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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-780.mp3
This is tape number ET 26. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled Thanksgiving and the Nature of Life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Since next Thursday is Thanksgiving, I am reading my litany of Thanksgiving. And today, I
make my sacrament of Thanksgiving. I begin with the simple things of my days. Fresh air to
breathe, cool water to drink, the taste of food, the protection of houses and clothes, the comforts
of home. For these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.
I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known. My mother's arms, the strength
of my father, the playmates of my childhood, the wonderful stories brought to me from the lives
of many who talked of days gone by when fairies, and giants, and all kinds of magic held sway.
The tears I have shed, the tears I have seen, the excitement of laughter, and the twinkle in the eye
with its reminder that life is good. For all these, I make an active Thanksgiving this day.
I finger, one by one, the messages of hope that awaited me at the crossroads. The smile of
approval from those who held in their hands the reins of my security. The tightening of the grip
in a single hand shake when I feared the step before me in the darkness. The whisper in my heart
when the temptation was fiercest and the claims of appetite were not to be denied.
The crucial word said, the simple sentence from an open page when my decision hung in the
balance. For all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day. I pass before me the main springs
of my heritage. The fruits of the labors of countless generations who lived before me, without
whom my own life would have no meaning. The seers who saw visions and dream dreams. The
prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp, and whose words could only find
fulfillment in the years which they would never see.
The workers whose sweat has watered the trees, the leaves of which are for the healing of the
nations. The pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons, whose courage made
paths into new worlds and far off places. The saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness
that only a dream could inspire and a god could command. For all this, I make an act of
Thanksgiving this day.
I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment of which I give the loyalty of my
heart and mind. The little purposes in which I have shared with my loves and my desires, my
gifts. The restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence that I have never done my
best. I have never dared to reach for the highest. The big hope that never quite deserts me that I
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and my kind will study war no more, that love and tenderness, and all the inner graces of
almighty affection will cover the life of the children of God as the waters cover the sea.
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All these, and more than mine can think and heart can feel, I make as my sacrament of
Thanksgiving to Thee, our father, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart. Ordinarily,
when we think of Thanksgiving, and particularly in times of historic perspective, we are
reminded of the time of the end gathering of the harvest, and the time when the forebearers of
ours gathered their fruit and their harvest and had a meal of Thanksgiving and celebration.
This is what we think of. But I'm thinking this morning, however, of a harvest of the heart. The
heart. What kind of harvest are you gathering in your own heart? And this is not merely an
academic question or a formal question. It is not a question that belongs to some particular
religious category or some religious insistence. But it's a question that belongs to the very heart
of all the meaning that your life is experiencing, and all the meaning that you are trying to
winnow out of the raw materials of your experiencing.
What is the cumulative encroachment that you have distilled out of the years of your living?
What is the harvest? It is not enough to say that you did not know what kind of seeds you were
planting. It is not enough to say that while you slept and were unmindful, some thief in the night
crawled over your fence and sewed your field, and now you must reap a harvest which you did
not sew.
This is not enough to say. The question cannot be downed. What is the harvest of your heart?
What is it that you yourself have grown, upon which you nourish your life? For as you have
planted, so will the harvest be. And during this period that we call Thanksgiving, it is altogether
fitting and proper that we should be mindful of this as the clue to what should be characteristic of
all of our days.
And this calls for one other consideration, and that has to do with what, in essence, is
Thanksgiving and the mood. It is not merely the utterance of words of gratitude. It isn't simply
saying a kind of salutation to life, that life has spared you or that you have been able to survive
or something of that sort.
But Thanksgiving is more than a mood of appreciation. It is more than a mood which comes
upon us periodically. It is a way of feeling about the nature of existence. It's a way of feeling
about the nature of life, that this feeling-- and I use the word feeling rather [? mirrored ?] than
using the word thinking. It is a feeling quality that life is something that I am sharing.
It is not something that I have created. It is something in which I am participating as a sharer,
and therefore, my mood towards it is one not merely of salutation, but one of deep, internal
humility that I have been graced by life in a manner that makes it possible for me to be where I
am in my place, carrying on in my way, reaping the harvest of my heart. And if I do not have this
attitude, then perhaps it were better that I had never been born.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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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.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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This program was videotape recorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET 26. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, this is
side two, entitled, Waiting Creatively.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy, sight, oh, Lord.
My strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
As preparation for our thought this morning, will you listen to these words? To him that waits,
all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny in the darkness what he
has seen in the light. This is a quotation. Waiting is a window opening on many landscapes. For
some, waiting means the cessation of all activity when energy is gone and exhaustion is all that
the heart can manage.
It is the long, slow panting of the spirit. There is no will to will. Spent, that is the word. There is
no hope, not hopelessness. There is no sense of anticipation, or even awareness of a loss of hope.
Perhaps even the memory of function itself has faded. There is now and before. There is no after.
For some, waiting is a time of intense preparation for the next leg of the journey. Here at last
comes a moment when forces can be realigned, and a new attack upon an old problem can be set
in order. Or it may be a time of reassessment of all plans, and of checking past failures against
present insight. Or it may be the moment of a long look ahead, when the landscape stretches far
in many directions and the chance to select one's way among many choices cannot be denied.
For some others, waiting is a sense of disaster of the soul. It is what Francis Thompson suggests
in the line, naked I wait, thy love's uplifted stroke. The last hiding place has been abandoned,
because even the idea of escape is without meaning. Here is no fear, no panic. Only the sheer
excruciation of utter disaster. It is the kind of emotional blackout in the final moment before the
crash. It is the passage through the zone of treacherous quiet.
For some, waiting is something more than all of this. It is the experience of recovering balance
when catapulted from one's place. It is the quiet forming of a pattern of recollection, in which
there is called into focus the fragmentary distillations of value from myriad encounters of many
kinds in a lifetime of living and journeying. It is to watch a gathering darkness until all light is
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swallowed up completely without the power to interfere or bring a halt, then to continue one's
journey in the darkness, with one's footsteps guided by the illumination of remembered radiance.
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This is to know courage of a peculiar kind. The courage to demand that light continue to be light,
even in the surrounding darkness. To walk in the light while darkness invades, envelops, and
surrounds. This is to wait on the Lord. This is to know the renewal of strength. This is to walk,
and faint not.
For many people, even the word waiting is a negative word. It suggests giving up the struggle. It
suggests complete inactivity, a kind of acquiescence, a bowing before what may be regarded as
one's fate. But it seems to me that waiting need not be any of these things. Waiting has inherent
in it, what seems to be a very profoundly creative quality.
For waiting is, after all, an interval between moments, experiences, events, that are filled with
involvement and activity. Therefore, waiting carries with it [? said ?] very important
implications. It means that the individual must know something very specific, and definite, and
concrete about himself, so that during the interval, whether it be a limited interval or extensive
interval, during that interval, he can come into a closer understanding of who he is, what he is,
the kind of intrinsic equipment which is basically his, in honor that when the interval is over, he
may move into the next step in a full [? on ?] possession of his powers and himself.
Therefore, waiting means an understanding of one's self. Very often, there are things that we
discover about ourselves only because of the lull into which we move as a result of a series of
activities which have engaged us. For so often, life is so demanding. Life requires of us such an
absolute concentration, so often. Sometimes the scramble for survival is so momentous that there
is no margin of the self available for reflection, for interpretation of directions and goals.
Now, when the lull comes, it is then that one has a chance to take a look at one's self uninvolved.
One's self not under attack, but one's self as it were lying acquiescent and relaxed, without the
overarching, demanding pressure of activity. At such times, it becomes necessary for the
individual not only to understand oneself, but to accept one's self as one is.
Now, this does not mean to approve of one's self as one is. No, it may not mean that at all. But it
does mean the acceptance of one's self as one is. For better or for worse, you are you. I am I.
This is the basic core with which we have to work. This is the essential raw material which must
be fashioned into the kind of tool which we will place into life's hands on behalf of the dreams,
the desires, the hopes, to which we are dedicated.
Now, if I refuse to accept myself intrinsically, then this means that in the living of my life and in
the assessing of the meaning of my life, in this period of waiting, this lull, I am completely
bankrupt, because I cannot use as my own the raw materials which are you. I am stuck with
myself, and you are stuck with yourself. For better or for worse, this is what you have to deal
with.
Now, therefore, in waiting, in this lull, if I accept myself, then it means that precious energy will
not be wasted in trying to wish or in thinking, and hoping, and desiring, that I was someone else,
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that I had certain qualities that I do not have. All of these things become a part of the blanket
term that is used over and over again, wishful thinking.
