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Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-800.mp3
This is tape number ET60 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1 entitled "The Moment of Truth."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC]
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]
I'm beginning today by reading two paragraphs, which a Canadian friend of mine sent to me
several years ago. "Eight-year-old Johnny was very serious when I called him into the hospital
and explained how he could save the life of his little sister. Mary, age six, was near death, a
victim of a disease from which Johnny had made a miraculous recovery only two years earlier."
"Now, Mary's only chance was a blood transfusion from someone who had previously conquered
the illness. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, Johnny would be the ideal
donor. 'Johnny," I ask, 'would you like to give your blood for Mary?' He hesitated for a moment,
his lower lip trembling, but I have seen many people older than Johnny who were frightened by
the idea of giving blood. So I thought no more about it."
"Then he smiled and said, 'Sure, Dr. Morris. I'll give my blood for my sister.' The operating room
was prepared and the children wheeled in, Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and almost
cherubic. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned broadly. As Johnny's blood
pulsed into Mary's veins, her pale skin began to turn pink. There was complete silence as the
operation proceeded, but then Johnny spoke in a brave little voice I will never forget. 'Say, Dr.
Morris, when do I die?'"
"It was only then that I realized what that moment's hesitation that almost imperceptible
trembling of the lip had meant when I talked to Johnny in my office. He thought that giving up
his blood for his sister meant giving up his life. In that brief moment of truth, he made his great
decision."
When a man becomes aware of the essential or the intrinsic or authentic meaning of an act or a
person or a situation or an event and the bearing of that act or situation, person, or event upon his
private life, he experiences a moment of truth. When he becomes aware of the authentic or
intrinsic meaning of something and the bearing that that meaning has upon his private life, he
experiences a moment of truth.
There are several elements that are to be remembered here. The first is that it is always a
personal and private and solitary experience. We spend so much of our time associating with
other people, we are so involved in the human situation and the human predicament that we
forget that fundamentally, so much of a man's life is lived in solitariness in all of the great
moments of life, whether it is at the moment of his birth or the moment of his dying, whether it
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has to do with some great significant step that he is about to take when deep within himself he
makes the decision of commitment.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
All of these are intimate and personal and primary and solitary. And the moment of truth takes
on this character. It is as if you and the experience alone existed in the world. It's like trying to
explain something to a little child. You will explain it, and then the child will say, but why,
continue asking the same question. And then you explain it again, and the child will say, but
why?
And then you try to find a way by which you can find the proper words that will fit into the
context of meaning of the child and then utter these words so that the child understands. And
when the child looks into your face and says, oh, I understand, it is as if the child and the
moment alone existed in all the universe. It is a private opening of the life to a meaning which is
personal, yes, but at the same time, which expands out into a context of all the meaning that there
is.
Now, the moment of truth then has in it the element that is solitary, that is personal and private.
And it also has in it a certain element of commitment, a certain element of involvement. I guess
that's the best way to put it.
I am reminded of one of the experiences in the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, when in the early
part of his career, it seemed as if he had air conditioning against leprosy. He could abide almost
anything else except leprosy. This was so loathsome to him that he felt always as if he should
move in the other direction or put as much space between him and the leper as possible.
Shortly after his great commitment of his life, the story goes that he was riding along on a horse
or walking. I don't remember that detail. But around the bend in the road, he encountered a leper,
and for him it was a moment of truth because all the meaning of the disease as it expressed itself
through the loathsome body of this man and the bearing that this disease had upon the sensitivity
of Saint Francis, all of this converged in one swirling moment of encounter. And Francis drew
back, turned, and started to flee in the opposite direction.
And then he heard the voice, always the voice, reminding him of his commitment, that his
commitment was something that was absolute, that he had given up in his commitment the
initiative over his own life. Therefore, any sensitivity and all of these things were luxuries, which
his life could no longer afford.
And he turned around, embraced the leper, and the story goes that he went with the leper back to
the place where the leper lived, and he stayed there for several days administering to his need.
The moment of truth is the moment when the intrinsic, authentic, significant meaning of an event
or a person or a situation is sensed clearly and directly by an individual and the bearing that this
meaning has on the man's life.
Now, the moment of truth then carries with it always the element of commitment. For when I
experience the moment of truth, it is a total involvement, a total encounter so that my life, not
some phase of my life, some dimension of my life, some aspect of my life, but my life in some
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total sense is affected, is altered, shifts, changes, moves, makes some kind of adjustment to the
fact that I have had such an encounter.
It is solitary. It is personal. It involves the total commitment of the life in a direction contrary,
perhaps, to the way one had been going before.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[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.
[MUSIC]
This is tape number ET60 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2 entitled "Pearl Without Price."
[MUSIC]
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]
I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart, "The Pressure of Crisis." "When Lloyd George, the
British statesman, was a boy, one of his family responsibilities was to collect firewood for
warmth and for cooking. He discovered early that always after a very terrific storm, with high
winds and driving rain, he had very little difficulty in finding as much and more wood than he
needed at the time."
"When the days were beautiful, sunny, and the skies untroubled, the firewood was at a premium.
Despite the fact that the sunny days were happy ones for him, providing him with long hours to
fill his heart with delight, nevertheless, in terms of other needs, which were his specific
responsibilities, they were his most difficult times."
"Many years after, he realized what had been happening. During the times of heavy rains and
driving winds, many of the dead limbs were broken off, and many rotten trees were toppled over.
The living things were separated from the dead things. But when the sun was shining and the
weather was clear and beautiful, the dead and the not dead were undistinguishable."
"The experience of Lloyd George is common to us all. When all is well with our world, there is
often no necessity to separate the dead from the not dead in our lives. Under the pressure of
crisis, when we need all available vitality, we are apt to discover that much in us is of no account
and valueless."
When our tree is rocked by mighty winds, all the limbs that do not have free and easy access to
what sustains the trunk are torn away. There is nothing to hold them fast. It is good to know what
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there is in us that is strong and solidly rooted. It is good to have the assurance that can only come
from having ridden the storm and remained intact."
Pitts Theology Library
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"Far beside the point is the why of the storm. Beside the point too, maybe the interpretation of
the storm that makes it an active agent of redemption. Given the storm, the fact of it, it is wisdom
to know that when it come, the things that are firmly held by the vitality of life are apt to remain
chastened but confirmed, while other things that are dead, sterile, or lifeless are apt to be torn
away."
"The wheat and tares grow up together, but when the time of harvest comes, only wheat is
revealed as wheat and tares remain what they have been all along-- tares." It is a very simple
remark that again and again, when life seems to be running smoothly, when all things seem to
fall into line and we are sure that, for us, this is the good time, the time of a sudden kind of
psychic or spiritual or actual physical prosperity.
And during such times, there is no necessity, no felt necessity for assessing our equipment for
life, our strengths, our needs. In our own country, for instance, one of the most critical problems
that faces religion, that faces organized religion, that faces the church or the synagogue is, what
does religion say to a people who are fat? Who have everything? Who are so surfeited with good
food and rich food that they must spend millions of dollars in trying to get rid of the logic of the
good food that they're eating?
Is there any word that can be addressed to a man who has everything and to whom the world, in
a sense, is his oyster? This is the point here. At such times, we are apt to live life rather casually,
to raise no fundamental question about its meaning, about our own sense of direction, about what
our point is. Because our situation does not force us to raise the critical and the crucial question.
But if the time comes, as it does come to everyone, when the normal pattern of general at easeness begins to disintegrate and break down and it is necessary for us to assess life, to think about
what life means, to raise the far-reaching personal question, what is it that I am meaning by all
the things that I am doing. What is my point? Where in the totality of my experience? Is there
provided for me as a person some radical test in the light of which and on the basis of which I
will be able to define what it is that I am trying to do, where it is that I am headed?
For it is only the radical test, the moments which seem to be unmanageable. It is only at a time
when everything seems to be falling apart that a man discovers of what is his substance? What is
his strength? What is there in him that is ultimately dependable? Where in him may be found the
resources that he needs in order to do his thing now in a hard circumstance, in a difficult
moment?
For if life is easy and if life is indulgent, then despite all of the comfort that it may bring, the
most important question that we most want to know about ourselves, we cannot know. And that
question is, what, after all, ultimately, do I'd amount to? How much can I take? How much can I
stand and not give, not yield, not buckle under?
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Am I a real man so that when I take my stand, I can absorb whatever it is that life has to offer?
And then I get something that is the pearl beyond price. I live with the confidence-- and this is of
overwhelming importance. I live with the confidence and the strength that I can stand anything
that life can do to me.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[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.
[MUSIC]
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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" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-800.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Moment of Truth; Pearl without Price (ET-60; GC 12-4-71), 1971 Dec 4
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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394-800
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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The Moment of Truth (1963-04-19); Pearl without Price (1971-12-4)
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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1963-04-19
1962-03-23
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reads from a letter that his friend from Canada sends him. Within the letter, the listener hears of a young boy who makes the decision to participate in a blood transfusion for his sister. In agreeing to participate in the transfusion, the boy misunderstood, and assumed that he would have to die in order to save his younger sister's life. Thurman sees this boy's misunderstanding as a "moment of truth." The moment of truth speaks to one's sense of courage, responsibility, creativity, and sacrifice. Embedded into this moment of truth is a reaction that comes from the tension between one's personal and public life. Thurman invites the listener to discern what their "moment of truth" is and challenges the listen to what their "moment of truth" is calling them to do.
In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reads from his book, "Meditations of the Heart." In this reflection, Thurman reflects upon what it means to look at life critically. When things are going well, the difficult and the not-difficult aspects of life blend together; however, when one is in desperation, one is able to critique and names the parts of life that are difficult. This conversation speaks to Thurman's wider work concerning the tension goodness and innocence.
Contributor
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Description by Dustin Mailman
commitment
decision
dichotomy
encounter
experience
goodness
innocence
Lloyd George
meditations of the heart
moment of truth
pearl
responsibility
sacrifice
solitary
spiral
St. Francis
test
truth
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394-796.mp3
This is tape number ET 58 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one entitled, The Light in One's Path.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thou sight, oh Lord,
my strength and my redeemer. I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. Perceivest
thou not how the God is thine on house that thou wondrous from forest to forest so listlessly. In
thy home is the truth. Go where thou wilt to Benares or to Mathura. If thy soul is a stranger to
thee, the whole world is unhomely.
These are the words of the ancient Hindu mystic Kabir. They lift into focus and experience so
common to all men that it belongs to all men. Our days are surrounded by the persistent tendency
to seek meaning and significance for our private lives in those places or situations in which
others seem to be finding meaning and significance. Deep and convulsive is the sigh of the
human race as it longs for what is out of reach, as it quivers with yearning for the thing that
belongs to another's peace.
The lesson is hard to learn that the point of initial contact for all meaning is close at hand. The
reason for this is not far to seek. A man is the private custodian of the values which are precious
to him. He must keep the tryst with those things by which he lives and by which his life is
sustained. If at this crucial point he defaults, then he is in no position to assess values anywhere
else.
This is not to say that all the values that are available to him he possesses at any given time. But
it is to say that he must make his private personal piece in terms of loyalty to what to him is true.
Sometimes we seek to escape the responsibility for what we recognize as being valuable to and
for us. Such responsibility involves a quality of personal commitment out of which all moral
character takes its rice.
