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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-814.mp3
[BELLS RINGING]
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]
I'd like to begin today by reading the last two pages of a novel called The Choir Invisible written
by James Lane Allen, published about 1898. It is the last part of a letter.
I have succeeded, perhaps reached now what men call the highest point of their worldly
prosperity, made good my resolve that no human power should defeat me. All that Macbeth had
not, I have. A quiet throne of my own, children, wife, troops of friends, duties, honors, ease.
There have been times when with a natural misgiving, lest I had wandered too far these many
summers on a sea of glory, I have prepared for myself the lament of Wolsey on his fall. Yet ill
fortune has not overwhelmed me or mine.
All this prosperity as a mere fruit of my toil has been less easy than for many. I may not boast
with the apostle that I have fought a good fight, but I can say that I fought a hard fight. The fight
will always be hard for any man who undertakes to conquer life with the few and simple
weapons I have used and who will accept victory only upon such terms as I have demanded.
For be my success small or great, it has been one without willful wrong to a single human being
and without inner compromise or other form of self abasement. No man can look me in the eyes
and say I ever wronged him for my own profit. None may charge that I have smiled on him in
order to use him or called him my friend that I might make him do for me the work of a servant.
Do not imagine I fail to realize that I have added my full share to the general evil of the world, in
part unconsciously, in part against my conscious will. It is the knowledge of this influence of
imperfection forever flowing from myself to others that has taught me charity with all the
wrongs that flow from others towards me. As I have clung to myself despite the evil, so I have
clung to the world despite all the evil that there is in the world.
To lose faith in men, not in humanity. To see justice go down and not believe in the triumph of
injustice. For every wrong that you weakly deal another or another deals you to love more and
more the fairness and the beauty of what is right. And so to turn with ever increasing love from
the imperfection that is in us all to the perfection that is above us all, the perfection that is God.
This is one of the ideals of actual duty that you once said were to be as candles in my hand.
Many a time, this candle has gone out, but as quickly as I could snatch any torch with your
sacred name on my lips, it has been relighted. My candles are all beginning to burn low now.
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�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
For as we advance far on into life, one by one, our duties end. One by one, the lights go out. Not
much ahead of me now must lurk the great mortal changes coming always nearer, always faster.
As they approach, I look less to my candles and more towards my lighthouses. Those distant,
unfailing beacons that cast their rays over the stormy sea of this life from the calm ocean of the
infinite.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
I know this, that if I should live to be an old man, my duties ended and my candles gone, it is
these that will shine in upon me in that vacant darkness. And I have this belief that if we did but
recognize them aright, these ideals at the close of life would become one with the ideals of our
youth. We lost them as we left mortal youth behind. We regain them as we enter upon youth
immortal. If I have kept unbroken faith with any of mine, thank you and thank God.
The idea that there is a very definite difference between the ideals that are on the horizon that
stand as points of referral and the immediate goal or the immediate ideal, if you will, that
structures the first simple steps along the way. We have before us always goals that we can
reach, goals that are the projection of what seems to us to be the working possibility of our lives.
And as we achieve these goals, we discover that what seemed to us at an earlier time was a goal
was merely a gate leading to a larger goal. And life seems to be this way, that we operate in a
state of possible achievement with reference to what is next on our horizon. But always when we
achieve it, we find that it leads to something else.
I said, says Oppenheimer in one of his poems, when I get there, the fight will be over. But when I
got there, I found that the fight was not over, that the fight would never be over, not even in
death. That always our lives are being informed by distant goals, by ideals that, in some sense,
are above the struggles of our lives, above the tensions and above the contradictions, but are
always informing the struggle and resolving the contradictions.
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 send his hail, his sleet, his fireballs, I shall arrive. What
time, what place, I know not. He guides me and the birds in His good time.
Therefore, I shall never settle them for the immediate goal. For any goal that I can achieve really,
in essence, is not worth achieving. It is the sense of deep inner tension at the very core of a man
that keeps him striving. Not in anxiety, no, but keeps him truing all of the details of his life, all of
the whole spectrum of his life by something that transcends his life at every point.
And I think this is the way God reveals himself over and over in human life. He speaks to us in
terms that we can hear. But when we respond, we find that there is so much more to the utterance
than we thought when we gave our initial response. I go to prove my soul. I see my way as birds,
their trackless way. He guides me and the bird in His good time.
[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.
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�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This program was prerecorded.
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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
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/394-814.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Original Title: In His Good Time (WB-19B)
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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394-814
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Ideals and Goals (1964-02-14)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1964-02-14
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series, Thurman draws upon the novel "The Choir Invisible" by James Lane Allen, to reflect upon God's relationship to humanity. Thurman deeply leans into the mystery that is associated with humanity's actualized potential. He notes that our arrival to our actualized potential is inevitable; however, we shall not know the time or place of this arrival. Rather than giving quick answers, Thurman encourages us to look to the horizon for the next goal, trusting that the same God who cares for the birds of the air is the same God that cares for humanity, and is moving humanity towards a shared goal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dustin Mailman
actualized potential
gate
goal
horizon
love
tension
youth