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Now, if I accept myself during this lull, then when I move in to the after waiting period, when
the new demands are upon me, when the new responsibilities are mine, or when the next stage in
my journey is being undertaken, then I move into it with a sense of power, a sense of vitality.
Because now, I have put at the disposal of the accepted self, whatever may be the gifts that are
mine. The talents of my mind and spirit, my personality, my resources, all of life now becomes
maneuverable.
Because at the core of my operation, there is a relaxed acceptance of myself. Now, once this is
done, then I can wait with wisdom. I can work while I wait. I can do all kinds of things that will
enable me to be in the darkness, if I may call waiting that. What I see myself as being in the
light. And this is, after all, what is meant by the line, I must walk in the darkness by the light
which I saw in the light.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord.
My rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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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
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-780.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Thanksgiving and the Nature of Life; Waiting Creatively (ET-26; GC 11-23-71), 1971 Nov 23
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
1950s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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394-780
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Thanksgiving and the Nature of Life (1963-11-22); Waiting Creatively (1959-06-12)
Source
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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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1963-11-22
1959-06-12
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reflects upon the Thanksgiving season. He lists a litany of feelings, emotions, materials, and states of being that he is thankful for: air to breath, food to eat, shelter, love, etc. He then discerns the way in which humanity may overlook many of the things that humanity should be grateful for, and suggests that Thanksgiving should be approached as a sacrament which points one towards humility and gratitude.
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reflects upon the meaning of "waiting." He defines waiting as the "interval between moments, experience, events, that are filled with activity." Waiting is dynamic in nature, and requires a true decision from the one who is participating: creatively participating in one's own life as it is manifested today, or longing for the life they will never have.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
activity
ancestors
care
contentment
courage
creativity
crossroad
darkness
disaster
examine
Francis Thompson
gratitude
holidays
hope
humility
litany
love
magic
nostalgia
solitude
spirit
temptation
thanksgiving
unrest
waiting
will
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Pitts Theology Library
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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
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[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
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not been explored by us and with reference to which always there are the possibilities undreamed
of.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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/394-766.html" ></iframe>
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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
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-766
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Salute to the New Year (1962-01-05); The Strength to be Free (1960-07-01)
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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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
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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
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Pitts Theology Library
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-362_B.mp3
If it was just simple gratitude that you felt then--
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
But it is not just simple gratitude. My life was at stake. And it isn't a matter of thank you, it's a
matter of being actually salvaged. And what can I do, what can I be, what can I become that will
rid me of the burden of this necessity? To find a way to thank them maybe, to use your word. To
rid myself of the burden of obligation that is placed upon me for the rest of my life?
There is a debt that I can't pay. And I'm never free to be myself until I get rid of it. And how do I
get rid of it? By trying ways by which I can nullify the fact that I was saved by them. Get them
off my scent.
This is a part of eternal conflict between parents and children. Right here. Right here. And I think
a parent finally gets to a point, maybe, that the child is freed of the obligation that is generated by
the fact that the parents stood in local-- whatever that word for children is-- for the child. And the
child is always trying to find a way by which the child may be free enough in his or her space to
act on an initiative that is not involved at how that child relates to the parent.
And maybe you can't do it. Maybe you can't do it. What it takes to do it makes you defiant, in
rebellion and ungrateful, insensitive. .
And I think man's religious experience is a carbon copy of the way by which the individual must
find a way to stand in his own anonymity. And to look into the face of the one who loves you,
and who would give his or her life for you, but to look into that face as if that person were a
stranger.
Once that happens, then you are free to discover the grounds of how you relate to each other in
terms of your vote, and not in terms of your necessity. This is so crucial it seems to me
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am always sure that I know better what is best for the
people I love than people know. And I find myself waiting in all kinds of out of the way places
to come to the rescue when they are caught in life's trap. And every time I reach my hand down
to rescue them, the hand is knocked away. And when it finally gets there, the hand is bitten.
Because I am unwilling to give to my children the right to make and pay for their mistakes.
Dr. Thurman, Have you been saved by a savior? Through your life's journey, have there been
people that have come and have been saviors to you? And then you in turn have felt then that
must be destroyed?