It is much, much easier to cast a longing eye other where than to come to grips with what is
already established within ourselves as the truthful and the significant. To seek escape from this
is to try to run away from ourselves. This no man can do even though he may try to do so all the
days of his life.
I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. In thy home is the truth. If thy soul is a
stranger to thee, the whole world is unhomely.
At the railway station in Washington DC on the outside in one of the large plaques against the
upper wall, there is a quotation which reads something like this. "He who seeks the wealth of the
Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." This common place garden variety notion
that the thing that a man seeks roaming up and down the land trying to lay hold upon. The clue to
that is not in the regions of his search, but the clue to that is within himself.
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There's an old story that appeared for the first time I think in America and a book written by an
Indian whose name I believe was [INAUDIBLE]. It is called My Brother's Face. And in this
book, there is the story of the musk deer.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And it says that in the springtime the musk deer is haunted by the odor of musk. It drives him to
madness almost. He runs over hills and valleys jumping streams and rivulets exploring every
new path that turns up seeking always to find this thing that is haunting him, this thing that is in
his blood. And then finally with his nostrils dilating and his heart pounding, he falls in
exhaustion with his little head resting on his still more tiny paw to discover that the odor of musk
is in his own skin.
The idea that the clue to the outside world, the clue to all the meaning that I am trying to find is
within myself, this causes man to recognize in the most striking way sometimes that if he acts in
ways that are destructive to his inner life that tends to cause his inward parts to disintegrate, then
the outside meaning of life, the interpretation that a man gives to the outer world begins to
disintegrate. It begins to collapse. It is this notion that we are the custodian of our inward parts,
and that it is from within ourselves that we get the clue for all the meaning that we can ever find.
In my office at the University I have a painting a friend gave me many years ago, and it is of a
lonely figure on a rather dark landscape. And the heavens, the skies are full of light. But at the
foot, moving right out from the foot of the solitary figure, there is a very bright shaft of light.
And the artist is saying that it doesn't matter how much light there is in your sky and all around
you. The only light that you really see is the light that falls on your own path.
Therefore, if I act in ways that make it difficult for me to keep alive within myself a sense of
meaning, then I can't find meaning anywhere. It is this discovery that is brought out in one of
Shakespeare's dramas. And Macbeth, you remember Macbeth was sure that he was going to be a
great man. The witches had said so, and he told his wife so.
And together he and his wife swam across Scotland and seas of blood tying laurels on their
brows with other people's lives and other people's heart strings until at last Macbeth was the first
man of the land and Lady Macbeth was the first lady. Their friends were liquidated. Their
enemies multiplied, and then Lady Macbeth became diseased as to her mind always trying to
wash blood from our hands that was not on her hands but was in her spirit.
And then one day she died, and the attendant came to Macbeth to tell him that his wife was dead.
And Macbeth said, she should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a
word. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in the petty pace from day to day down to
the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools their way to dusty
death. Out, out brief candle.
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then
is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Now why
was life a tale told by a fool having no meaning to Macbeth? Because he had overlooked this
very simple insight which is a burden of our thought that each man is the custodian of a world of
values and meaning, which he must hold intact for this is the clue to all the meaning and all the
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values which he will discover in the outer world. What a man seeks in the out side world is what
he is finding already within. I laugh when you say that a fish in the water is thirsty.
[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 rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET 58 from the Library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two entitled, The Light in One's Path part two.
[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'm reading from Meditation of the Heart. The problem of the religious man's attitude toward the
world is persistent and perennial. One reaches a conclusion about it only to discover that it
becomes unresolved again. Perhaps, the most direct attempt toward a solution is to seek
withdrawal from the world. The world is too much with us is the common feeling.
When one seeks withdrawal from the world, it admission that the world is fundamentally and
completely other than that which is congenial to the things of the spirit. Or the individual who
seeks withdrawal is convinced that for his highest spiritual growth he must not be involved in the
entanglements which are the common lot. If it is the former, the inescapable conclusion is that
the contradictions of experience are in themselves final and binding.
There is ever a recognition of the necessity of temporary withdrawal from the world and its
insistences. This is a part of the very rhythm of life. We live by alternations. The religious man is
no exception. He withdraws from the world, and then he attacks the world. He retreats and he
advances. Or the religious man may summarize all that the world means in terms of negations
into one single manifestation.
He may decide, for instance, that all evil is reduced to a single entity. It may be alcohol or
tobacco or war or greed. If such is his conclusion, then it follows that all energies must be bent
toward a single end. Such a solution to the problems of the world is, perhaps, a radical
oversimplification.
It says that from within the confines of a particular manifestation of the world, the total solution
to the problem of life must be sought and may be found. Obviously, such a solution is
inadequate. Both religion and life are too complex, and personality is indeed. Or the religious
man may recognize that all the world is made up of raw materials which stand in immediate
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candidacy for the realization of the kingdom, the rule of God. This is a very far reaching insight
with profound radical implications.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The idea is inherent in the suggestion to Peter and the acts of the apostles that nothing that God
made should be regarded as unclean. If God is the creator of life in its totality, then all things are
in candidacy for the achievement of the high and holy end. This is not to say that evil has no
meaning. But it is to say that once the evilness evil is removed, resolved, uprooted, then the total
character is thoroughly altered.
The religious man who takes this position is never afraid of life, nor does heat shrink from the
vicissitudes of life. He seeks at every point the emergence of the will and the mind of God from
within himself and from within the stuff of life itself. What is revealed in life is one with that
which transcends life.
It is a very common place judgment to say or to assume that all evil can be summarized in one
single direct comprehensive category. A perfect illustration of what I have in mind is found in
Herman Melville's Moby Dick you may remember. Ahab set out to conquer the white whale who
in a previous encounter had bitten off his leg. He organizes a Motley crew, and they go forth to
sea.
As far as Ahab is concerned, the white whale is not merely the embodiment of all evil, but it is
the essence of all evil. And if he could conquer the white whale, then all evil everywhere would
be conquered. He goes out. He has this encounter.
And one of the striking scenes from the book he is standing on the deck of his ship with his
wooden leg rooted in the floor of the deck. There's a storm at sea. The vessel is rising and falling
with the wind and the waves. Ahab's brow is disheveled. His eyes are bloodshot.
And he says something like this, let the winds blow till they destroy the vessel, until they dry up
the bowels of the sea. I can still affirm my bitterness and my hatred of the white whale. Now in
your life or in my life, there is often one thing which seems to us to be the embodiment of all that
is evil. And if we can conquer it, then it means that everything else falls into place.
This is an awful simplification of one's experience, and I think it is not-- it is not based upon any
realistic understanding either of the nature of life or the nature of personality. Sometimes just the
reverse is true. A man decides that one kind of goodness is the goodness. It may be, he says to
himself, that I know that I am a good man, because I go to church or because I pay my debts or
because I keep my word or because I pray three times a day or I fast, whatever it may be. And if
all the world did as I am doing, then the world would be a good world.
Now this is a delusion. For it says you see that all goodness can be summarized in a single act.
Well, we know that this is not true. For instance, in your life or in my life if we tried to select one
expression of our lives which seem to us to embody everything that we mean by what we are, to
embody all of our intents in one created synthesis as soon as we settle upon what this thing is, we
are sure that there are aspects of our lives that cannot quite be included in this one judgment. So
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that it seems then that life is far more complex than any general rule, any specific illustration of
life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Therefore in the living of our lives, it is wise to take into account that as long as we live, we
ourselves are learning how to live and that the deeper is our experience, the more comprehensive
is the view, the wider is the spectrum of our experience, the more inclusive must be whatever our
judgments are relative to that which is good and that which is evil. So that when we say that to
withdraw from the world and find a place of retreat where there is no tension, where there is
nothing that pulls us away from our goal, what we forget is that when we are in the place of
retreat we bring to it all of the things that are with us when we are not in retreat.
As it is said in Milton's Paradise Lost, the Satan suggests that the mind is its own place and in
itself can make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell, that the mind, that the spirit is in itself so
involved, so complex, so much a part of the complexities of the stuff of life that no single notion,
no single view, no single clue is sufficient. But here and there as we live we do discover
important clues which if we followed to the end will bring us into a larger area of meaning and
comprehension.
I believe profoundly that any ray of light however small and meager if it is followed with all of
one's passionate endeavor will bring one to the source of all light. For it doesn't matter how much
light there may be in your sky, the only light that you ever really see is the light that falls across
your path. And if you're true to that, then it will lead you into the source of all light.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh
Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
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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
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-796.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
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The Light In One's Path: Parts 1 and 2 (ET-58; GC 12-3-71), 1971 Dec 3
Time Period
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1970s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-796
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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The Light In One's Path: Parts 1 and 2 (1971-12-3),
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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>
Date
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1971-12-3
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman draws from a quotation written by Kabir, who is a Hindu Mystic. The line Thurman repeats from the Kabir quotation throughout this reading is, "I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty," which is utilized as a way of speaking to our deepest longings resting within ourselves. Thurman notes that if one is seeking truth destructively, it will disintegrate one's inner life, and eventually, collapse one's outer life. While seeking the truth, Thurman challenges the listener to seek their own truth within themselves, as there is no other source of truth.
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reads from his text, Meditations of the Heart. In this recording, he reflects upon the ways in which humanity makes meaning of existence and evil. He problematizes notions of one singular account of evil, noting that when the "evilness of evil is removed, then the total character is totally altered." He continues, that it is only in the following of one's own truth, that one can distinguish the raw materials to which the Kingdom of God can be built.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
Acts of the Apostles
Ahab
disintegrate
evil
evilness
Herman Melville
inner life
Kabil
light
Macbeth
meditations of the heart
Moby Dick
musk deer
My Brother's Face
painting
Paradise Lost
personality
Peter
religious man
search
seeking
thirsty
transcendence
truth
-
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13ba7e50866cb1e35363a97860a223be
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-795.mp3
This is tape number ET 57, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled The Integrity of the Word.
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'm reading from meditations of the heart. One of the most incisive stories told by Jesus
concerned a man who had two sons. To the first he said, son, go work today in the vineyard.
Very quickly, the son responded by saying that he would not do it. Then Jesus adds, but
afterwards, he repented and went.
To the other son, he made the same request. Immediately, he responded by saying that he would
oblige his father, but did not do so. The point of the story expressed in the gospel is that the son
who said no but changed his mind did the will of his father. It is a very interesting picture
presented here, concerning one whose immediate reaction to any request is negative. It does not
matter how simple the request is or how complicated. The spontaneous reply is in the negative.
A very commonplace adage descriptive of such a personality is, his bark is worse than his bite.
Such persons are never so negative as their words would indicate. This may be a matter of
temperament. Once this particular characteristic is understood, it is easy to depend upon their
carrying through in positive terms, the things to which they had reacted negatively.
Sometimes, such persons start a trend in the wrong direction when their first words influence
others who will abide by the negative judgment. The function of such an attitude may be to
screen all proposals first by challenging their validity and their claims, and denial may quickly
lay bare the integrity of the proposal. Such may be a time saver in the end. I don't know, but I
wonder.
The other boy may be characterized as Mr. Facing Both Ways, one of the figures in Pilgrim's
Progress, you remember. His attitude seems to be to give no offense, to agree, but to reverse for
oneself the true intent. For some such persons, it is an inability to say no. The result is that such a
boy may be pushed by anything, anytime, anywhere, with no moral integrity to bottom the
argument.
