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394-818.mp3
Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing. Testing.
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I am reading from the section called "For the Quiet Time," from my book Deep is the Hunger.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Does it mean having a sense of inferiority? Does it mean
discounting one's true worth and value? Does it mean pretending to think lowly of one's self in
the presence of others so as not to seem to be conceited or proud or arrogant?
What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Perhaps it means to have a present sense of inadequacy in
one's own spiritual life. The gulf between what we recognize as the high spiritual possibilities of
life and what we are able to achieve at any particular moment is the measure of one's paucity of
spirit. To be aware of this is to be blessed.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Theirs is the rule of God. The rule of God in one's life is the
priceless possession. It does not mean that one is holy. It does not mean that one is perfect. It
does not mean that one is sinless. It does mean that one has a sense of holiness, a sense of
perfection, a sense of sinlessness. It is this sense that is the open channel through which the spirit
of God invades the life. To keep the channel open and clear is to be in possession of the rule of
God.
When I know that I have not experienced in all my parts the rule of God and yet the rule of God
in my life is the center around which my life moves, then I am poor in spirit. Our Father, for the
truth which Jesus channeled to us concerning Thy kingdom, we express our moving thanks. Be
in us increasingly, that Thy kingdom, Thy rule, may guide our decisions, inspire our wills, and
determine our actions. Amen.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the merciful. What is it to be
merciful? Does it mean to be kind? Perhaps not. Kindness has a quality all its own. There is ever,
in kindness, the quality of gratuity, of surplus, of extra. It may well be that no man ever quite
deserves kindness. Kindness rests upon that which is without merit, the basically undeserving,
the great overflow by which one life crowns another with glory.
Of course, it does not mean justice or even righteousness. There is always the element of balance
or establishing equilibrium of squaring off in justice and righteousness. There is a certain core of
fairness, of accuracy, hovering over the just treatment, the righteous act toward another.
Blessed are the merciful. In dealing mercifully with another, I enrich my attitude with a diffusion
of sensitiveness that mellows it, softens it. The merciful act is the muted act. There is no
particular interest in fairness and measured dealing. It is like the difference between raw or
pasteurized milk and milk that is homogenized. The richness is nowhere but everywhere.
Am I merciful or just decent? Are you? They shall obtain mercy. Curious paradox. Does it mean
that if I am merciful, I shall be dealt with in a merciful manner by others? That I shall receive at
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the hands of others, in kind, the thing I have passed on to them? This may not follow at all, or it
may. But that is beside the point.
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The merciful shall obtain mercy because they have mercy already. They are what they share with
others. Often, the net result is that my act of mercy does call forth action of the same quality
from others. I become so involved in the richness of the quality of my dealing that I am
immunized against the absence of mercy in the dealings of others with me. My life places upon
others an imperative that broods over their own deeds, revealing their true quality to them,
pervading their deeds with the richness of my own deeds.
It is a great risk. But in the last analysis, it is unbeatable. Blessed are the merciful, for they have
mercy already.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the
humble, the low in heart, the generous in attitude toward others, the unafraid, the courageous.
Meekness is often confused with false modesty, with a certain lack of courage, with selfdegrading and ingratiating humility.
To be meek is to have a clear understanding of one's strength and one's weakness. It is to have a
normal self estimate, not to overrate nor to underrate one's ability, one's powers, one's
functioning.
Meekness is sometimes used as a device for getting one's way, for taking advantage of others, for
exploiting other people. It arises out of a sure knowledge that the attitude of pride and arrogance
will be resisted, but that meekness will unarm the opposition and win the victory. Meekness,
used in this way, is a form of radical deception and is not to be confused with humility.
Am I guilty do I take low in order to gain my end? Search me, O God. Search me.
They shall inherit the earth. They shall possess the earth. Is true that humility can never be
humiliated. It cannot be finally resisted or overcome, for it is an attitude of direct honesty in
relationships, growing out of a knowledge that the sure responsibility is to God and not to the
estimate of nor the impression of one's fellows. It is an attitude of openness toward life, ever
learning, ever growing in a perfection, which is God.
There is no room in it for fear, for cringing, for cowardice. It breathes confidence because it is
the soul's answer to the scrutiny of God. To such, life and the earth belong. Search me. Search
me, O God.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they that mourn. What does
it mean to mourn? Does it mean to weep, to exhibit grief? This is the most obvious meaning.
What is grief? Is it merely an emotional reaction to a situation which causes one to be sad and, in
a sense, unhappy? Or is it an expression of sorrow growing out of a profound sympathy for-- or
identification with-- someone in distress? What are the things that are capable of making you
mourn?
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What things, however terrible they may be, are incapable of affecting you? You are blessed if
you mourn over situations that are worthy of the outpouring of your spirit. This is a hard test.
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They shall be comforted. They shall be reassured. They shall be consoled. They shall be
confirmed. They shall be validated. To be comforted does not necessarily mean that the occasion
for mourning will be removed. But it does mean that in the presence of a situation in which there
is a spontaneous outpouring of the self in healing and redemption to others whose need grips and
holds, the spirit is somehow cleansed, washed, reassured.
It is a paradox. The comfort is in the thing that happens to you, in the process of the self-giving.
That it will do much for the other person may be assumed. Blessed are they that mourn, for they
shall be comforted.
Our Father, let me not spare my self in the outpouring of my spirit in sympathy and in total selfgiving where the need of another makes demand. Teach me the fearlessness that comes from
such encounters. The results I trust to Thee. Amen.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are the
peacemakers. Am I a peacemaker? Do I make peace in my home? This is my desire. I have a will
to peace. Or do I? I must see that no man gives all nor takes all. But rather, that by yielding and
affirming, wholeness of living in community becomes the way of life.