Yes, I've felt that I had to get rid of them. So that I could be me. And sometimes I have
rediscovered. But I rediscovered, they didn't rediscover me.
Your grandmother, for instance, how long did it take you?
Well it was the end of my first year in seminary. Oh, and I came back home for-- before doing
my work for the summer I came back home to touch base. To sleep all night the sleep of my
1
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Transcription
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childhood. And be awakened in the morning by smelling breakfast. And coming downstairs
forgetful of everything else, without a stitch on. And my grandmother standing in the middle of
the kitchen saying, Lord have mercy, boy. Go back upstairs and cover up your shame.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
So I was anxious to talk to her about Jesus. This was my first year with all this marvelous stuff
that I had gotten in seminary. When the Bible reading time came-- which my role as a kid was to
read the Bible to her-- and when the Bible reading time came, I moved right in. And I began to
tell what I'd learned about Jesus, and all this. And she listened.
She didn't ignore what I said. She didn't put any damper on it. But she talked to me about what
Jesus meant to her. And when she finished, well I was devastated. When she finished, I said,
Grandma you are talking about God. And she said, who told you the difference?
And then I was off again, because I had learned-- well, I learned a lot of things about the
different gospels, got the oldest, I was full of it. And when it was all over, and I shot my wad,
and she hadn't-- she listened.
And then we had prayer. And in the prayer I had a sense of presence which came through to me
in a very strange way. Who Jesus was, what Jesus taught, what the Bible said about Jesus, all of
this seemed strangely irrelevant. He was in our midst.
And from that week on, until she died, we did not ever talk about Jesus again. Now, I spent many
years until her death trying to find some way by which my experience and her experience could
flow together. Bypassing everything I had learned, and everything that I knew in terms of formal
and discursive knowledge.
And she became the strongest early influence in my life. She became-- I don't how to say this.
She quite-- in my experience with her until her death at 94 or five, it was no longer necessary for
me ever to discuss religion with her again.
And strange that I was thrown back into my childhood when she would take me to church on
Sunday night before my mother came from work. And I would settle down-- if she wore about
15 underskirts. And she had this big lap, and I would work my way down into my spot where I
could be comfortable and looking up in her face. And without any understanding whatsoever,
feel what she was experiencing pass through me. And I waited for that to happen before I went to
sleep.
And then when I went to sleep, I would be awakened by the singing led by-- you shouldn't have
asked me this kind of question-- by the singing of one of the women. We called her-- when we
were talking about her, the kids-- we call her Old Lady Wright. But she had a voice between a
spring whisper and fall hurricane. Oh my!
And I grew up experiencing her create stanzas to spirituals with such complete abandonment and
intimacy of insight and truth, that time after time the minister of the church would call a deacon
and then say go over and shake her so she could turn us loose, and we can go on with the service.
Now, I'm not talking about the mind. I'm talking about the ground of being. Where there is no
category, but where you feel all of life breathing through you. There's no God, no savior, no
2
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Transcription
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Jesus, no-- It is becoming one with the rhythm of life, with the ebb and flow of life. And in it you
finally find yourself fighting for your private identity. And I think in everybody's life,
somewhere along the way, this kind of thing happens somewhere.
Pitts Theology Library
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But something else happens. We have no faith in it because we can't put a handle on it. It is the
gift and the deception of the mind to identify truth with understanding. There is a sense of the
timeless, the eternal. See I'm using all of these funny words. That once you experience this-- and
everybody experiences it so there's nothing unique about it. I think everybody experiences it,
even those who are deranged as to their minds. Whose mind's in a tilted place, who suffer
beyond all formulae of machination, of definition. It is what I meant and mean. I don't think that
there's anything unique about this.
And with my kind of imagination, I guess that's what it is. I think the trees, the grass, my dog
Kropotkin. Every form by which life breaks itself down in particularity. Once that happens, that
form is trying to go home again. Home again, home again, home again. And maybe this is what
Augustine meant when he said, l hast made us for thyself. And all fools restless till they find
their rest in thee.
But there again, we put it into a category. But you see, what I'm feeling for, and what I've been
struggling with all my life, is that whatever it may be the particularity by which I define how it's- That particularity is the door through which I come home. To the very ground of my life.
Now in religious categories it means this, that if this is the room, let us say, where God is
viewed. That kind of theological terminology. There's all these different doors through which I
enter. One door may be shaped like a test tube. Another door may be shaped like a cross.