Here is a character weakness, because it places at a discount the value of the word. The word is
the symbol, the communication symbol of meaning of intended purpose. If the symbol is
fundamentally unreliable, then the basis of relations becomes at once chaotic, and often immoral.
At another place in the gospels, the words of Jesus are of a different sort. Let your words be yes,
yes, and no, no. Simple, but terribly difficult. Quite possible, but searching.
1
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Much can be said about the integrity of the word. I'm constantly amazed and-- what is the word?
Even excited in a muted manner when I reflect upon what must have been the beginning of
language, of the spoken word. At some far off time in the past, when out of all the sounds of
various kind in the world of nature, certain sounds were, as it were, imprisoned and given a
particular meaning.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
So that whenever that combination of sounds was heard, then the meaning that had become
associated with that particular combination of sounds was communicated or conveyed. Suppose,
for instance, that some far off time in the past, the sound of the-- for the word that gives along
that danger is coming had been agreed upon. And then someone used another word, a word that
he thought of at the moment when he saw the danger.
And he uttered this word to warn the others. But there was no apperceptive mass that could
receive this word. No, the sound of the word had no meaning history. And therefore no integrity
and no ability to communicate. The integrity of the word cannot be overemphasized. When a
man is able to say what it is that he means, and to use words that are symbolic of this dimension
of intention and integrity, then the hearer knows that when he hears the word, that the word that
he hears is a symbol of the meaning.
And a symbol is a form through which meaning leaps, as it were. And if the symbol is wobbly, if
the symbol is not secure, then the meaning leaks. Now, there are many words in our vocabularies
like that. A man uses the word love, for instance. And the word, as a symbol, has had such a
wide variety of meanings. It has been so-- without seeming facetious-- so manhandled, that it
leaks. And when it is used, we aren't quite sure whether it is a tight symbol through which
meaning moves.
Sometimes with children who are growing up, very often it is difficult to understand them,
because they are trying on words for size. They are trying to find how words feel when they use
them. And what the words are capable of inspiring in others. And until we understand this and
are able to tutor the child in his wide meeting experience, he may grow up with a completely
undependable and chaotic use of meaningful symbols.
When I was a boy, I earned money occasionally by answering the door for my two aunts, who
were young women. And certain nights in of the week when their callers came, my job was to
answer the doors. So if the wrong man came, I would know what to say. Well, When I was
beginning this, someone came up the steps and knocked at the door. And my aunt stood at the
window and pulled the sheet back just a little, and she saw who it was, and she said, Howard, tell
him that I am not here.
So I went to the door and I said, my aunt says she isn't here. Well, this is what she did say. But-and it was literal, but all of the overtones that come with-- how should I say it-- that come with
what we call maturity, means that we learn how to use words to obscure meaning. To use words
to protect ourselves from exposing what is really going on. And therefore, it is very difficult to
orient oneself into any thoroughgoing use of the integrity of the word.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Among your friends, for instance, if you told your friends the truth, you are afraid that you would
not have many friends long. And why is this? Because there is a weakness here. We have lost the
magic of the integrity of the word. It is not an accident that in the great religions-- and religion
like Christianity, that that so much is made up of the statement that the word became flesh. And
this is, what we mean, we say, and what we say, we do.
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 rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This program was pre-recorded.
This is tape number ET 57 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled Man's Equity in Life.
[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]
The sense of self is fully known when a man can say, I did it. Such triumph who can claim? In
every deed are many streams whose sources lie beyond all dreams, or sleep within the womb of
ancient myths. The words in his tongue wander us all, finding in man a short spanned place.
They are never his alone. Oh, what a way they've come, through countless years and every land,
through crucibles of every mood, words now familiar in their place have made their own the
marks of many minds. How dare a man say I, I speak?
Free-flowing thoughts from living minds are big with residues of other times, forced from their
place by inner law, compelled to rest in little spells. A man may never say, this thought is mine.
An equity in thoughts is his. The rest belongs to every man.
Fierce, private, intimate, unique feelings spring from deep within, a boundless inner world as old
as life. They come without command. The feeling tone, the pointed shape carries the image of
the man. To this, he gives his own life's plan. No more than this is his to claim. All knowledge in
whatever form maintains its place, secure. It knows no lord, no single mind. Its harvest ripens as
it will. Its secret is its own to give, in part to share with other minds.
To say I know is always false, however sure the words may seem. Before the echo fades, the
lights go out. The man is held by fear, by doubt. To seek, to find, to seek again. This is man's
journey. This is man's way. It is very often said that there are no exclusive rights that a man has,
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
even in the ideas that are a familiar part of his frame of reference, or a familiar part of the way he
communicates with other human beings.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The sound of the words that he uses, the accent that he gives to these words, the meaning that the
particular word has in a given context, all of these are part of his heritage, are a part of his
inheritance. But when the word passes through the man and becomes one of his private tools of
communication, he gives to the word his personal flavor, his Tang, his accent, his emphasis. And
thereby, and in that way only, does the word become his word.
There are words that are very, very universal in their meaning. And when we use such words, we
must do something to them, tamper with them in some way, so that the hearer will know that we
mean something very personal, and very private, and very intimate in the use of the word. We'll
take the word love, for instance. It is a universally used word, a word that is used universally,
rather.
But when, under certain circumstances, a man uses the word, along with the word is a quality in
the voice, the timber of the voice, the look in the eye, something on the countenance that says to
the listener, now this universal word becomes flesh, becomes particularized. Now, this is true
with the use of words. It is true in terms of all of the habit patterns of our lives. It is true in the
simple matters of decorum, and it is true in simple matters of dress. We are always confirming
our solidarity with human life.
Now and then, an individual feels that he must becomes utterly separate from all of the rest of
the human family. He becomes full of idiosyncrasies. He acts in ways that are, to him, so very
unique that he will not be identified with the herd, with the mass. But even the way in which he
does the erratic thing, he confirms his belonging to all of life.
And this is true in a more profound way. It is true, for instance, with reference to our bodies. I
remember many, many years ago when I lived in San Francisco, one Sunday morning I dedicated
a little baby. And then when I held him in my arms for the ceremony, I noticed that he had a
dimple, what seemed to me to be a dimple, in his neck.
And when I went to see his parents a few days after that, I remarked rather facetiously, that it's
too bad that David had a dimple on his neck, and in time it would be covered by his collar, and
he could not use it to any psychological advantage, and the way that he could use it if it were a
dimple on his cheek.
And his mother said, oh, that will not last. The pediatrician says that really isn't a dimple, but it is
the vestigial remains of a gill. And the time will come when this will be absorbed, or a very
simple operation will remove it. And then my mind went back to that far off moment in human
history when the waters are receding and when our forebears were learning how to take their air
and eat without benefit of water.
And then I remember that there is, in the human body, the whole story of man's journey, from his
forebears and before them to the slimy oozes of some primeval ocean bed. There is a sense in
which each man belongs to life, and the sense in which life belongs to each man. But when the
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
life movement, the ebb and flow, the throb, the heartbeat of existence, takes form in a particular
human being, then he has an equity in the wide expanse of the rhythm of life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And it is operating within this equity that he feels that he has something that belongs to him.
When I say, I know, I feel, I understand, I must, in using those words, recognize the fact that I
am simply saluting life and claiming just a moment of equity that is mine and mine alone. This
makes me live with humility and with great reverence, that all of life is mine, and I belong to all
of life.
[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.
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-795.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Integrity of Life; Man's Equity in Life (ET-57; GC 12-3-71), 1971 Dec 3
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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394-795
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
The Integrity of the Word (1964-01-31); Man's Equity in Life (1971-12-3)
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>
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, Meditations of the Heart, which reflects on Matthew 21:29 and asks: "What does it mean to be a person of your word?" He responds to this question by discerning the function of language, and how language creates meaning. This deep reflection on the nature of linguistics makes the listener ask, what is it about our words that dictate whether or not one is integrous?
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reflects upon what it means when those on the journey of life believe that they "did it." He continues, noting that any sense of achieving knowledge is false, as knowledge is dynamic in nature, rendering language as a mere symbol to make sense of knowledge. Rather than framing the pursuit of life as the pursuit of knowledge, Thurman suggests that equity is the actual pursuit that humanity should participate in.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
body
denial
identity
inner-being
integrity
Jesus
journey
linguistics
Matthew 21:29-31
meditations of the heart
money
origin
Parables
pedantic
pilgrim's progress
residue
self
symbol
womb
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/9b1e0f10edff91bab4f13d9d4f8da12a.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711715400&Signature=xTrVCkbxeKPuFPySLbKHLKNYNpY%3D
fb9acbe2fb3cacabff1d400991c22e76
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-786.mp3
This is tape number ET 42. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled "Intentional Living."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm beginning this morning by reading a meditation from my book Meditations of the Heart. "No
man is an island. No man lives alone. These words from a poem by John Donne have been set to
music and have become the theme of a variety of radio programs which are concerned with
aspects of social responsibility.
It is of crucial importance for each person to consider how he relates himself to the society of
which he is a part. For many people, and at times for most of us, it is a part of our dreaming to be
let alone, to be free of all involvements and the responsibilities of life and for others. This is but
natural. Often, the mood passes. Sometimes we say that our personal load is so heavy that it is all
we can do to look after ourselves, with all that that entails.
Even as we express such ideas, we are reminded of a wide variety of events that we are never
ourselves alone. We are not an island. We do not live alone.
There is no alternative to the insistence that we cannot escape from personal responsibility for
the social order in which we live. We are part of the society in which we function. There can be
no health for us if we lose our sense of personal responsibility for the social order.
This means that there must be participation in the social process and that, quite specifically, such
participation means that wise and critical use of the ballot must be made, the registering of our
intent to share responsibly in government. The moral inference is that there must not be a
condemnation of the political process of society if we have been unwilling to stand up and be
counted on behalf of the kind of government in which we believe and to which we are dedicated
and for which we are willing to work and sacrifice. Where social change seems to be urgent, we
must share in that process as responsible, law-abiding citizens. The ethical values by which we
live must be implemented on the level of social change.
This calls ever for a careful evaluation of the means to which we give our support. The means
which we are willing to use must not be in real conflict with the ends which our values inspire.
Practically, this means that if we believe in democracy, for instance, we must not be a party to
means that make use of bigotry, prejudice, and hate. We must search and find the facts that are
needed for judgment and cast our lot on the side of the issues which we are willing to embrace as
our private and personal ends.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
In working on behalf of such ends, we are morally right as we see the right. We shall not
cooperate with or be a party to means that seem to us evil, means that we would not use in our
personal and private life. In this sense, then, we are our brother's keeper, for we will not demand
of any man that he do on behalf of society as a whole what as persons we would be loath to do
ourselves if we were in his [? place." ?]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is a matter of very great and searching importance, as we think about our own private and
personal working paper, to make a decision or decisions which will render our position with
reference to life and its values very clear. There is one fundamental option available to all of us,
and that option is this. We can decide the things for which we will stand with our lives, with our
resources, with our mind, with our will, with our dedication, and the things against which we will
stand.
Now, this is a very crucial and intimate area of life. I'm not talking about the things that we do as
a part of the facade of our lives. I'm not concerned about the things that we do that are prestigebearing, that will cause us to be seen in the proper light so that our private commitment will not
interfere with the kind of public advance or social advance which we wish to experience either
for ourselves or our children or our families. But rather, am I thinking about the fundamental
decision of a man's life in which he comes to a point of focus with reference to the things in
which, most fundamentally, he believes and for which he is willing to work, to make sacrifices,
if need be, to suffer, if need be, to live.