Of course, I do not wish war in myself, in my private circle, in the wide world of men. Yet, the
seeds of war are in me. Deep is the conflict within. When I would do good, evil is present. Or-- I
want to do what is right, but wrong is all that I can manage.
One slight injury to my pride, to my feelings, and I let it ferment until it sends a temperature all
through my spirit. A false sense of honor. Sometimes, I like to nurse my wounds. Whole nations
do this.
Blessed are the peacemakers. This means that I must possess and create a will that is good
toward myself, toward my fellows, toward life and living. This good will must constantly be fed
by facts and a careful understanding of them. Facts concerning myself, concerning my fellows,
concerning life. There must be an energized imagination.
In my mind, I must play with all manner of creative possibilities in my relations with others,
familiarizing myself with the flavor of people and their potentiality. This I must do until there is
revealed in them the very essence of what I know of myself. Then I will understand their
understanding, feel their feeling, sit where they sit. My judgment will be tenderized. My
hardness will be softened. My justice will be merciful. I will be a peacemaker.
Or-- "I" will be a peacemaker. Or-- I will be a "peace" maker. They shall be called the children
of God. The peacemaker is so like what men are seen to be at their best that they remind men of
what God must be like. They recall two men's minds the thought of the best and the highest.
They warm men with the thought of God. They breath his promise to the spirit of men. They
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bring to mind the assurance that all stand in immediate candidacy to achieve in fact what they are
in essence-- children of God.
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Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be
exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and
persecute you falsely for my sake. Can this be possibly true? To be reviled? To be persecuted?
To be reviled and persecuted is to be turned down by one's fellows. No one ever thinks that he
quite deserves it. It causes a man to feel that he is no good, that he has no worthy place in the
regard and respect of his fellows, because, in some way, he has betrayed them. The most natural
thing is to feel that they have betrayed him. But if it has not been my intent to betray them, or
even to attack them, then what?
Suppose I have only done what I had no other choice but to do. There was nothing personal or
vindictive either in my attitude or in my intention. I was only speaking out against injustice, for
instance. I could not stand silent in the presence of cruelty, exploitation, violence. I had to speak
out, to do what I could, to arouse the conscience of my fellows. This I had to do.
It was not in my mind to stir up trouble, because enough trouble was already stirred up. Why
don't they face the evil they are doing? Why do they take it out on me, I ask, perhaps. I have no
power. I have no organization. I represent no interests. I am just a man who could not be silent.
And now they turn their backs upon me. Now they pour their wrath upon me.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad. Rejoice and be exceeding glad. What does this mean? Should I
take delight in my suffering? Is that healthy? Is not that morbid? Is that not thinking of myself
more highly than I ought to think? I mistrust the mood. Over and over I go in my mind. The
question will not down. Can I trust my own feelings when I take delight in what men are doing to
me?
Perhaps I am looking at this in a wrong manner. Rejoice and be exceeding glad. Because I am
being persecuted? No. Rejoice and be exceeding glad because I did not miss my one opportunity
to recognize and count myself on the side of justice, truth, right. What a chance I almost missed.
Oh to know, for once, that I had sheer courage, that I declared myself on the side of decency.
That is why I am glad. That is why I rejoice.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be
exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
I'm doing, now, three short meditations based upon three phrases from the Lord's Prayer.
Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come in my life, with myself. Often, I forget to remember that
always I must live with myself. What of me that is unpleasant, ugly, negative, what of me that is
pleasant, beautiful, positive is still of me. I cannot escape from myself. Often, I try by a wide
variety of means.
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These escape devices are many. Sometimes it is attempted through excessive work. Sometimes
through heightened excitement. Sometimes through worry and anxiety. But always it is the same.
I come back to myself at last. I must let the rule of God invade my relations with myself. What in
me makes for disorder, for tempest, for destruction I must release to the purging, the cleansing of
the rule of God.
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Thy kingdom come in my life with others. Often, I forget to remember that always I must live
with others. I am not alone as if I were the only person on an uninhabited island. There are those
with whom I am in daily contact. Am I helpful or am I unhelpful in what I do in my relations
with my fellows? Do I make life easier or do I make it harder for them?
Am I an irritant, always managing to be the center of some kind of disturbance? Do I exploit
others in my relationships with them? Do I use them as means to my private ends, sacrificing
them to goals in which they do not share? I must let the rule of God invade my relations with my
fellows.
I must put at the disposal of the divine invasion the rugged or brittle fabric of my other-than-self
relations. Holy Father, turn Thy holy light upon my relations with myself and with others, that
these things that defeat thy kingdom in me may be destroyed or rooted out. Thy light seers, O
God. Thy light seers. Amen.
Thy will be done. Thy will be done in me. The will of God is often thought of as something that
comes into a man from the outside. It is regarded as something against which the individual has
to struggle as an antagonist. It may well be that the will of God does not come from without, as a
grand invasion of the spirit, but rather, it is welling up from within the deeps of the mind and
spirit, taking the shape of the life as water from a spring takes the shape of the banks between
which the water flows.
Thy will be done in me. The will of God is native to my spirit. It is the fundamental character of
me. It is the foundation of my mental, physical, and spiritual structure. It is what I find when I
am most myself. It is what I find when I get down to the deepest things in me. It is what is
revealed when all the superficial things are sloughed off and I am essentially laid bare.
Thy will be done in me. When I come to myself, I am aware of the will of God as part and parcel
of what it is that I seek above all else. To know this, to see this clearly, is to understand what sin
is, what the evil of evil is, what rightness is. Close, present Father, flow through me in all the
ways native to me and all my parts, that as a whole person I may do Thy will with such
completeness that perhaps I may become Thy will. Amen.