Another door may be shaped like a dome.
Once I cross the threshold by which I enter into the room, what I experience in the room is the
same thing. But my personality, my whatever it is-- I hate to use the word ego, cause I don't
know what that means-- but my little tent that clues me into which is the door through which I
could enter into this room is so crucial. Because when I'm in the room, everybody who's-everything-- everybody who's in the room experiences the same thing, is a part of the same thing.
And I have my land [INAUDIBLE]. This is where God is better seen.
And once I get past my entrance, everything in the room and I are part of each other. But, there is
something in me that makes me identify what's in the room with the door through which I enter.
And if I do that, I don't get past the door. And I say to you, you can't enter this room except you
come this way.
And to me the religious experience and the experience of what I call the idiom of life are one in
the same. And I get into trouble when I'm doing what I'm trying to do this afternoon, talk about
it. From the moment I started using words that are descriptive, good enough for you to
understand what I'm saying. You have to compare them with your words. Or take my words that
are not your words. I spent a lifetime trying to make sense out of them. And working your way
back to the room, you have to leave all that on the outside.
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Transcription
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And that's why I feel that all life is one, all religion is one. And whoever gives me a feeling, or a
persuasion, that my religion, my way, has to be binding on anybody else except me, ties me to a
formula that ultimately destroys me if I don't destroy it first. And this is what my savior does.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There used to be a statement, when I first heard it I had to do a lot of thinking to able to even not
call it heresy much less accept it. And that is, There are no false religions unless you call a baby
a false man.
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. How can you live into a world of definitions, and categories, and
classifications on that basis? I guess it's Emerson who insists that to live in the traffic of the
world with the independence of solitude is the essence, I think, of the spiritual journey.
But it is so frightening, because it is so lonely. And I feel the need of a shoulder to touch, a hand
to grasp to give me the assurance that even if I lose my way, the hand doesn't lose its way. But
then suddenly I find I am dependent on the hand, and the hand becomes my trap. So I take it turn
it loose, I take it-- Yes?
You used the example of the room and the many doors 10 years ago. And I still remember it,
because it impressed me. And at that time you said, after giving this description, however, the
Christian religion differs from all others in that we believe God sent His son, or a representative
of himself, to be among a man, to help lead them home. Have you changed your thinking in 10
years? You don't want that hand to help you go through the door with a cross on it?
The difference for me is that the hand that is a part of my experience of handness is a part of my
culture, my training, the world that gave me my sense of self. And something in me quivers
when I want or I feel the necessity to act independent of this. So that I find, in these years, that I
whisper under my breath to the hand, forgive me.
There's a little boy in the German reader. And he says The Lord's Prayer he says, give us this day
our daily bread, and he muttered something under his breath. Finally the mother said, now what
is that little thing you said? He said I Just asked Him, please put a lot of butter on it.
I can't ever escape my introduction into life's meaning. Which for me, is the whole context of the
Christian thought feeling pattern. Now the heresy is-- and therefore from my point of view-- the
sin is to make that absolute for you. For you, for you, for you.
And I've always felt that if I were missionary-- and I say this because it's the year I spent in
India, and Burma and created so much trouble. That if I were sent as missionary to some land
where there's a religion other than my own, my mission would be to help them understand and
experience the meaning of their religion.
Because I don't believe many things. As I grow older, the things I believe become fewer, but
more absolute. And therefore, the intimation is increasing intolerance. But I believe that God has
not left Himself without a witness in the totality of His creation. And that how I define it, how I
describe it, depends upon the road that I take.
I don't think that there is more than one truth. And there never is a time. But, I mean, I'd be
mistaken. But I have to live my life as if my truth were absolute. And this is the dilemma of the
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Transcription
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human pilgrimage. I can be sure, but I can never be sure absolutely. And I mistrust anyone who
is sure absolutely except God. I have to live as if my truth is the only truth, because that is the
measure of my responsibility for my own journey. At the same time, I must recognize the fact
that I may be mistaken.
Pitts Theology Library
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So as I live, I knock at every door. And then maybe when you come to the door and greet me, in
that exchange I see like a flash of blinding light. One I didn't see until you opened the door. And
after that I see it everywhere.