Now, this is the important thing. Have you decided the things for which you will stand with your
life and the things against which you will stand? Do you know the sense in which you wish to be
counted on the side of the things which to you are most meaningful? Or have you left this to
someone else to decide for you?
There is something very thrilling and exciting, exhilarating, about taking a stand so that you
announce that it doesn't matter where anyone else stands; this is my position. And on behalf of
my position, I am willing to act, to think, to live. Now, you may say, with reference to the great
world in which you are living, that there are so many issues, so many demands, that it's hard to
get the facts. It's hard to know. It may be that the social process is so very complex and
complicated and the way that responsibilities are delegated in our society just you, John Doe
Citizen, may not be able to give expression to any fundamental conviction.
My only reply to that is suggested perhaps by something that was written many years ago by
T.R. Glover. He was discussing the decline of the Roman Empire. And he insisted that the
Roman Empire did not fail, did not collapse, because there were no crops or because of a lack of
rainfall or even because of the mass pressure of the barbarians on the frontiers.
But he said, rather, that the Roman Empire fell because the average Roman citizen had lost his
sense of personal responsibility, personal involvement, in and for the Roman society. They had
abdicated the private and personal prerogative to count, to throw the weight of their little life on
the side of the values which had meaning for them. And in the absence of this kind of positive
declaration, those persons who carried the large responsibility for the society were free to do as
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
they please. And yet the decisions which these persons made became binding on those same
people who had abdicated their own personal responsibility.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Therefore, if life is to be meaningful to you, if you are to have a fundamental self-estimate, if
you are to seem to yourself to count, to be essentially independent, then it follows that you must
make up your mind where you are, as you are, in your little world, with your little
responsibilities, with your little life, as it were, the things for which you will stand so that you
can be counted. And when you are counted, then this in itself is its own reward whether or not
the things for which you stand can in your lifetime find fulfillment.
It is madness to seek a land that has never been found before across an ocean that has never been
charted before. If Columbus had reflected thus, he would never have weighed anchor. But with
this madness, he discovered a new world. And so will you.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O lord,
my rock and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET 42, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, "Man's Relation to the Social Order."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading a meditation from my book Meditations of the Heart. "No man is an island. No man
lives alone. These words from a poem by John Donne have been set to music and have become
the theme of a variety of radio programs which are concerned with aspects of social
responsibility.
It is of crucial importance for each person to consider how he relates himself to the society of
which he is a part. [AUDIO OUT] of us. It is a part of our dreaming to be let alone, to be free of
all involvements and the responsibilities of life and for others.
This is but natural. Often, the mood passes. Sometimes we say that our personal load is so heavy
that it is all we can do to look after ourselves with all that that entails.
Even as we express such ideas, we are reminded of a wide variety of events, that we are never
ourselves alone. We are not an island. We do not live alone.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
There is no alternative to the insistence that we cannot escape from personal responsibility for
the social order in which we live. We are part of the society in which we function. There can be
no help for us if we lose our sense of personal responsibility for the social order.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This means that there must be participation in the social process, and that quite specifically. Such
participation means that wise and critical use must be made of the ballot, the registering of our
intent to share responsibility in government. The moral inference is that there must not be a
condemnation of the political process of society if we have been unwilling to stand up and be
counted on behalf of the kind of government in which we believe and for which we are willing to
work and sacrifice. Where social change seems to be urgent, we must share in that process as
responsible, law-abiding citizens. The ethical values by which we live must be implemented on
the level of social change.
This calls ever for a careful evaluation of the means to which we give our support. The means
which we are willing to use must not be in real conflict with the ends which our values inspire.
Practically, this means that if we believe in democracy, for instance, we must not be a party to
means that make use of bigotry and hatred and prejudice.
We must search and find the facts that are needed for judgment and cast our lot on the side of the
issues which we are willing to embrace as our private and personal ends. In working on behalf of
such ends, which are morally right as we see the right, we shall not cooperate with or be a party
to means that seem to us evil, means that we would not use in our personal, private life. In this
sense, we are our brother's keeper, for we will not demand of any man that he do on behalf of
society as a whole what as persons, we would be loath to do ourselves if we were in his place.
The feeling of isolation, the desire to be let alone, to be free to go about one's own affairs without
involvement in the common life, is a perfectly natural feeling. There is always, present in each of
us, a sense that if we somehow could build a wall around ourselves, then we would be able to
attend to our business, to hoe our row, to find our meaning, and to live our lives. It would be
wonderful, I suppose, if this could be done in fact. But it happens that we live in a world in
which each individual is a part of a wider social context, a world in which each individual finds
his particular meaning, never in isolation, but always in some kind of human context. Therefore,
it is important, as we think about the meaning of our lives and the living of our lives, that we take
into account that we are a part of a social organism and that there is no aspect of our society that
does not finally come to us for our veto or our certification.
Long ago, an historian writing about the fall of the Roman Empire, T.R. Glover, by name, said
that the Roman Empire collapsed not because of a failure of the wheat crop or the grain crop or
failure of rain or any act of God. It did not fall because of the pressure of the barbarians against
the frontiers of the empire. No.
But he says that the Roman Empire collapsed because the average Roman citizen, the average
Roman citizen, had lost his sense of responsibility for the total welfare of the empire. And he had
delegated this responsibility to the Senate. And much of the economic burden of the society was
on the backs of slaves, of people who'd been caught in battle. Now, he said when the barbarians
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
began to press on the frontier, there was not sufficient strength within the body politic to
withstand this pressure, so it collapsed as if it were an egg.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Wherever individuals, then, lose their sense of responsibility for the total well-being of their
fellow, then their own well-being is threatened. Therefore, as we seek to live responsibly, then it
seems to me that it is important to examine as carefully as we may the tools that are available to
us for expressing our social concern. One of these tools, of course, is the ballot. Another tool is
participation in all kinds of movements and processes which have as their purpose the altering of
the social pattern so as to make more room for all kinds of human beings to breathe.
This feeling that I can never be what I should be until every man is what every man ought to be-or to mix the figure, however far ahead of himself a turtle puts his two front feet, he cannot move
his body until he brings up his hind legs. For better or for worse, we are all tied together in one
bundle. And if I neglect my fellows, then the total health of the common life is thereby depleted,
and in turn and in essence, my own health is depleted. Therefore, when I ask myself, what is it
that I most deeply desire and need for my own fulfillment, how may I make available to my own
life the richness and the resources all around me in order that I and my children or my family
may be able to reap the richest and fullest benefits-- the question that I ask of myself, I must also
ask of my neighbor. For what meets the deepest need in me must also meet the deepest need in
him.
And when I work for myself, I work for him. When I work for him, I work for myself, for better
or for worse. No man is an island. We are tied together in one [? bundle." ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The preceding program was pre-recorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
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Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-786.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/29
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Intentional Living; Man's Relation to the Social Order (ET-42; GC 11-30-71), 1971 Nov 30
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon
WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-786
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Intentional Living (1961-06-23); Man's Relation to Social Order (1963-10-04)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1961-06-23
1963-10-04
Description
An account of the resource
In both of these recordings within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "Meditations of the Heart." In them, we hear Thurman reflecting upon citizenship and right action. Thurman's central question throughout these reflections is: What does it me to be a full, free, and responsible citizen? He claims that by having a moral praxis that rejects hatred in every way it manifests itself, one is able to resist means that contradict the end they are seeking.
Contributor
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Dustin Mailman
action
citizenship
Co-Laboring
decision
democracy
egg
evil
freedom
government
intention
John Donne
justice
meditations of the heart
morality
No Man is and Island
non-violent resistance
responsibility
Roman Empire
T.R. Glover
voting
working paper
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/b8e00fa7c5afd7974bcfd38128d8c940.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711715400&Signature=EiCT6NP0A9AL6zYi3GoEsvZo9cY%3D
926091c0b41db2845d9c1b26df5bf281
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-785.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 39 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, Two
Meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled "Active Membership in the Human
Race."
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'm reading from my book, Meditations of the Heart. "The telephone rang at 7:15 in the morning.
And on the other end was a lady whose voice seemed full of years, soft but strong. What she had
to say was profoundly stirring. I'm sorry to disturb you so early in the morning, but I wanted to
call you before you left the hotel for the day. About 10 years ago-- I'm now 69-- I decided to
examine my life to see what, if anything, I could do to put into practice my own convictions
about brotherhood. Why I decided this, and not suddenly, I need not say, but I did.
The first thing I discovered was that I knew almost nothing about other races in my own city,
particularly about Negroes. I went to the library and was given a small list of books and
magazines. I began to work. The things I learned. When it seemed to me that I had my hands on
enough facts, and I discovered you don't need too many facts, because they get in your way, I
plotted a course of action. Then I was stumped. What could I do, a 69-year-old lady? I had no
particular abilities, very little energy, and an extremely modest income. But I did like to talk with
people as I met them on the buses and in the stores.
I decided that I would spread the facts that I had and my own concern among all the people
whose lives were touched by mine in direct conversation. It took me some time to develop a
simple approach that would not be an intrusion or a discourtesy. But my years helped me. For
several years I've been doing this on the bus, riding into town each week, in a department store
where I've made my purchases for two decades, and various other places.
Occasionally, I run into a person in the street who stops to introduce himself and to remind me of
a previous meeting. One such person said, 'I guess you've forgotten me. But about four years
ago, I sat by you on a bus.' And I don't know how the question came up, but we talked about the
Negroes. And you started me thinking along lines that had never occurred to me. You even gave
me the name of a book which I noted and purchased. Since then I have been instrumental in
changing the whole personnel practice of our business on this question. And thanks to you.
Continuing, she said, 'I know that this is not very much. And I guess many people are doing
much more. But I thought I would tell you this, so that in your moments of discouragement, you
may remember what one simple old lady was doing to help in little ways to write big wrongs.
Goodbye and God bless you.' She did not give me her name, nor her address. She merely shared
her testimony and gave her witness. The idea that because I am weak or I am of limited
resources, even intellectual, or even emotional, or financial, or because I am not strategically
placed so that my words can carry the big weight. Because none of these things that I have
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
described may not apply to me, I may decide that therefore there isn't anything that I can do to
express my confirmation of my membership in the human race and all men's membership in the
human race.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It may be that I am unable to do as this lady did. But always within every human being's reach,
there is something that he or she can do to take a position on the side of the things for which you
stand and a position against the things against which you stand. Now it may be that the only
thing that you can do is to write a letter that will sustain the flagging or the lagging confidence of
some public servant, who expresses from within the context of his responsibility, a good
conscience on behalf of good community and the world. Or it may be that just a telephone call to
say a word of hope to someone who has been victimized by circumstances, over which he has
been unable to exercise any control, and you want to let him know that your membership in the
human race is an active membership.
Or it may be that you will discover that none of these things you are able to do, but you do have
influence with little children. And you can help the tender, unfolding imagination of a little child
to grow unhampered, and to be free, to relate to all kinds of people without regard to their
religious background, or their cultural background, or their ethnic background. But one thing is
true. Whether or not you are able to do anything concrete that will give you a sense of
participation in a collective destiny that increasingly involves all the human race, one thing is
always open to you. The things that you condemn in society, the attitudes of bigotry, or
narrowness, or prejudice, or however you say it, the attitudes that are against community, and
therefore, against life.