Deliver me from evil. Deliver me from evil in the thoughts that linger in my mind. Evil thoughts
come into my mind sometimes on invitation, sometimes dressed in garments of innocence. My
temptation is to deny that they are there, or worse-- to think I have gotten rid of them by pushing
them down, out of sight in some hidden corner of my mind. Once there, they settle down to
reproduce their kind.
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Deliver me from evil by strengthening me in honesty, that I may give no quarter to the negative
thoughts and their residue in my mind. Deliver me from evil in desires that are destructive to the
vision of the good that illumines my pathway.
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It may be that my desires are not evil or good in themselves. Perhaps it is what they become
when clothed in the deed that gives them their character. On the other hand, certain desires are
geared to accomplish and call it by its true name. In so doing, I would hold it up before the
scrutiny of God, that I may see it through his eyes.
Deliver me from evil in the things that I refrain from doing. Sometimes I see very clearly what I
ought to do, but I reject it deliberately and blatantly. Sometimes I refrain by default, not
intending to, really. But by negligence or a variety of other alibis, I do not do what I know I
ought to do.
Deliver me from evil by stirring my will to action in accordance with what is right, as Thou dost
give me to see the right. Holy Father, deliver me from evil in all the ways by which I shield
myself from the wholeness of Thy spirit as it works its perfect work in me. Amen.
There follows, now, a series of short meditations on the theme-- there is in God strength
sufficient for my needs, whatever they may be.
One, either God is the creator of life or He is not the creator of life. If He is the creator of life,
then there is inherent in life all that is necessary to sustain life in accordance with the demands of
any particular life span. This means that there must be laws of growth, re-creation, and
maintenance that operate as long as they are not blocked. I start, then, with that simple fact.
Two, it is my moral responsibility to understand how life operates in me so that I shall not
consciously or unknowingly interfere with its free creative movement in me. I begin, then, with
my own body.
I assume that when life is operating freely in me, I shall be full of health and physical well-being.
When this is not the case, the life-giving force that sustains me has been blocked. It may be
blocked by a faulty diet, for instance. It is a matter of spiritual responsibility for me to use my
intelligence and the knowledge that the race has acquired about foods to keep the life force
unhampered in my body. I must search to find the things that are most useful in this particular
and to understand the things that slow me down, making my days demand increasingly greater
effort to do the same amount of work.
To eat properly then, is a part of my religious vocation, for by so doing, I draw on the strength
which God makes constantly available to me. There is in God strength sufficient for my needs at
this point.
I consider my mind with reference to my fears. I'm conscious of what fear does to the way my
body-mind behaves. It slows down my digestion and speeds up the beating of my heart where
there is no corresponding demand made upon my productive energy output. The result is a
curious kind of congestion, affecting my efficiency and filling me generally with fatigue.
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I shall track down the source of my fears, destroy their hiding place so that the vital energies of
God will not be blocked by them. I may need expert help in doing this, but I recognize that help
is also a part of the strength of God.
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I consider the tendency toward anxiety. Anxiety arises because I am unable to resolve some
difficulty or to solve some personal problem. I must take a positive attitude toward the thing that
is the source of my disturbance. I recognize that I'm never alone, that I'm never left completely at
the mercy of the things which would undermine my peace of spirit. God is with me. He is present
in the midst of my anxiety, as insight, as courage, as confidence. This I must never forget. God is
with me in the midst of my anxiety. Anxiety blocks the free flowing of the creative life of God,
so that I become undernourished in my spirit and often in my body.
I consider the tendency toward worry. Worry is bad for my digestion. It creates the kind of toxic
condition in my system that aids the development of those protests in my stomach called ulcers.
Something happens in my organism that blocks the free flowing creative power of God in my
body, making for health, strength, and vigor. Worry is against life. It is anti-vitality and antiGod.
I must remember that God is more concerned about my well-being than I can possibly be. I shall
discipline myself in trust-- trust in life, trust in my mind and its understanding, trust in God. This
does not mean that I shall ignore the things that worry me. But it does mean that I shall seek
always to understand them. I shall not give them a place in my thoughts that will make me their
slave. I know that my life, the life of the world, and life itself all belong to God.
I consider my feeling of inadequacy. There are times when I give out completely. There are
times when I raise the question, what is the use of continuing to put forth effort in trying to do
well what I have been able to achieve only poorly? Sometimes I am faced with demands from
others which with all my heart I would like to meet, but I fail them. My failure has nothing to do
with my intention, my desires, or even my understanding. It is due to a lack of power of
dynamics, perhaps.
I discover at such times that I am depending too utterly on my own strength. I act as if my
knowledge were complete and my own power sufficient. I forget to remember that God is my
strength and the source of the power without which no thing is possible. Over and over I must
know this. There is strange in God, sufficient for my needs, whatever they may be.
I consider the meaning of failure. One thing that an awareness of the strength of God makes
possible in me is the understanding that there is often a clear cut distinction between failure on
the one hand and being mistaken in the things I am undertaking to do on the other. Failure may
be due to the operation of forces over which I have no control, and therefore, the responsibility
for failure may not be mine.
When I am too deeply involved in a sense of failure, I am apt to think that always my failure is
due to my being mistaken or wrong in the thing I am undertaking. The strength of God enables
me to turn even the spear of frustration into a shaft of light.
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I consider my desires. I recognize the place in my life of simple elemental desires which, through
the years, have aided in guaranteeing the continuation of my own life. They are not bad in
themselves. This I know. They are part of the creative process of life at work in me, a human
being.
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When my desires get out of hand and lead me in two paths that do violence to my health, my
integrity, my ethical values, or when they cause me to lead another to do violence to his health,
his integrity, his ethical values, then that which is an aide to life becomes a corruption. The free
flowing of the spirit of the living God becomes blocked and I am temporarily cut off from his
spirit. I must remember to keep my desires under the divine scrutiny. And this I can do if I let
myself down into his strength.
