or the grain crop or
failure of rain or any act of God. It did not fall because of the pressure of the barbarians against
the frontiers of the empire. No.
But he says that the Roman Empire collapsed because the average Roman citizen, the average
Roman citizen, had lost his sense of responsibility for the total welfare of the empire. And he had
delegated this responsibility to the Senate. And much of the economic burden of the society was
on the backs of slaves, of people who'd been caught in battle. Now, he said when the barbarians
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began to press on the frontier, there was not sufficient strength within the body politic to
withstand this pressure, so it collapsed as if it were an egg.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Wherever individuals, then, lose their sense of responsibility for the total well-being of their
fellow, then their own well-being is threatened. Therefore, as we seek to live responsibly, then it
seems to me that it is important to examine as carefully as we may the tools that are available to
us for expressing our social concern. One of these tools, of course, is the ballot. Another tool is
participation in all kinds of movements and processes which have as their purpose the altering of
the social pattern so as to make more room for all kinds of human beings to breathe.
This feeling that I can never be what I should be until every man is what every man ought to be-or to mix the figure, however far ahead of himself a turtle puts his two front feet, he cannot move
his body until he brings up his hind legs. For better or for worse, we are all tied together in one
bundle. And if I neglect my fellows, then the total health of the common life is thereby depleted,
and in turn and in essence, my own health is depleted. Therefore, when I ask myself, what is it
that I most deeply desire and need for my own fulfillment, how may I make available to my own
life the richness and the resources all around me in order that I and my children or my family
may be able to reap the richest and fullest benefits-- the question that I ask of myself, I must also
ask of my neighbor. For what meets the deepest need in me must also meet the deepest need in
him.
And when I work for myself, I work for him. When I work for him, I work for myself, for better
or for worse. No man is an island. We are tied together in one [? bundle." ?]
[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 pre-recorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
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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
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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" />
Contributor
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
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Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-786.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/29
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Intentional Living; Man's Relation to the Social Order (ET-42; 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
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394-786
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Intentional Living (1961-06-23); Man's Relation to Social Order (1963-10-04)
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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1961-06-23
1963-10-04
Description
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In both of these recordings within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "Meditations of the Heart." In them, we hear Thurman reflecting upon citizenship and right action. Thurman's central question throughout these reflections is: What does it me to be a full, free, and responsible citizen? He claims that by having a moral praxis that rejects hatred in every way it manifests itself, one is able to resist means that contradict the end they are seeking.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
action
citizenship
Co-Laboring
decision
democracy
egg
evil
freedom
government
intention
John Donne
justice
meditations of the heart
morality
No Man is and Island
non-violent resistance
responsibility
Roman Empire
T.R. Glover
voting
working paper