And if they are against life, they must of necessity be against the God of life. These negative
attitudes, against which you react, you must see to it-- and this is the thing that you can do
always-- you must to see to it that you do not encourage in yourself what you condemn in
society, that the response which you give in that little world, in which your will is as the will of
God, there you can, and you must, make what you hunger for real. So that in that area of your
control, the things that you long for and hope to see come to pass in the great, wide sweep of
mankind.
You encourage them. You nurture them. You give all of the support to them within yourself.
And if you do this, I am convinced that this becomes one more positive and creative element in
the environment that tends to strengthen the weak hand, that tends to give a push to the lagging
foot, that tends to give courage to someone who is in a position to make the crucial decision that
will make the radical difference in the well-beings of many people. It gives heart and hand to
such a person. Now if you do this, then you have the tremendous consolation that where you are,
you carried out your kind of and way of responsibility in the way that you would like to carry it
out if your power were absolute and your position transcendent."
[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.
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
The preceding program was video-tape recorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[AUDIO OUT]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 39 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled "The Big Dream, The Little Act."
[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]
And tomorrow is Declaration Day, and I'm reading as a background for our thought, this
meditation. "Two men faced each other in a prison cell. They belonged to different countries,
their roots watered by streams from different cultures. One was under sentence of death, which
sentence was scheduled to be executed within a few short hours. The other was a visitor and a
friend. This, even though months before they had been enemies in the great war. They bade each
other farewell for the last time.
The visitor was deeply troubled, but he could not find his way through the emotional haze in
which he was caught to give voice to what cried out for utterance. This is what he wanted to say
but could not find the words to say, 'We may not be able to stop and undo the hard, old wrongs
of the great world outside. But through you and me, no evil shall come either in the unknown
where you are going, or in this imperfect and haunted dimension of awareness through which I
move. Thus, between us, we shall cancel out all private and personal evil; thus, arrest private and
personal consequences to blind action and reaction; thus, prevent specifically the general
incomprehension, and misunderstanding, hatred, and revenge of our time from spreading
further." The end of the quotation.
The forces at work in the world, which seem to undermine the future and the fate of mankind,
seem so vast, impersonal, and unresponsive to the will and desire of any individual that it is easy
to abandon all hope for a sane and peaceful order of life for mankind. Nevertheless, it is urgent to
hold steadily in mind that the utter responsibility of the solitary individual to do with all his heart
and mind everything to arrest the development of the consequences of private and personal evil
resulting from the interaction of the impersonal forces that surround us, to cancel out between
you and another human being all personal and private evil, to put your life squarely on the side
of the good thing, because it is good, and for no other reason. This is to anticipate the Kingdom
of God at the level of your functioning.
At long last, a man must be deeply convinced that the contradictions of life which he encounters
are not final, that the radical tension between good and evil as he sees it and feels it does not
have the last word about the meaning of life and the nature of existence, that there is a spirit in
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
man and in the world working always against the thing that destroys and cuts down. Thus, he
will live wisely and courageously his little life. And those who see the sunlight in his face will
drop their tools and follow him. There is no ultimate negation for the man for whom it is
categorical that the ultimate destiny of man on this planet is a good destiny.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Many years ago, as a matter of fact, at the end of the First World War, Hermann Hagedorn wrote
a poem, a line of which I want to throw in relief as the word for our consideration in the
background. And this is the line, "We died. But you who live must do a harder thing than dying
is. For you must think, think, think. And ghosts shall drive you on." It is a commonplace remark
to say on an occasion like this that the forces that are pitted against each other in the great
outside world are so vast and so overwhelming, the policies that determine the manipulation of
states, and nations, and armies, and peoples are so impersonal and far-reaching that the private
individual, the so-called little man, the individual like me and you, seems somehow to be
powerless to effect any of these great forces that are determining and shaping the destiny of man.
But this is not all the truth. I would remind you this morning of another dimension of man's
experience in this regard. And it is this, that there is a world, a private world of the individual, in
which the individual's will, in a sense, is as searching and imperious, and in a sense, as absolute
as is the will of God. It may be true that from where you sit or from where I sit, we may not be
able to disarm a single man and a single nation anywhere in the world. It may be that nothing
that we can do immediately can relax the intent of nations to guarantee and perpetuate
themselves, even at the expense of other nations which in turn will brood wars of various kinds.
But there is one thing that is true for you and me. We can see to it that we will not encourage in
ourselves, in the private world in which we live and function, in the details of our common life
by which we relate to the members of our family, to the people on our job, the people in our
immediate community, that at this level, we shall not encourage the things that we condemn in
the great outer world. We cannot then expect to be against war, and against armed violences,
against all of the means and methods and procedures of destruction that is a part of the etiquette
of the modern nation.
We cannot be against that, and at the same time, in our private lives encourage all kinds of little
violence, take advantage of the weakness of individuals who come under our little power, exploit
the emotions of those persons who are related to us in ways that are primary and direct. We must
see to it then that the things that we encourage in ourselves are not at the same time the things
that we condemn in the great outer world. So that the things about which we dream for mankind,
we will work at in our homes, on our streets, in our communities, in our state, in our country.
Now there's a second observation here. And that is that we are under primary and personal
obligation to make what we hunger for real. Sometimes we are so surrounded by ideas, about
reward and punishment for things that we do, we sometimes seem to live under the shadow of a
kind of overall judgment that makes us do the good thing with an eye on the reward for doing the
good thing, or shrink from doing the evil thing because of the kind of punishment that is
involved in the doing of evil thing.
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now there is a sense in which, of course, we operate on this level. But there is no true
authenticity of character operating at that level. What we must do, if the thing for which we
hunger is real to us, is to put at the disposal of the little deed, the great faith and the great
concern. To put at the disposal of the simple act, the total commitment of the life, so that what
we hunger for mankind will be real to us in that area over which we do have control.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And then, the final thing follows, that we have within ourselves a very great responsibility to see
to it that we will put our lives at the disposal of the things for which we stand. And that we will
put our lives and their resources over against the things against which we stand. So that whatever
we do, it will register towards the fulfillment of the big dream, and the great hope, and the
overwhelming desire for mankind.
As Hermann Hagedorn reminds us, as a voice coming from the dead, from all of the graves of all
the soldiers around the world, we die, yes. "But you who live must do a harder thing than dying
is. For you must think, think, think. And ghosts-- our ghosts-- shall drive you on." This is the
word.
[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
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/394-785.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Active Membership in the Human Race; The Big Dream, the Little Act (ET-39; GC 11-26-71), 1971 Nov 26
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
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394-785
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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The Idiom of Brotherhood (1963-11-15); The Big Dream, the Little Act (1959-05-29)
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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1963-11-15
1959-05-29
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads from his text Meditations of the Heart. He tells a story of a 69-year-old woman who had come to realize that she did not know much about the black community and decided to go to the library to educate herself on black history. After her time in the library, she was committed to telling the "facts" about black people while she was on the bus and around town. Thurman reflects upon the role that responsibility plays in relation to one's citizenship to humanity.
In this recording within the We Believe series; Howard Thurman reads a meditation that speaks of two men who were once enemies sharing the same prison cell. From this meditation, he asks the question of what it means to overcome evil, and anticipate the Kingdom of God? He continues that it is in the disruption of barriers of hatred that humanity builds against itself that one can begin to anticipate the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. He continues, when we put our lives at the disposal of "that in which we stand," no matter how big or small, one is pursuing the greater good of humanity.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
awareness
calling
citizenship
creativity
evil
facts
George Cross
Herman Hagedorn
holiday
identity
meditation
meditations of the heart
prison
prisoners
race
reconciliation
solidarity
testimony
truth
-
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c947edb687db0cea3a3dd8ba9f365963
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-782.mp3
This is tape number ET29 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one entitled, "Life under the Scrutiny of God."
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.
I'm reading a meditation from "Meditations of the Heart." Long live life-- and there is something
which seems utterly final about the end of a year. It means that we are one year older. And this is
a fact definite and inexorable. We are 12 months closer to the end of our physical time span, one
year closer to death. It means that, in some important ways, we are taken farther from or brought
closer to the goal of our living-- whatever that goal may be. It means that some crucial questions,
which were unanswered 12 months ago, have been finally and decidedly answered, and whatever
doubts there may have been about the result are completely removed. Now we know.
It means that we are in fuller or lesser possession of ourselves and our powers than ever before.
During the passing of the 12 months, experiences have come into our lives which reveal certain
things about ourselves which we had not suspected. Some new demand was made upon us which
caused us to behave in a manner that was stranger to our established pattern of life, and we felt
shocked, surprised, enraged, or delighted that such was possible for us.
We met someone with whom we built the kind of relationship which opened up to us new worlds
of wonder and magic which were completely closed to us a year ago. It means that we are wiser
by far than we were at year's beginning. The circling series of events upon whose bosom we
have been wafted cut away our pretensions, stripping us bare of much beneath which we have
hidden even from ourselves.
When we saw ourselves revealed, there was born wisdom about life and its meaning that makes
us say with all our hearts this day that life is good and not evil. It means that we have been able
to watch as if bewitched while the illumined finger of God pointed out a path through the
surrounding darkness where no path lay-- exposed, to our surprised gaze, a door where we were
sure there was only a blank wall-- revealed the strong arms and assuring voices of friends when
we were sure that, in our plight, we were alone-- utterly and starkly alone.
All of these meanings and many more counsel us that because life is dynamic and we are deeply
alive, the end of the year can mean only the end of the year, not the end of life, and not the end of
us, and not the end of time. We turn our faces toward the year being born with riding hope that
will carry us into the days ahead with courage and with confidence. The old year dies, the new
year is born-- long live life.
It is one of the most commonplace and, yet, searching insights of religion-- that man lives his life
always under the scrutiny and under the judgment of God. This is not an option which is before
him. It is not a choice which he makes-- and, upon that choice, rides the meaning of the decision.
It is rather something that is given. It is a part of the totality of man's experience that his life is
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not altogether his own-- that he is created and is responsible for the living of his days, whether he
is mindful of that responsibility or not.
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This suggests to my mind, then, that with reference to the events of one's life, there are always
two basic levels that are involved. The first level is the level of the event itself-- the simple facts
of the event-- the elements that went into it, the ordinary aspects of it. The second level is the
meaning that these events may have for the destiny of the individual-- the meaning that they may
have for the meaning that the individual's life has.
These two levels, then-- one, the practical ingredients of the event-- the simple elements that go
into the raw materials of the experience. The second-- the deeper, interpretive significance of
these events in terms of the purposes and the goals and the dreams and the destiny of the life.
For instance, a man may have a quarrel with a friend. The quarrel may be the result of a simple
series of events, all of which enter into a kind of complex. And, when the reaction to this
complex is effective, the result is anger or frustration or the rupturing of a relationship which, up
to that time, had been moving along rather smoothly. Now, this is the surface dimension. These
are the elements. One word spoken in anger, reaction to the word in anger-- the result, a ruptured
relationship. The result, something that means that reconciliation is in order.
Now, this event may be dealt with merely in terms of what happened. And, when it is dealt with
in that way, perhaps there's a simple apology and harmony is restored and reconciliation
becomes the order. Or the event itself may reveal to the individual something about himself-something about his character-- something about his intentions, his motives-- something about
his dreams, and even his goals. And, in the light of this second consideration, the event is more
than an event.