And this is the terrible thing about-- I hate to use the word terrible-- but for me it's a very rough
thing. The times that I don't want to meet any new people. That I don't want to get close to
anybody, because in that moment, from them there may be a light that shows into a dark corner
of me that I didn't know was there. And now I've got to start all over again.
And there are times when I wish I could just close out everything and just have a little time.
When I don't get from you something that sends me back somewhere on something I overlooked
20 years ago, but didn't know it till I heard you do this to me. Everybody's a little too young to
know what I'm talking about. But there are moments when you just wish that you can pull down
all the windows, all the shades, and just enjoy you, knowing that whatever is going on outside is
out there. But after a while you have to get up and peek out there. And then you had it. And you
start over again .
So that those who make of life a pilgrimage and a journey, I think, live into life open ended. And
even though they do not know the road and the turns, they live with confidence because they
believe that the road and its turnings is known. And whoever knows that is God. And therefore
the road itself can be trusted, because the road is going somewhere.
And there are times in my life and I don't want to know where the road goes. Something in me
gets tired of proing and coning. Of thising and thating. I just want something settled, so I could
have a little peace. And nothing is ever settled. The sand is hot under your feet all the time. And
the only thing you can do to take refuge and wear these shoes that have thicker soles. Take a
longer time for the heat to get to your feet, but it's on its way.
If we realize that the results are not ours, not our responsibility. Doesn't that take a lot of heat off
of that sand or off your feet [INAUDIBLE].
But you see, I always feel that perhaps I'm selling myself a bit of goose when I say it's not my
responsibility. See a part of the way by which my life is confirmed is the freedom with which I
can affirm the integrity of my own journey. Because I come back again and again to perhaps the
most terrifying thing about life, and that is that nobody like me has ever lived before. And
nobody like me will ever live again. That my responsibility for my journey is absolute. Even
though and the deepest thoughts that I have, the option was not mine.
If you have your focus on Him, and if you're going forward he can't we assume that that's all we
can do, and the results are going to have to be His?
But you see, I, there's something in me that demands my share of the responsibility. Because if
I'm denied that, then I'm reduced to zero. And I will not be zeroed. It's like--
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
[INAUDIBLE]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
All right I'm going to stop it, just one more thing. I did a [INAUDIBLE] prose poem on this
incident in there. But I learned a gruesome, terrifying lesson when, after the moving van had
taken all the stuff out of our house at Atlanta, and loaded it to take to Washington where I was
moving and going to begin living. I remembered as I pulled the door closed, that the next day the
people who'd bought the house the moving in. And then as I thought of that, I remember--
6
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-362_B.html" ></iframe>
Time Period
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1980s
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Conversations with Howard Thurman (parts 9 and 10), 1980 Sep 19-21, Side B
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394-362_B
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Thurman, Howard
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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<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.
Title
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Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 9 and 10, Side B
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1980-09-20
Description
An account of the resource
This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." In this recording, Thurman explores what it means to participate on a spiritual journey in a pluralistic world, noting that "religious experience is a carbon copy of the way by which the individual must find a way to stand out in their own anonymity." Here, Thurman is framing spirituality and mission as a means of locating the depth and breadth of spirituality both within the individual, and in the context of the wider world.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
Atlanta
burden of obligation
church
debt
developmental psychology
dichotomy
doors
ego
experience
German reader
gratitude
ground of being
idiom of life
imagination
Incarnation
India
Jesus
Kropotkin
Lord's Prayer
Nancy Ambrose
Old Lady Wright
personality
pilgrimage
plurality of truth
prayer
Ralph Waldo Emerson
relationship
responsibility
seminary
singing
spiritual journey
tent of clues
-
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7a2c622b53d46a7b7dfa034679cfb5a0
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-171_B.mp3
[BELL TOLLING]
[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]
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. There is a spirit about which I spoke last week and concerning
which I shall be speaking from time to time. One sonnet that belongs with this idea today.
"My Lord, Thou art in every breath I take. And every bite and sup taste firm of Thee. With
buoyant mercy, Thou enfold'st me and hold'st up my foot each step I make. Thy touch is all
around me when I wake. Thy sound I hear. And by Thy light, I see the world is fresh with Thy
divinity. And all Thy creatures flourish for Thy sake.
For I have looked upon a little child and seen forgiveness and have seen the day with eastern fire
cleanse the foul light away. So cleanse'st Thou this house I have defiled. And if I should be
merciful, I know it is Thy mercy, Lord, in overflow."