I consider my desires further. It has come upon me with some measure of shock that many of the
things that I desire to do I do-- that I am no better than I am because deep within me I do not
really desire to be better. It is deeply disturbing to realize that again and again my desires are
fulfilled. I must get the strength to want to desire to be better. I must desire to desire to be better.
Here and now, I lay my situation before God and seek his strength, that I may desire to desire to
be whole. This I do with confidence, because there is, in God, strength sufficient for my needs,
whatever they may be.
I consider my sins. There are times when I have gone against the right as I have understood it.
This means that my wrongdoing in such instances has been deliberate and objective. There are
times that I have obeyed a sudden impulse without thinking about it. At such times, I have been
completely reckless of consequences, without fear, and without an immediate sense of guilt.
There are times that I have gone against the ride without knowing it until they appeared before
me the fearful consequences of my actions. And I am stricken with shame or grief or humiliation.
It is when these awareness are upon me that I reach out for the strength of God to course through
me, to cleanse my mind, to purify my heart and abide with me as I work out the conditions of my
forgiveness.
I consider my sins further. There are subtle ways by which I have blocked the clean feeling,
fouled the upright thought, stifled the good impulse without doing the deliberate act of
transgression. I have surrounded my thoughts with fog so that my vision become blurred. I have
indulged in half measures, because the clear full measure required more patience or more effort
than I cared at the moment to exercise, thus causing the right thing, even as I saw it, to be lost by
default.
Pride has entered into the quality of self giving, thus devaluating my motives in service. Then
some spoken word, some fleeting memory of a bygone grace, something throws a flood of
blinding light into the remote corners of my life, making me aware of my need. I reach out for
the strength of God, which is sufficient for my needs, whatever they may be.
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I consider my relations with people. There are some people who irritate me. Sometimes I can put
my finger on the reason. Sometimes I cannot. There are times when I show my irritation by the
sharp retort, the sudden frown, the sense of tension in my body.
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When I am irritated, I create around me a negative atmosphere in which it is very difficult for
other people to be at ease. In addition, I have a sense of shame because of my behavior, then
perhaps a feeling of guilt. And with the feeling of guilt, the creative life giving spirit of God
encounters grave difficulty in affecting a release in me. In my effort to overcome this, I must
remember that there is in God's strength sufficient for my needs, whatever they may be.
I consider my relations with people further. I want to love people with understanding and
sureness of touch. Often, I fumble. My zeal runs ahead of my understanding. I do not take the
time to inform my good will. I am become too anxious to be effective in my relation. Hence, I
hurt easily. And instead of having happy relations, satisfying relations with people, often I am
confused. In my confusion, I am apt to say, they do not like me.
I must quit my anxiety, be still within, until my sense of life makes it simple for me to work out
informed relations with my fellows. Hence, there will be blunders I do not make. I will have an
eagerness for facts, and I will cushion them with understanding. In my effort, I shall rely on the
strength of God, which is sufficient for my needs, whatever they may be.
I let go of my accumulations. My ego is like a fortress. I have built its walls stone by stone to
hold out the invasion of the love of God. But I have stayed here long enough. There is light over
the barriers. O my God, the darkness of my house forgive and overtake my soul.
I relax the barriers. I abandon all that I think I am, all that I hope to be, all that I believe I
possess. I let go of the past. I withdraw my grasping hand from the future. And in the great
silence of this moment, I alertly rest my soul.
As the seagull lays in the wind current, so I lay myself into the spirit of God. My dearest human
relationships, my most precious dreams I surrender to his care. All that I have called my own I
give back. All my favorite things which I would withhold in my storehouse from his fearful
tyranny I let go. I give myself unto thee, O my God. Amen.
I accept the good in myself. There have been times when things of beauty have stirred me
deeply-- sunlight pouring into a city alleyway, moonlight upon the water of a still lake. That in
me which responds to beauty I recognize. This I love. For the beauty which unites us, I am
thankful.
There have been times when something in me has stopped my telling of an untruth or the
exaggerating of the facts. That in myself and in my fellows which desires truth, I reverence and
love. I love myself. I stop to reflect upon the finest acts ever performed by any other persons I
have known. That in them which caused these acts, I reverence. I remember at once when
something in me has caused such a creative and wholehearted act that I was amazed at my own
goodness. This I love. For the total of all the good acts performed throughout history, I give
thanks.
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O God, I need thee. I need Thy sense of time. Always I have an underlying anxiety about things.
Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends and am completely without patience.
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It is hard for me to realize that some growth is slow, that all processes are not swift. I cannot
always discriminate between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed, because my
sense of time is dulled. I measure things in terms of happenings. Oh, to understand the meaning
of perspective, that I may do all things with a profound sense of leisure, of time.
I need Thy sense of order. The confusion of the details of living is sometimes overwhelming.
The little things keep getting in my way, providing ready-made excuses for failure to do and be
what I know I ought to do and be. Much time is spent on things that are not very important, while
significant things are put into an insignificant place in my scheme of order. I must unscramble
my affairs so that my life will become order. O God, I need Thy sense of order.
I need Thy sense of the future. Teach me to know that life is ever on the side of the future. Keep
alive in me the forward look, the high hope, the onward surge. Let me not be frozen either by the
past or the present. Grant me, O patient Father, Thy sense of the future, without which all life
would sicken and die.
Let go. Everything but God I must let go. For so long I have held to the habit of holding on, even
my muscles are tense. Deeply fearful are they of relaxing, lest they fall away from their place. I
cling clutchingly to my friends, lest I lose them. I live under the shadow of being supplanted by
another. I cling to my money, not so much by a wise economy and a thoughtful spending, but by
a sense of possession that makes me depend upon it for strength.