Or, take something else-- a person may be ill-- the result of some ordinary disease or some
accident-- something of that sort. And the illness is dealt with at the level of the illness. Skilled
hands come in or skilled minds bringing to bear upon the illness all of the disciplines of the
healing arts and science-- and the person is well. But the illness may be something more again. It
may provide an opportunity for the individual to take a long, hard look at his life.
He may see certain things that have been operating in his life-- that affected him in one way or
another, things of which he was not mindful until the event took place. Then the event, the illness
becomes something that is revealing not merely about the meaning of his life, but about the
meaning of life in general-- or about the meaning of God in the individual's life.
I will take something that happened last fall when two men-- one representing the United States
and one representing Russia-- just men who ate and slept. Men who grew angry and were
pleased. Men who were just ordinary human beings in one sense. But, for a moment in time, they
became all mankind and held in their hands decisions that affected not merely mankind in
general, but the birds and the trees and the grass and the sky and the water.
These two men looked into the deeps on which they stood and made decisions. Their decisions
resulted in one more chance for the rest of the world. Now, we made regard this event as
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something that took place merely at the level of politics, at the level of the relationship between
two great countries, or something which had to do primarily with elements that were diplomatic.
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Or, we may regard it as something that, through a shaft of light on the kind of darkness in which
the world is living-- and, as a result of that moment and the reprieve from it, all kinds of new
intents and new purposes and new resolutions and new resources may be brought to bear upon
the meaning of peace and the meaning of the destiny of man in the world. Our life is lived under
the scrutiny of God.
All of the events of our lives may be dealt with at two levels-- one, the simple, direct, superficial
aspects of the event. The other-- the deep, searching meaning that the event has for life and its
significance.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
This is tape number ET29 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two entitled, "Order in the Totality of Life."
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
I'm reading this morning from "The Inward Journey." The story of our lives is the old story of
man. There is the insistent need to separate ourselves from the tasks by which our days are
surrounded. The urgency within us cries out for detachment from the traffic and the complexities
of our involvement. There is the ebb and flow of anxiety within us, because always there seems
to be so little time for withdrawal, for reflection.
These are the thoughts which find their way into our spirits when, at last, the time of quiet is our
potion. It is no ordinary experience to spread our lives before the honest scrutiny of our own
selves. But there is also no escape from such a necessity. The obvious things in our lives, we
pass over-- taking them for granted. This may be a source of weakness and despair.
Deeply are we aware of limitations in many dimensions of our lives. We are conscious of the
ways in which and by which we have undermined the light, the truth that is within. Sometimes
we do call good things, bad, and bad things, good. There are some things in our lives which we
have not looked at for a long, long time. We make as an act of sacrament the lifting and exposing
of these things before God with tenderness and compassion.
There are some things within us that are so far beneath the surface of our movements and our
functioning that we are unmindful, not only of their presence, but also of the quality of their
influence on our decisions, our judgments, and our behavior. In the quietness, we will their
exposure before God, that they may be lifted to the center of our focus-- that we may know what
they are and seek to deal with them in keeping with our health and our inmost wisdom.
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All of the involvements of our lives and family and primary community relations, in our state
and country, and in the far flung reaches of the things that we affect and the things that affect us
and our world-- all of the concern that is ours for various aspects of the things that affect us and
that we affect, these we spread before our own eyes and before the scrutiny of God.
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We turn to thee, our Father-- not out of a sense of worth or lack of worth, not out of a sense of
pride or lack of pride, but we turn to with our total life, because this seems to speak directly to
our deepest need. What thou seest in us that is weak and unworthy of our best, wilt thou handle
in thine own way?
What thou seest in us that is strong and vital, wilt thou encompass in thine own way? We yield as
best we can everything-- everything, our father, holding back nothing. We wait for the
benediction and for that healing. We wait, oh god, in the stillness of our own spirits. It is no
ordinary observation and the other very simple one-- that all of man's life is structured.
That is to say that all of man's life has a quality of orderliness in it-- a kind of logic which gives
to the totality of a man's life what may be called a structure of dependability. And what is true in
a man's life is rooted, really, in the world about us-- in the world of nature. There is an
orderliness here-- a fundamental structure of dependability which makes it possible for mankind
to explore the world about him which is, in a sense, responsible for the kind of affinity that the
mind seems to hold with the external world.
This is the basis for the fundamental religious affirmation upon which one of the most important
and far-reaching activities of our contemporary world rests. And that affirmation is, in essence, a
belief in the orderliness of the world-- a belief in the orderliness of the world of nature. And it is
because of this fundamental belief, which is religious in character, that men go forth to explore
the world of nature, feeling always that what there is in the context of their lives-- which we call
the world of nature-- may be found a principle of order, a structure of dependability, which is
also the same thing that is in the mind of man.
And when the order in the mind of man makes primary and direct contact with the order in the
external world, then the result of that contact men call understanding. And when they understand
some aspect of the world of nature, then they are able to deal with it in ways that are creative,
productive, and dependable.
The same thing is true with reference to our own bodies. There is an in-built or a built-in kind of
integration in the organism so that you become aware of some aspect of your body only when it
is acting out of character-- when the orderliness is broken, when the structure of dependability
seems to collapse.
For instance-- I am not aware of my little finger, really, until my little thing is unable to act as the
little finger should act as a part of the family of fingers. When it is unable to become an active,
participating part of the order of the hand-- the structure of dependability that holds the hand and
makes the hand function as a unit-- when the little finger is unable to carry its part, then I say that
something is wrong with my little finger.
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My little finger is ill. It is mal. It has broken the structure of dependability, it is an alien. And I
say that my finger is cured when, once again, it has been restored to its place in the family of
fingers. Now, if this is true in the world of nature, if it is true with our bodies, it would seem to
me that it is true also with our minds and thus the whole construct of values by which we seem to
get meaning in life.
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And if, therefore, I act in ways that violate my own inner sense of meaning, my own inner sense
of value, then my life moves in a tilted place. And we have contemporary words we use about it.
I say that I feel guilty, I feel as if I have done something wrong, I feel as if I have done violence
to something-- always when the inner order is ruptured, this is a thing that happens.
Now, so significant is this process and this structure of dependability, that if I become
emotionally disturbed, for instance, and I go to someone who is able to help me-- a doctor or an
analyst or a psychiatrist or someone-- or a counselor-- one of the first things that he does is to see
if somehow he can lead me gently over the story of my life until I come to the point at which
something moved out of character-- something broke the rhythm, something interfered with the
inner integration.
And, once he locates it, then he tries to help me help myself restore this thing so that I will be
whole again. Now, in the language of religion, this means that a man lives his life in the presence
of God under the scrutiny of God. Hence the psalmist says that God broods over our lives and
that we are responsible for our living. And, whether we bar our knee before an altar or make any
kind of confession before a god whom we recognize, there is within us this structure of
dependability. And, when we violate it, something goes awry. And it is for this reason that
religion insists that all of man's life is under the scrutiny of God.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
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Dublin Core
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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/394-782.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
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Life Under the Scrutiny of God; Order in the Totality of Life (ET-29; GC 11-24-71), 1971 Nov 24
Time Period
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1960s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-782
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Life Under the Scrutiny of God (1963-01-04); Order in the Totality of Life (1962-05-25)
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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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1963-01-04
1962-05-25
Description
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In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "Meditations of the Heart," to speak about wisdom and the ways in which one becomes wise. In his reading, Thurman notes that when contemplating what it means to age, one discovers that in the span of a single year one grows tremendously: relationally, in one's awareness of self, sensitivity, etc. He continues, it is when one makes meaning of an event, rather than merely objectively describing an event, that one can begin to make sense of life.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "The Inward Journey," reflecting upon what it means to be fully integrated. It is in holistic integration, Thurman suggests, that one finds solitude and interdependency.
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Dustin Mailman
aging
anxiety
darkness
dependability
dynamism
embodiment
event
friendship
harmony
illness
integration
inward journey
life
light
magic
meaning
meditations of the heart
order
psalmist
quiet
rebirth
reconciliation
relationship
restoration
Russia
solitude
tension
United States
urgency
vitality
wisdom
year
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http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/126feedc34953a5d951582c730b8dd5d.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711715400&Signature=Aj5k8l%2BsHXmhmum3C2eFsCWD4bM%3D
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394-781.mp3
This is tape number ET28, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Creative Order in Life.
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[BELLS RINGING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm continuing from Jane Steger, Leaves from a Secret Journal. About the tree, what I want to
know is why the sap ever started to run up the tree, up the trunk, along the limbs into the buds to
spread them out into leaves. Perhaps the way to find out would be to get inside the tree one's
self-- a nebulous personality to run with the sap up the trunk, out the limbs, into the leaves and
maple keys. And there, hear the command to stop.
The end is as amazing as the beginning. Why does the urge of life cease with leaves and seed
vessels? How does it know when to stop when its type is completed? If this command to halt
didn't come at the right moment, the breath of life that is in the tree might go on beyond leaves
and bloom into all sorts of green, fantastic abortions that would spoil the type.
The beginning is a marvel. The ending is an amazement. And I suppose that was, in the mind of
God, the finished thought of a maple tree, as definite and complete as its spark of life in the seed,
although He no doubt sent the thought forth in several types before the present one was achieved.
It is a miracle that trees stop with themselves, that maple trees are only apple trees-- that maple
trees are only maple trees, that apple trees are only apple trees, and oak trees are only oak trees.
The urge of life might so easily have flowed on into a green maelstrom of confusion-- a sort of
wild, crazy quilt of creation.
The same, of course, is true of every type. Why do pigs stop at pigs and human beings at human
beings? Of course, we human beings still have animal tendencies, and no doubt we are potential
angels, but in spite of what we have, then, or may be, we are human beings. Each type may have
come up from something else and be slowly drifting on to another development.
Nevertheless, at each stage, it is itself and not a confused medley. As I sit writing, I am
surrounded by numberless finished articles-- books, chairs, tables, desks-- all of which were
conceived by the mind of man. Then, as I look out into the garden, I see infinitely more things.
An innumerable company-- grass, trees, flowers, bushes-- all of which the mind of God created
and all of which are separate, distinct, and finished, with no confusion, no intermixing of forms.
Truly, the finished type is an astonishment. I never really thought of it before. The urge of life
always amazed me, but I never until now realized the marvel of it stopping when each creation is
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completed. It might so easily go on into confusion or shatter the type as a child breaks his bubble
by blowing too much breath into it.
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It might, that is, if at the back of creation was nothing but a blind force. How can anyone believe
that? One might possibly if one thought only of the initial urge of life, but surely not when one
sees it always stopping in definite forms and definite types.
Look at that fat dictionary over there on the shelf, so solemn and well-informed. Do I think that it
was created out of chaos? No, I don't think so. Did anyone ever see a trumpet vine forget its type
and try to overflow into something else-- into a maple tree, for instance? Or a maple tree forget
that its urge to life should stop with sharply pointed leaves rather than with round edges of an
oak?
Nobody ever did unless the types had been crossed by outside interference. What keeps them all
so loyally true to their own plan? Surely, if there were nothing but a blind urge at the back of
them, they would long ago have lost their way in the maze of life and gone off into a confusion
of all kind of chaos.
This is a rather extraordinary and exciting notion to my mind, and it is well worth our reflecting
upon. It is true that the beginning of life is quite miraculous. As a matter of fact, the big the idea
of beginning is itself as a concept almost beyond the grasp of the mind.