There is an element of gratuitousness always in the mood of Thanksgiving, the mood of
appreciation. And that gratuitous element, as I think of it, has this important fact working for it
all the time. And that is that when I am thoughtful about life, when I reflect upon my experiences
of living, always there is an element present that I do not deserve, an element that is there
because I am standing at this particular moment in time.
And I inherit, by the very fact of my existence, a whole bounteous flow of things that arose at
another time in human history, at another period in the past. And these things become available
to me in the present merely by the fact that I am living in the present, so that the first element of
gratuitousness is there because I am existing now rather than having existed 10 years from now.
And then there is always an element of grace that has to do with the present, that somebody,
somewhere-- somebody who is my contemporary, someone whose name I may know or whose
name I may not know-- because of what he does or what she does, or because of what she may
be doing this afternoon or tonight or tomorrow, I am the recipient. The overflow from the act that
this person performs somehow manages to be caught up in that which I am using.
And I think that this is one of the reasons why it is so important in one's own personal struggles
with ideas or with convictions-- it is important to lay hold on the insight not to give up, to persist
in working away, even against all odds.
Because if you do this, if you wrestle with your problem and your issue until at last light comes
or solution may be found, when the light comes, or when the solution breaks into your mind,
there is so much more insight than you can manage that it spills out and it moves in all
directions. And wherever anyone who may be passing has an empty vessel, a bit of the insight
which came because you struggled will be available to him.
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So I ask you, as we approach Thanksgiving Day, what is the nature of your own gratitude? And
how many times have you said, with quietness in your own heart, "Thank you, life, for all of the
graces that have come to me," or "Thank you, God, because Thou has not dealt with me after my
sin, nor according to my iniquity"?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
2
�
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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/.
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
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-171_B.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Thankful for What?, 1964 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
394-171_B
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Thankful for What? (1964-11-20)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1964-11-20
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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, Thurman reflects upon the Thanksgiving season, asking the question: "What is the nature of your own gratitude?" He calls the listener to discern whether or not they have paused to look at their life in the present moment and identifies the present moment as a gift. When considering the task of understanding the present moment as a gift, mercy and gratitude function as the means to allow oneself to be present in the moment. Thurman claims that our mercy and gratitude is also God's mercy and gratitude, thus accepting the gift that is the present moment is to accept the gift of God's sovereign providence.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
breath
God residue
grace
graciousness
gratitude
holidays
nature
panentheism
thanksgiving
vessel
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/5478ee2f2a229df176cfdc3a1e97c103.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711674000&Signature=S%2FeYsUYR99K715lHG6wfEBTe0cA%3D
c7b31f56eaef923b43dd616591a58979
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-171_A.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]
Because this is the season of Thanksgiving, I want to stray from the theme on which we have
been working during these Friday mornings and read a litany of Thanksgiving and make a few
comments about the meaning of that kind of experience in human life. Today I make my
sacrament of Thanksgiving. I begin with the simple things of my days-- fresh air to breathe, cool
water to drink, the taste of food, the protection of houses and clothes, the comforts of home. For
all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.
I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known-- my mother's arms, the strength
of my father, the playmates of my childhood, the wonderful stories brought to me from the lives
of many who talked of days gone by when pharaohs and giants and all kinds of magic held sway,
the tears I have shed, the tears I have seen, the excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the eye
with its reminder that life is good. For all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.
I finger one by one the messages of hope that awaited me at the crossroads-- the smile of
approval from those who held in their hands the reins of my security, the tightening of the grip in
a simple shake when I feared the step before me in the darkness, the whisper in my heart when
the temptation was fiercest and the claims of appetite were not to be denied, the crucial word
said, the simple sentence from an open page when my decision hung in the balance. For all these,
I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.
I passed before me the mainsprings of my heritage, the fruits of the labels of countless
generations who lived before me without whom my own life would have no meaning, the seers
who saw visions and dreamed dreams, the prophets who sensed truth greater than the mind could
grasp and whose words would only find fulfillment in the years which they would never see, the
workers whose sweat has watered the trees, the leaves of which I for the healing of the nations,
the pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons, whose courage made powers into
new worlds and far off places, the saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness that only a
dream could inspire and a god could command. For all this, I make an active Thanksgiving this
day.