I must let go. Deep at the core of me, I must have a sense of freedom, a sure awareness of
detachment, of relaxation. I must let go of everything. I must let go of pride, for instance.
But what am I saying? Is there not a sense of pride that supports and sustains all achievement,
even the essential dignity of my own personality? It may be that I must let go my dependence
upon triumphing over my fellows, which seems to give to me a sense of security in their midst.
I cringe from my pain. I do not relish the struggle of life. But I do not want to let go, because the
hurt and the tension of contest feed the springs of my pride. They make me deeply aware, but I
must let go of everything. I must let go of everything but God. But God.
May it not be that God is in all the things to which I cling? That may be the hidden reason for my
clinging? It is all very puzzling, indeed.
When I say I must let go of everything but God, what is my meaning? What am I talking about? I
must relax my hold on everything that dulls my sense of him, that comes between me and the
inner awareness of his presence, pervading my life and glorifying all the common ways with
wonderful wonder.
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Teach me, O God, how to free myself of dearest possessions, so that in my trust I shall find
restored to me all I need to walk in Thy path and to fulfill Thy will. Let me know Thee for
myself, that I may not be satisfied with aught that is less. Amen.
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I give thanks unto God with my whole heart. I give thanks unto God with my mind. I count one
by one much that has come to me to make me glad. I remember the simple delights-- the taste of
food, the tasteless refreshment of cool water, the feeling of fatigue followed by restful sleep, the
friendly greeting of many who pass me in the daily round and whose smiles deepen my faith in
ordinary kindness. I remember. Yes, I remember. And in my mind I give thanks to God.
I give thanks unto God with my feelings. There are dangers which are now passed. I escaped.
How, I do not know. Vast is my relief that my hunch was wise to hold my tongue when to have
spoken would have hurt far beyond my powers ever to amend or heal. The mood that settled was
of despair, unrelieved and stark. And then a change came out of nowhere. All I know is the cloud
was lifted, and once again I was free. With sheer feeling, I give thanks to God.
I give thanks unto God with my life. The will to do more than the situation requires, the desire to
be better than I am and to work at it, the urge to be thorough even in simple things, the delight in
my friends' good fortune, the sympathetic outgoing of myself in times of another's need, the
thoughtful telephone call, the urgent letter sustaining the hand of a public servant who serves the
common conscience-- all these and more are my thanks to God, with my life.
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard my heart and thoughts. The
peace of God. There is a peace that comes when lowering clouds burst and the whole landscape
is drenched in rain, refreshing and cool. There is the peace that comes when knowing hunger
finds intimate fulfillment in food, nourishing and life-giving.
There is the peace that comes when hours of sleeplessness are finally swallowed up in sleep,
deeply relaxing and calm. There is a peace that comes when what has lurked so long in the
shadow of my mind stands out at last in the light. I face it, call it by its name, for better or for
worse.
There is the peace that comes when sorrow is not relieved, when pain is not quieted, when
tragedy remains tragedy, stark and literal, when failure continues through all the days to be
failure. Is all this the peace of God, or is it the intimation of the peace of God?
The peace of God shall guard my heart and thoughts. There are feelings untamed and
unmanageable in my heart. The bitterness of a great hatred not yet absorbed. The moving light of
love unrequited and unfulfilled, casting its shafts down all the corridors of my days. The
unnamed anxiety brought on by nothing in particular, some strange foreboding of coming
disaster that does not yet appear. The overwhelming hunger for God that underscores all the
ambitions, dreams, and restlessness of my churning spirit. Hold them, O peace of God, until Thy
perfect work is in them fulfilled.
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard my heart and my thoughts. Into
God's keeping do I yield my heart and thoughts and yes, my life-- with its strength and weakness,
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its failure and success, its shame and its purity. O peace of God, settle over me and within me, so
that I cannot tell mine from Thine and Thine from mine. Amen.
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The Lord is the strength of my life. The Lord is. Is God an idea in my mind? A rumor planted by
old tales born of fear, when life was young and death lurked behind every waiting bush? Is God
the desire in my heart, a longing that goes always unfulfilled? Is God the restlessness I feel after
dreams have come to pass and all my hopes have built themselves in facts?
Is God the indescribable tenderness that creeps in the voice unawares, that steals into the fingers
as they linger momentarily in the hand of a friend? Is God the endless churning of the turbulent
sea or the steady shining of the stars against the blackness of the sky? Is God the quenchless
aching of the consciences over sins committed, and the vast cleansing in the soul riding on the
wave of forgiveness that sweeps all before it?
The Lord is. He is more than tongue can tell, than mind can think, than heart can feel. The Lord
is my strength.
When day is done and in weariness I lay me down to sleep, when fear becomes a lump in my
throat and an illness in my stomach, when the waters of temptation engulf me and I strangle
beneath the wave, when I have thought myself empty and the solution to my problem hides,
lurking in the shadows of my mind, when the disease of my body tightens its grip and my doctor
picks up the broken lances of his skill and knowledge and takes his leave, when the tidings are of
brooding clouds of war and of marching feet and humming plains moving in the awful rhythm of
the dirge of death-- when all of this happens, the Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom and of
what shall I be afraid?
Quietness and confidence. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Long before I was
born, God was at work, creating life, nature, and the world of men and things. The worlds were
ideas in the mind of God that have been realizing themselves through the ages. God is not
through with creation. God is not through with me.
In quietness and confidence shall be my strength. Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at
peace. In many ways I'm getting acquainted with myself. Always I seek a deeper understanding
of my true self, the very core of me. What I would be and am not yet reassures me. Through my
innermost self I find my way to God. I shall acquaint myself with Him and be at peace.
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies, filling all the space twixt the marsh and
the skies. What I seek beyond is what I am finding within. The beyond is within. The signature
of God is all around me-- in the rocks, in the trees, in the minds of men.