But as fundamentally exciting as may be the notion of beginning, it is even more astonishing-this built in quality that seems to be inherent in any particular form of life that tells that form of
life how it is to shape itself and when it is to stop developing. Suppose your foot did not ever
stop growing, that there wasn't anything that you could do to stop it. It would be quite a fantastic
arrangement.
But there is built in the very life structure of the body something which, in recent times,
biologists, or cytologists more specifically, have discovered. And they call it a certain quality in
the cell. A coding, C-O-D-I-N-G-- a coding in the cell that determines what the development of
the organism will be-- which cells will become eyes and legs and feet and hair and what the
dimensions are.
This is a part of the Constitution that is inherent in the cell itself. And in reading some time ago
about the growth and development of eels, I was amazed at the discovery that some of the
investigators were trying to determine, why was it that certain eels that came up from the
Sargasso sea, born there, five miles below the surface of the sea, found their way all the way up
to the Atlantic?
And some of the eels moved to the right and went to Europe. Some of the other eels came to the
United States-- to Virginia and North Carolina, to the fresh waters there. What determined which
way the eel should go? What determined the European eel and the American eel, as it were?
Well, these scientists discovered that the eels that had 11 or fewer vertebrae always came to
Virginia and North Carolina. If they had 12 or more vertebrae, they always went to Europe. The
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ticket-- the ticket-- was in the vertebrae. Now, this means that all of life is fundamentally
structured and grounded in order, that there is inherent in the creative process that which when
life realizes itself, its potential has been actualized.
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Now, this gives to us-- it should give to us a very simple but profound confidence in the life
process itself. And in my language, it should give us the confidence in the Creator, confidence in
God, for it would seem to me that if all other manifestations of life, including my own body,
have this order built into it, why should not the experiences of my life, the growth of my life, all
of the things would have to do with my mind and spirit, why should not they then be in
accordance with what to me is the will and the purpose-- and for my mind-- the creative dream of
God?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is tape number ET28, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2, entitled, The Great Exposure.
[BELLS RINGING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading from Meditations of the Heart. Sometimes, there's only a 60 second divide between
youth and maturity, childhood and adulthood, strength and weakness, life and death. That life is
vulnerable is the key to its longevity.
We are surrounded every day by the exposure to sudden and devastating calamity. Despite all
efforts to the contrary, there is no device by which we may get immunity from the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune. Here is a man in the full prime of active life, with all the strength
and vigor of a rounded maturity. Disease strikes. He withers and dies quickly, without warning
and often without premonition.
Here is a carefree, happy child, surrounded by all the love that wise devotion and careless rapture
can give. A plane crash. Both parents perish. And what at 10 o'clock was a child becomes at
10:01 a desolate creature shunted across the great divide that separates hope from hopelessness,
dependence from independence. Thus it goes in one vein.
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Or here is a person from whom all the lights had long since gone out. The way ahead is no way.
A sharp, sudden turn in the road or a chance encounter in the darkness and everything's changed.
Life is vulnerable. Always, there is the exposed flank.
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Sometimes much energy is spent in a vain attempt to protect oneself. We try to harden our fiber,
to render ourselves safe from exposure. We refuse to love anyone, for instance, because we
cannot risk being hurt. We withdraw from participation and the struggles of our fellows because
we must not get caught in the communal agony of those around us.
We take no stand where fateful issues are at stake because we dare not run the risk of exposure to
attack. But all this, at long last, is of no avail. The attack from without is missed. And we escape
only to find that the life we have protected has slowly and quietly sickened deep within because
it was cut off from the nourishment of the great exposure.
It is the way of life that it be nourished and sustained by the constant threat, the sudden rending,
than welcome each rebuff that makes life's smoothness rough. It is a very commonplace
observation to say that as we live, our lives are caught up in a pattern of logic and order, reward
and punishment, reaping and sowing.
So fundamental is this kind of rhythmic balance in the very grain of our feeling tones and our
thought patterns that automatically we elect, as it were, to project this generalization in to an allinclusive way of life, so that when we do something, we expect it to balance itself in something
else.
I remember when I was a little boy, I broke my arm. It was in the summer. The doctor put my
arm in splints, as it were. And for three or four weeks, I was unable to participate in the things
that ordinarily engaged my time and attention.
And I wondered why, if I had to break my arm, it would not happen during the school year when
I could get mileage out of it. But it happened at the time when school was out and all the
wonderful things were going on in the summer. And then I began to go over in my mind-tutored, you see, by this balance about which I'm talking, reward and punishment, action and
reaction, antecedent and consequence-- and I wondered, what deed had I committed that was of
such enormous consequence that it had to be balanced by a broken arm at the peak of the
summer time?
This notion, you see, that we are in a rhythm of reward and punishment, and it operates
sometimes in our working philosophy. We say that if we are very good, then good things will
come to us as a result of it; that a good man, a worthy man, a man who has integrity and who
lives up to the most far reaching demands of his integrity, that man would not be subject to the
great exposure as a man who pays no attention to these things.
Now, this is one of the aspects of our experience, but it does not exhaust the possibilities. It is
true that there is reward and punishment, that the law of antecedent and consequence does
operate. But as it would seem to me, that over and above this kind of balance or this kind of
order, this kind of moral structure, there is what may be called a random movement in existence-
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- a movement which does not seem to take into account the private predicament, the situation of
the individual as an individual, but it involves him because he happens to be present and
available at the critical moment.
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The Master talks about this when someone ask him concerning a child that was born blind. His
disciples said, was this child born blind because of the sins of his parents? And the Master
countered with a very interesting comment. He said, the people on whom the tower at Siloam fell
and were killed, were they any more guilty than the people on whom the tower didn't fall?
And the inference is, no, they were not more guilty, but they were under the tower and the others
were not. This is an extraordinary something with which you are dealing. There is no protection
against the great exposure. We as living beings in this world, again and again, are exposed to the
operation of impersonal forces over which we are unable to exercise any control-- forces that are
not responsive to our wills, however good and insistent those wills are.
Given this situation, which is a part of the human predicament, it is within the resources of the
individual and it is one of the tremendous insight of religion that there is always available in God
strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be. And this is not some Pollyanna remark,
but it is the studied wisdom and the garnered experience of generations of men that the test of
life is often found in the degree to which we are able to absorb the hammerings of the great
exposure without at the same time destroying our joy.
There is in God strength, sufficient for our needs, whatever they may be.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The preceding program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
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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/394-781.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
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Creative Order in Life; The Great Exposure (ET-28; GC 11-23-71), 1971 Nov 23
Time Period
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1960s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-781
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Creative Order in Life (1963-09-27); The Great Exposure (1963-02-15)
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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>
Date
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1963-09-27
1963-02-15
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from Jane Steger's "Leaves from a Secret Journal." He attempts makes sense of the makeup of one's own life through the lens of ecology and biology. Using examples such as trees and DNA, Thurman explores the depths of the "order" of human existence.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text "Meditations of the Heart." His reading reflects upon the impact of trauma, and how it effects the development of the individual. He develops his ideas based off of personal experience and his own psychological findings. In this recording, Thurman suggests that it is in the exposure to the reality of existence that one can begin to mature.
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Dustin Mailman
angels
balance
biology
chaos
childhood
coding
completion
confidence
consequence
constitution
creativity
death
development
ecology
epistemology
experience
Jane Steger
journey
leaves from a secret journal
life
maturity
meditations of the heart
moral structure
North Carolina
personality
pigs
Sargasso Sea
seasons
snakes
trauma
tree
urge of life
Virginia
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/2d57078fd37bfca6c32de528cc7cf159.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711715400&Signature=n82TIVv1a6iP5W%2FYfKnuR3bnRK8%3D
29608d573f8b6756fb15c2451db8bc75
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-778.mp3
This is tape number ET22 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust-- two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled, Quality of Life.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in they sight, oh, Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm beginning by reading a selection from my book, Meditations of the Heart. "At times when
the strain is heaviest upon us, and our tired nerves cry out in many tongue in pain, because the
flow of love is choked far below the deep recesses of the heart.
We seek with cravings, firm and hard, the strength to break the dam that we may live again in
love's warm stream. We want more love and more and more until, at last, we are restored and
made anew, also it seems.
When we are closer drawn to God's great light, and in its radiance stand revealed, the meaning of
our need informs our minds. More love, we cried, as if love could be weighed, measured,
bundled, tied. As if with perfect wisdom we could say, to one a little love, to another, an added
portion, and on and on until all debts were paid with no one left behind.
But now, we see the tragic blunder of our cry not for more love, our hungry craving seek, but
more power to love to put behind the tender feeling, the understanding heart. The boundless
reaches of the Father's care makes love eternal always kindled, always new. This becomes the
eager meaning of the aching heart, the bitter cry, the anguish call."
We are approaching the Christmas season. And it is a time when much thought will be given to
the sharing of gifts, the expressing of love. I am reminded that so much of our lives is
quantitative. We think about the meanings of our lives, and the meanings of things and times that
can be weighed and measured.
And, perhaps, we have no choice but to do this. I was looking over a casualty policy, which I
own. And on the inside of this policy, there is a table that lists the equivalent in dollars to
different kinds of injuries-- $1,000 for the loss of one eye or $50 for the spraining of an ankle.
In other words, these things, which have to do with the quality of pain, the quality of anguish, the
quality of suffering are transposed in terms of dollars and cents. We tend to feel that, somehow,
we can reduce all of the quality dimension of life to quantitative measurements. And this is a
delusion.
I remember some years ago having a conversation at another university where I was teaching, a
conversation with Dr. Cabot, who, for many years, was a professor in the Harvard University
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Medical School. We was seated in my little office talking. And every five minutes, some student
would knock at the door. And I would go to the door and answer it and do a little conversation
there.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And then the next two, three minutes, the buzzer would sound. And I would answer the
telephone. And this kept on while Dr. Cabot was trying to explain something to me. And then,
suddenly he said to me, will you do me a favor? And I said, yes. He said, will you lock the door
and don't open it for 10 minutes?
And then will you please say to whoever buzzes you upstairs to not to disturb you for 10
minutes, because I want to tell you something. And I don't want to be interrupted. And this is
what he told me-- that some years previous to this time, he had been invited by the National
Conference of Social Work to give their annual lecture. And he chose to address himself to the
theme, the limitation of intake.
And his thesis was very simple that the figure five bears the same relationship to infinity that's
the figure of 5 million bears. Now, he says, that if human need, for instance, is infinite, and if a
man works 1,000 years without taking time out either to eat, sleep, or rest, at the end of the 1,000
years, that which remains to be done, will still be infinite.
If he reads every hour during 1,000 years without taking time out to eat, sleep or rest at the end
of the time, the number of books remaining to be read would be infinite. So the wise man
discovers that he cannot make a quantitative impression on infinity.
And therefore, he begins to learn how to make a qualitative impression on infinity to put into the
particular expression all of the meaning and quality and vitality of which one is capable without
feeling that what one expresses can be measured in terms either of dollars and cents or in terms
of thank you or no thank you in terms that have to do with those things that are essentially
quantitative.
When Tycho Brahe was the great Danish astronomer-- and at the end of his 25 years when there
was a change in Danish politics, the politicians came out to his observatory to see how he was
spending the money of the state. And he showed them these wonderful maps of stars that he had
been drawing-- he and his students.