I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment to which I give the loyalty of my
heart and mind-- the literal purposes in which I have shared with my loves and my desires and
my gifts, the restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence that I have never done
my best-- I have never dared to reach for the highest-- the big hope that never quite deserts me
that I and my kind will study war or more, that love and tenderness and all the inner graces of all
my affection will cover the light of the children of God as the waters cover of the sea. All these
and more than mind can think and the heart can feel, I make as my sacrament of Thanksgiving to
thee, our father in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Are you a grateful person? Think about it a little. There are so many things in your own life. As
hard as your life may seem to you to be, as rough as the going may be as the saying says,
nevertheless, if you examine your life very carefully, you will discover that there are many,
many things for which you should be grateful but things perhaps which you take for granted-- the
food that you eat.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
For instance, suppose you had a strip of bacon for breakfast this morning. Once upon a time, the
hog from which that bacon came was a living, breathing animal enjoying his life at the level of
his hogness, grunting his way into fulfillment in simple ways. And then without any
announcement from anyone, without any wish or will or desire on his part, assuming that he's
capable of having all of these things, he was summoned to a place at which he was slaughtered.
And because of his dying and his processing, you were able to have a slice of bacon this
morning.
Now this suggests something which may seem to you to be rather crude. But it is this, that all of
the life that has died in order that your life may be guaranteed places upon you a very searching
demand that suggests to me that your life or my life are not ours to do with as we please. Our life
in the first instance belongs to all the life that has been consumed by us through all the years of
our living.
So it is literally true that I do not have the right to do with my life as I please because there is a
very striking sense in which my life has to be an atonement for all the life that has been yielded
in order that my life might continue to be. So that if I am a courteous human being, if I am a
gentle human being, even though I may not regard myself as a religious human being, when I sit
to eat as an act of courtesy as an act of silent appreciation and gratitude to all the life that has
died that my dinner might be mine, I should bow my head in a silent if not spoken contribute of
gratitude for the life that is no longer itself because of me.
Now, of course, if I am a religious person, I will do more than this. I would express my gratitude
to God for all of the ways by which my life is sustained in the little and simple graces of life like
fresh air to breathe and cool water to drink and the miracle of my body. All of these things I
would express my-- through all of these things, I would express my gratitude to God. But be I
religious or irreligious, if I am a gentle human being, I will pause and give a quiet thank you to
life for sustaining me.
Now there's another level at which this works it seems to me. I was cared for as a baby. You will
care for a baby and as a child at a time when you were unable to care for yourself. This mean that
for a long period of your life, you were sustained and cradled, nourished, guarded, tutored all by
someone or some ones who had to do this by an act of will and desire on their part. This means
that deliberately other people's lives have entered into the sustaining and the tutoring and the
guaranteeing of your own life.
Now this means that for many of us, we were so protected that as children, we were not forced to
deal with our environment as if we were adults. This means that somebody built a wind break
between us and the adult pressures of life so that we were able behind that wind break to let our
little bodies grow, to let our nervous systems become centered and focused and tracked as it were
so that as we grew older it would be possible for us to deal with our environment as adults.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now if we are-- were not protected in this way, if no one stood between us and the adult
pressures of life and we were forced to deal with our environment as if we were adults, it means
that our whole nervous system became enraged and angry, and this perhaps is one of the reasons
why we speak of delinquents in terms that we do when we refer to certain kinds of youth. To
know that your life is nurtured in God and to experience this every day and to acknowledge it,
this is the mood and the meaning and the substance of Thanksgiving.
[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]
3
�
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/394-171_A.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
A Thanksgiving Meditation, 1958 Nov 14
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
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
394-171_A
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
A Thanksgiving Meditation (1958-11-14)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1958-11-14
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, Thurman reflects upon the Thanksgiving season. He lists a litany of feelings, emotions, materials, and states of being that he is thankful for: air to breath, food to eat, shelter, love, etc. He then discerns the way in which humanity may overlook many of the things that humanity should be grateful for: the ability to have food, all that dies in order for us to live, etc. He then concludes this meditation by discerning the ways in which one could understand their own gratitude for God: God's care, God's protection, etc.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
ancestors
care
crossroad
darkness
examine
gratitude
holidays
litany
love
magic
nostalgia
temptation
thanksgiving