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies. I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.
I can never be overcome by evil until the evil that threatens moves from without within. This
does not mean that I shall not be hurt by evil, shall not be frustrated by evil, that I shall say that
evil is not evil. I shall see the travel of my own life with evil and be unafraid, for Thou art with
me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they shall comfort me.
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And their follows, now, two or three meditations from Deep is the Hunger, from the section "A
Sense of Presence."
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It is a simple story, simply told. One day, a man walked into an antique shop and asked
permission to look around. It was a rather exclusive shop, frequented only by those who could
afford to purchase articles made rare by their scarcity and age. The visitor seemed strange that
out of place, because he was poorly dressed, though clean.
Indeed, it was clear from his appearance that he was a laborer whose face had been etched by sun
and rain and whose hands were rough and worn. After more than a half hour, he left. In about 10
days, he returned. This time, he found a very beautiful piece of old glass and asked if he could
make a deposit on it. Each week, he made a payment until, at last, the article was his.
With much curiosity, the owner of the shop engaged him in conversation to determine, if he
could, the use to which such a man would put his new purchase. "I bought it for my little room,"
he said. And continuing, "it isn't much. But I bring to it from time to time, through the years,
only the very best and most beautiful things. You see, that is where I live." End quotation.
To bring to the place where you live only the best and the most beautiful-- what a plan for one's
life. This is well within the reach of everyone. Think of using one's memory in that way. As one
lives from day to day, there are all sorts of experiences-- good, bad, beautiful, ugly-- that become
a part of one's past. To develop the ability to screen one's memory so that only the excellent is
retained for one's own room.
All kinds of ideas pass through one's mind-- about one's self, about the world, about people.
What do you keep for your own room? Think it over now. Which ideas do you keep for the place
where you live? It is well within the mark to say that the oft-quoted words of Jesus about laying
up for yourself treasures in heaven deal with this same basic idea.
The place where you live is where your treasures are. Where your treasures are is where your
heart is. And where your heart is is where your God is.
Francis De Sales, in his Introduction to the Devout Life, says that bees, when they are surprised
by the wind, lay hold of little stones so as to keep their balance and not be swept away in the
storm. No one is able to predict when-- and, indeed, how often-- the strong winds will come to
threaten the very core of one's balance and security.
Indeed, there are some people whose lives seem to create vacuums that pull into them tempests-storms, tornadoes-- which keep them constantly in a state of siege. For such, there does not ever
seem to be the lull, the quiet period when nothing is happening. It may be that such persons
regard the quiet time merely as that which is the immediate forerunner of the storm, and hence
cannot be separated from the storm.
Often, as a mere technique of equilibrium, an attitude or mood is developed that makes the
individual hold his course, despite the fact that his way ever moves along the storm path. There
may be an element of fun and good fortune in the fact, even.
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The rest of us, however, live very tame lives. We are not often caught up in blowings that would
uproot and make havoc with our balance. But soon or late, we are visited by the storms.
Sometimes they come unannounced-- bright sunshine one moment and the next, dark clouds and
the winds. Sometimes they are a long time in the making. We may ignore the signs or we may be
too busy to be able to do anything to prepare for meeting them.
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At any rate, there comes a day when all fury breaks forth and we are without shelter, without
protection. At such a time, we are reminded by Francis, the bee fastens himself onto a stone
which is nearly always at hand and clings to this, thereby enabling him to keep his balance and
not be swept away by the storm. Do you have anything to which you cling at such times that
enables you to keep your balance and not be swept away by the storm? Think about it.
Whenever the mind of man has been uplifted; whenever I have frustrated the temptation to deny
the truth within me or to betray a value which to me is significant; whenever I have found the
despair of my own heart and life groundless; whenever my resolutions to be a better man have
stiffened in a real resistance against some form of disintegration; whenever I have been able to
bring my life under some high and holy purpose that gives to it a greater wholeness and a greater
unity; whenever I have stood in the presence of innocence, purity, love, and beauty and found
my own mind chastened and my whole self somehow challenged and cleansed; whenever for one
swirling moment I have glimpsed the distinction between good and evil courses of conduct,
caught sight of something better as I turn to embrace something worse; whenever these
experiences or others like them have been mine, I have seen God and felt his presence winging
near.
Prayer grows out of an imperative urgency-- sometimes pointed, sometimes diffused. It enables
one to keep fresh and focused in spirit the dedication to which one's life is given. Again and
again, prayer creates a profound sense of power deep within the mind, expressing itself in
strange new courage and purposefulness.
The first manifestations of this courage is the attack that it makes on the basis of one's external
fears of people and of circumstance. Prayer often yields a buoyancy and joyousness of spirit as
the overtone of a relaxed confidence in God.
It helps to clarify the conflicting issues that naturally arise out of any form of action so that
against the darkness of age I can see the illumined finger of God guiding me in the way that I
should go, so that high above the clash of arms, in the conflict for position, for rights, for status,
for security, I can hear speaking distinctly and clearly to my own spirit the still, small voice of
God.
Without this, nothing quite has meaning. With this, all the rest of the journey-- however difficult,
however painful, however devastating-- will be filled with a music all its own. And even the stars
in their courses and all the wooded world of nature will participate in the triumphant music of
my heart.
When our minds are sick with frustration and division, when fear eats away the foundations of
our peace, be present, O our Father, to heal, to bless, and make whole. When our hearts are
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heavy with sorrow and misery, when only heaviness is our daily portion, be present, O our
Father, to heal, to bless, and relieve.
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When our friends are difficult because of misunderstanding and loss, when the beauty of
comradeship has wasted life the noonday, be present, O our Father, to restore, to bless, and
renew. When the thread of our years unwinds near the end of the spool, when the failing powers
of mind and body accent the passing days, be present, O our Father, to reassure, to make steady,
and confirm.
When our well-ordered plans fall apart in our hands and hopes give up having run their course,
be present, O our Father, to replenish, to create, and redeem. When faith in our fellows wallows
in the mud, when through disappointment, through fear, and through flattery, all seems lost, be
present, O our Father, to revise, to renew, and reassure.
I close these reading of sections of Deep is the Hunger with this prayer that appears on page 104.
God, I need Thee. When morning crowds the night away and tasks of waking seize my mind, I
need thy poise. God, I need Thee. When love is hard to see amid the ugliness and slime, I need
Thy eyes.
God, I need Thee. When clashes come with those who walk the way with me, I need Thy smile.
God, I need Thee. When the path to take before me lies, I see it, courage flees, I need Thy faith.
God, I need Thee. When the day's work is done, tired, discouraged, wasted, I need Thy rest.
Amen.
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For the Quiet Time, 1974 July 18
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In this first installment of Readings From Deep is the Hunger, Howard Thurman uses Matthew 5 as a framework to discuss the sufficiency of God as we wrestle with the concepts of kindness, mercy, and humility. Thurman goes on to discuss the need for God as we navigate challenges internally and externally with the world around us.
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humility
Matthew 5
Mercy
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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.
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[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]
5
�
Dublin Core
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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
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<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
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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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PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-016_A.mp3
[HYMNAL MUSIC]
[SINGING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is our faith and our confidence, our Father, that Thou dost not become weary because always,
before Thee, we present the same sorry spectacle. It is our trust that Thou does not get tired of us,
but that always Thou dost remain constant, even with all the things in us that fluctuate. That
Thou dost remain true, even when we take refuge in falsehood and error.
That Thou dost remain kind and gracious when our hearts are hard and callous. And that Thy
scrutiny and Thy judgment holds, despite all of our whimpering and self-pity and shame. And it
is so good to have this kind of assurance. And to know that, as we move into the days and the
hours that are still left to us, that we are not alone, but that we are not only comforted but
straightened by Thy brooding presence.
We would ask forgiveness for our sins, but for so much that is sinful in us, we have no
awareness. We would seek to offer to Thee the salutation of our spirits and our minds if we can
tear ourselves away from the preoccupation with our own concerns and our own anxieties and
our own little lives and their meaning. We would give to Thee the nerve center of our consents.
If for one swirling moment we could trust Thee to do with us what our lives can stand. Oh God,
our Father, take all this chaos and confusion and disorder of our minds and spirits and hold them
so completely in Thy grasp. And that the unpure thing will become pure and the crooked thing
straight. And the crass and hard thing tender and gentle with Thy Spirit.
And beyond this, we have no strength to see and no vision to comprehend. But we trust Thy trust
and abide. Oh God, we abide.
[HYMNAL MUSIC]
Continuing our series on the quest of the human spirit, this morning we are thinking together
about the quest for integrity. "I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the
arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind. And in the midst of
tears, I hid from him and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot, precipitated, adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears. From
those strong feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace,
deliberate speed, majestic instancy, they beat, and a voice beat more instant than the feet. All
things betray thee who betrayest me.
Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke. My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me and
smitten me to my knee. I am defenseless, utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, and slowly gazing,
find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my own powers, I shook the pillaring hours and
pulled my life upon me. Grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust of the mounded years. My
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, have
puffed and burst as sunstarts on a stream."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And then, from Job-- "Till I die, I will not put away mine integrity from me. My righteousness I
hold fast, and will not let go. My heart shall not reproach me as long as I live. I was a father to
the needy. And the cause of him I knew not I searched out. I was eyes to the blind and feet was I
to the lame. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the
widow's heart to sing for joy." "Till I die, I will not put mine integrity away from me."
Every person has two views of himself, at least two views. There is a self-image, and this selfimage is made up of several things. Sometimes it is what I think other people think of me.
Sometimes it is what I want other people to think of me. Sometimes it is what I think I ought to
think of me. And sometimes it is what I think of me.
One of these, two of these, three of these, several thrown into a kind of creative wholeness, this
is the self-image. And I carry it around with me. I can't locate its origin all together at this point
or that point, but I know that it is very real to me, and it is a part of what I call my self. Now,
there is still another dimension of this, and that has to do with the facts concerning me.
It has to do with what, in the light of my things, the raw materials, of my experience of me, my
awareness of my fact, of the details of my fact. My consciousness of that which is literally true of
me, literally factual. And very often there's a gulf, a hiatus, between this image and this body of
fact. Now, it seems to me that integrity, integrity, is the experience that a person has when the
image and the fact flow together as one creative synthesis and wholeness inside the man.
When I am unanimous, with reference to the view and the clue, the view being the image, and
the clue being the stuff of every day that I know the details about what I am and what I do. Now,
the quest for integrity is the quest on the part of the human spirit to arrive at the kind of inner
unanimity that enables the human spirit to take a stand, which is as complete and as whole within
as it is substantial and positive in its outward manifestation.
Now, one of the forms that this takes then is the necessity for trying to find something,
something outside of yourself, that is capable of making possible your response to it in terms of
wholeness and inner unity. Something that calls you to an inner, total, integrated, whole
registration. And one of the obvious places we would expect to find that is in our dealing with
the world of nature all around us.
I remember the sensations that I had as I sat in front of my television watching the colonel and
his thing. And I felt-- I felt suddenly so-- so lonely. And I felt so sorry for man in this vastness.
And I said, now, Uranus and Neptune and Mars, and all those other nameless ones, they don't
know anything about Glenn. They don't know anything about this little something that he is in.
And if somehow the planets could have shouted at him. If somehow all of that vastness of space
would have organized itself and asserted itself so that Glenn, in his little shell, could stand up
against it. But they went on about their business.
Now, I sometimes feel this way about the circumstances of life. We are trying to find, you see,
the thing that we can-- how do I say this? We are trying to find the thing that we can put
2
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
ourselves against, which, in the way that it pushes back, it pulls us into wholeness. This is what
I'm trying to say. And circumstances do that for us sometimes. We animate them. Suffering does
it.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And if you could ever decide, you see, that the suffering is real and after you. If you can decide
that the suffering is really on your trail, searching you out, hounding you, then this is something
that you can turn around and face and feel yourself integrated and coming into a sense of utter
wholeness within to stand against this thing that is opposing you, not opposing life, but opposing
you.
Let me read you something that expresses what I'm talking about. In the poem, Henley, there is
this conversation that he has with circumstances, and he decides the circumstances are really
after him. And if he can feel that way, then he can say that-- "In the fell clutch of circumstance, I
have neither winced nor cried aloud. Amidst the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody but
unbowed. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll, I am the
master of my fate."
And circumstances can't hear him. Now, this is the truer view of it, as someone has expressed it.
"I often groan and yelp aloud, ducking the wallopings of chance. My bloody head is often bowed
in the fell clutch of circumstance. I have, as far as I can see, a very conquerable soul. Out of the
night that covers me, I howl with grievous mean and dole.
I'm full of apprehensive fears. I'm nervous, lame, and short of breath. The looming menace of the
years has gotten me frightened half to death. The man who rises up to state in words of hot poetic
fire, that he is master of his fate, is nothing but a simple liar. No man is captain of his soul, as all
men know who strive and suffer. And Mr. Henley, on the whole, is just a brave, pathetic bluffer."
But you see, this is a part of the great tragedy of man. If I felt that, in the estimate of the
universe, I rented its private violence, then this would provide for me a basis for answering the
searching question of integrity. What is it after all that I ultimately amount to? And this is an
answer that I must find.
And I do it sometimes by pointing to the things that I create. I remember 25 years ago, I was
talking to the president of my college in Atlanta. And as we walked across the campus, he
stopped and looked out on the campus, and then he shook his head and walked on.
And then I joined him, and I said, Mr. Hope, I don't understand. What had happened to you? He
said, I was just looking at all the buildings that have been put on this campus since I became
president, and I was tempted to feel that this is the measure of my self-estimate, and I know that
isn't true.
What we do is the clue sometimes. If I can register myself in a deed so that, to all comers and all
generations, it can be said, I did it, just little me did it. But, of course, I didn't. Because there are
so many other people who enter into anything that you do, some nameless, some named.
There's so much luck, just plain luck, in the events that result in the deed that you are able to
create. Things that are almost accidental. And we have no way by which we can assess the
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
meaning and the relevancy of those things that are incidental, that move into the rhythm of our
function without regard to anything that we ourselves do.
I want to find some radical test for my life. This is the clue, my clue, to my own integrity. If I can
do this. If I can stand up and cast my vote and not be dogged by any minority opinion within me.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And this, after all, as it would seem, that this is what religion is insisting upon, isn't it? For it
says, you see, that there is a radical test for man. That sooner or later, somewhere in the course of
a man's pilgrimage, he has to turn and face what, for him, in that moment, is the ultimate
judgment. What, for him, in that moment, is God. God.
For it is only in the presence of an absolute judgment that I can define my meaning and know
that even when I have been as completely and utterly of one in me, I have not met the demand.
Oh, to have available that against which a man can throw all that he is, all that he thinks and
feels, all that he can be, to throw it against it and not satisfy it.
And again and again the man goes back, reassessing this little thing and that little thing.
Combing out this flaw and that flaw. Trying to awaken this dimension of sensitiveness or that
dimension of sensitiveness. Always trying to see if, through all the corridors of his being,
through all the manifestations of his life, through all the words that he uses, all the things that he
does and the things that he says, through all of this there will be moving always the same
unanimous voting.
"Till I die, I will not put my integrity away from me." And even though, living a thousand years,
and a thousand years of failure and inadequacy and limitation, I will say, with Job, that always in
me I know I'm looking for the unanimous vote. And I shall be able to cast it, if not before I die
then out in the vast regions beyond the time and space limitations by which my life and its
meaning are defined. I must cast my whole vote, somewhere, some time, somewhen.
There is the same story, our Father. The same broken glances. Oh God, Thou wilt not despise but
will redeem.
[HYMNAL MUSIC]
[SINGING]
4
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Quests of the Human Spirit (1962, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA)
Description
An account of the resource
”Quests for the Human Spirit” is an eleven-part lecture series focused on the creative process of self-actualization. Thurman shows how this process centers and affirms a person’s purpose in life. Discussing pursuits like freedom, stability, values, identity, and integrity, he illuminates the importance of questing in identity formation.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1962
Contributor
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Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey
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/394-016_A.html" ></iframe>
Location
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Quests of the Human Spirit (VII): The Quest for Integrity, 1962 Mar 25
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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394-016_A
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Date
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1962-03-25
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Description
An account of the resource
Integrity is the alignment of self-image with the facts, or, the truths concerning a person. It is the “creative synthesis and wholeness inside the man.” Such inner “unanimity within,” Thurman claims, allows a person to take a stand and possess humility. Never fooled by any single or biased opinion about oneself, one must turn to ultimate judgment – to God. Meaning can only be defined in the presence of sovereign critique.
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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.
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
Title
A name given to the resource
Quests of the Human Spirit, Part 7: The Quest for Integrity, 1962 March 25
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Description by Dr. Tim Rainey
absolute judgment
humility
inner unity
integrity
self-image
ultimate judgment