And the politicians winked their eyes at each other. And one did a spiral with his hands, pointing
to his brain, showing that Tycho Brahe was a little off. And he went back. And he made the
report to the officials. And Tycho Brahe was put out of his observatory.
And the last night when he gathered his students around him, he said, 25 years ago, I had a
dream. And that was to chart 1,000 stars before I died. I've only charted 750. And now, I must
quit. But these 750 stars will never have to be charted again. I have put into what I have done.
The rich, rare quality of the most creative and most sensitive effort that I can give. Therefore, I
suggest, then, as we approach the Christmas season, that we bear down on the quality of how we
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
relate to each other-- the quality that is given, rather than the quantity, the figure, the price tag
that goes with the object.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is the sort of thing that we want, isn't it, in our most primary and intimate relationships. When
we love someone, we do not love a little bit and measure it. But we love love. And if we do not
love in this way, then we are always under the burden of trying to prove that we love.
Let us then enter into this season with a qualitative significance to what we do, rather than be
deluded into accepting a quantitative measure, because if we do, then we can't do enough. We
will always be behind. It is the qualitative, rather than the quantitative emphasis.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That 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]
[AUDIO OUT]
This is tape number ET22 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, Religion and Life.
[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]
For our background this morning, I'm reading two things-- a poem by Max Herman and then a
quotation from Petrarch's Letters of Old Age. "Let me do my work each day. And if the darkened
hours of despair overcome me, may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation
of other times.
May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking over the silent hills of my
childhood or dreaming on the margin of the quiet river when a light glowed within me. And I
promised my early god to have courage amid the tempests of the changing years.
Spare me from the bitterness and sharp passion of unguarded moments. May I not forget that
poverty and riches are of the spirit. Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and
actions be such, as shall keep me friendly with myself. Lift up my eyes from the earth, and let me
not forget the uses of the stars.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Forbid that I should judge others, lest I condemn myself. Let me not feel the glamour of the
world but walk calmly in my power, give me a few friends who will love me for what I am and
to keep ever burning before my vagrant steps, the kindly light of hope.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And though age and infirmity overtake me. And I come not within sight of the castle of my
dreams. Teach me still to be thankful for life and for times, old and moments that are good and
sweet. And may the evening twilight find me gentle, still."
And then this from Petrarch. "When a word must be spoken to further a good cause. And those
whom it behooves to speak remain silent. Anybody ought to raise his voice and break a silence,
which may be fraught with evil. Many a time, a few simple words have helped to further the
welfare of a nation no matter who uttered them.
The voice itself displaying its Latin power, suffice to move the hearts of men. It is a very
searching question, the bearing that a man's religion has on life, on his life, on the way by which
he conducts his private and personal enterprise.
And there are many people who feel that religion should have nothing to do in essence with the
world with all of the things that are part of the traffic of life. And such persons who take that
position are of the mind that all religious people belong to use a phrase from the apostle Paul
belonged to the colony of heaven that they are, in essence, pilgrims through the world.
They are not involved in all the things that go to make up the common life and the common
experience. Such people, then, attempt to walk through life untouched and affected, because they
do not feel that there is any relevance between whatever may be their profession of faith and the
hard, difficult turbulent dimensions of life.
And there are others who feel that all that religion has to say can be confined to the warp and
woof of daily living that there is no dimension of life or religion that transcends the bread and
butter aspects of life, so that when they think of religion, they think in turns of doing things, of
shifting things, of transforming the world of men and affairs.
And then there are others who take the position that both of these things are true that religion has
to do with the dimension of man's life that transcends time and space and circumstance. But it
informs the quality of his living, as he is a person functioning in time and in circumstance. And
therefore, the critical question is, what do I do? How do I register the imprint, the impact of my
own private religious testimony on the stuff of life?
Now, sometimes there are people with tender consciences in this regard, who, as they look out
upon all of the injustices of life, all of the things that break the heart and make the mind move in
a tilted place, all of the inarticulate and dumb agony of the masses of men who have no voice to
speak for them that all of these things are terrible.
And they express themselves in outcry and a certain kind of personal indignation. And the phrase
is, this is outrageous. It is terrible. Somebody-- somebody ought to do something about it. And
this becomes so exhausting-- this kind of outcry-- this sort of righteous indignation that is
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
expressed that all of the energy of one's life is exhausted in our crying so that there is nothing
left.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There are no resources left upon which one may draw in order to do something about it. So
Petrarch in his letter addresses himself to an aspect of this problem. If it be true that you living in
a situation of which you are very mindful.
You are aware of all of its dimensions that go against your own deep sense, either of decency,
honor, justice, righteousness-- whatever the phrase may be-- that expresses the quality of your
own inner character. You're living in the midst of a situation such as this. And those persons,
who are in power, those persons, who are in the strategic position, so to speak or so to function
that what they do will make a radical change all the way down the line."
"If those people," says, Petrarch, "are silent, if for reasons that are political in character or
theological in character, or ecclesiastical in character, whatever may be the reasons, there is this
long and sustained and aching silence. And," says, Petrarch, "it behooves any man to speak in
order that the truth may be heard, and in order that there may be available somewhere in the
common life, a voice that makes articulate a deep and searching concern.
And it is important to remember that because an individual seems to be limited, because the
individual seems to have no power. The individual seems to think that his voice is a weak voice.
His voice will not be heard. No one will listen to me. I do not count. I do not rate.
This sort of self-pity that becomes an escape from responsibility is something that goes against
what seems to me to be the most insistent demand that life and religion in one sense are one
thing. And therefore, if those who are in a position of power to speak do not speak, then raise
your voice.
And your voice may be the only voice that is heard. But if you raise your voice, then you can
very easily do two things-- one, you can give your witness. You can give the testimony of your
own deep convictions. You can share the dimensions of your own religious faith so that you can
be honest with yourself.
You can hold in tact your own self-respect, because you have spoken. You have done what you
could. That's one thing. And the second thing is that very often, there are many, many people
who can't make up their minds, who are on the fence, who have no sense of bearing.
But when your voice speaks, and you are not a prestigious person when your voice speaks, this
then provides for them a point around which they may rally, because all life is one. And there is
nothing that takes place in any man's life that does not affect the life of all men. While there is a
lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a man in jail, I
am not free."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This program was prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[BUZZING]
6
�
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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" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-778.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Qualitative Life; Religion and Life (ET-22; GC 11-20-71), 1971 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
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394-778
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Quality of Life (1960-10-07); Religion and Life (1964-04-03)
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1960-10-07
1964-04-03
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman reflects upon the way in which American culture makes sense of love. He notes that typically, the "flow of love is chocked beneath the deep recesses of the heart." This is the product of quantitative love rather than qualitative love. He reminds the listener, that qualitative love is more significant than any price tag or number of accoutrements one acquires. Qualitative love speaks to the depths of the human experience.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman reflects upon writing from Max Herman and Petrarch to ask the question: To what depth does one's religion have a bearing on one's life? He continues by probing the political and ecclesiological elements of the religious inner life intersecting with the secular outer life, and the ways in which religion impacts one's praxis and location in the world.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
bears
Cabot
Christmas
decision
ecclesiology
God
Harvard
heart
interconnectivity
Letters of Old Age
limitations
love
Max Herman
meditations of the heart
National Conference of Social Work
need
Paul
Petrarch
poem
quality
quality of life
quantity
religion
responsibility
testimony
Tycho Brahe
voice of the genuine
witness
-
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ee4f2cdb9005e390ee8f2dab96dbd2ec
PDF Text
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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-777.mp3
This is tape number ET21 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust-- two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one entitled Psychology and Religion.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[BELLS RINGING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O'
Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer.
I'm reading from my book, Meditations of the Heart. The desire to be one's true self is very
persistent. Equally persistent is the tendency to locate the responsibility for failure to be one's
true self in events and persons and conditions, all of which are outside and beyond oneself.
Often, a person says, I would be the kind of person I desire to be, or I would do the thing that I
have always wanted to do, if-- the list is endless.
If I had been born a boy rather than a girl. If I'd been tall and strong rather than short and weak.
If I'd been given the diet proper for a growing child. If my parents had been understanding and
sympathetic rather than cold and impersonal thereby giving to me the feeling of being rejected.
If I had lived in a different kind of community or had grown up on the right side of the tracks. If
my parents had not separated when I was but a child and made me the victim of a broken home.
If I had not been taught the wrong things about sex, about religion, about myself. If I had been of
a different racial or national origin-- and on and on the words go.
The interesting fact is that in each "if," there is apt to be, for the person who uses it, a significant
element of truth. This element of truth is seized upon as the complete answer to the personal
problem as the single source of all the individuals maladjustments.
There is more to the story than is indicated. Often, not always, the person who feels most
completely defeated in fulfillment is the one who has been unable or unwilling to exploit
resources that were close at hand.
There is a curious inability to take personal responsibility for what one does or fails to do
without a sense of martyrdom or heroics. Religion is most helpful in developing in the individual
a sense of personal responsibility for one's action, and thus, aiding the process of self-fulfillment.
It is helpful in two ways, primarily. There is the insistence upon the individual's responsibility to
God for his own life. This means that he cannot escape the scrutiny of God. If he is responsible
to God, the basis of that responsibility has to be in himself. If it is there, then the area of alibis is
definitely circumscribed.
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Transcription
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The assumption is that the individual is ever an immediate candidacy to get an assist from God-that he's not alone in his quest. Through prayer, meditation, and singleness of mind, the
individual's life may be invaded by strength, by insight, by courage sufficient for his needs.
Thus, he need not seek refuge and excuses, but can live his life with ever-increasing vigor, and
experience, and ever-deepening sense of fulfillment.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
One of the very significant contributions that the whole discipline of psychology has made to
modern life has been the light that it is thrown on man's ability to understand himself. It has
made it possible for the mind to establish what may be regarded as psychological distance
between the individual and the context of his life, between his present and his past.
And not only that, but to lift out of the past certain elements, the certain experiences, certain
facts, certain incidents, which conceivably may throw a great deal of light on the total meaning
of the behavior pattern in the present.
Now this is a very important contribution, and the contribution moves even in a more profound
level than this. For through this discipline, we are beginning to understand certain things about
the drives in human nature-- those deep, abysmal movements that are elemental in character, but
in which the individual consciousness is rooted and grounded, and to get some feeling of the
source of these elemental drives, and to see what these drives look like when they come up above
the surface and invade the awareness of mind or the consciousness of mind.
Now all of this is of tremendous significance for understanding life, for learning how to live life,
learning what life means. Now there's something else that may be regarded as perhaps a negative
aspect of this total contribution of the discipline under our reflection, and that is through our
study of psychology and our knowledge of the discipline, we have come to find a new ground far
alibi
I can say for instance that I'm behaving as I am behaving because I was an unsatisfied sibling, let
us say, or because my grandmother did not like me or my grandfather was always saying things
that tended to reveal me to myself as of no account.
Or I can say that because of the conditions under which I live, those things which shaped me, and
then which became, in a sense, the external, environmental, architectural insistence that molded
and shaped my life-- these other things that are responsible for what I'm doing, and therefore, I
am not responsible.
Now the essence of this is that through this aspect of our study of psychology, we tend to take
refuge in finding justification for the shirking of personal responsibility. But I think this is a short
reading of what even this aspect of the discipline says, for even though I may understand through
this knowledge how I was conditioned and what conditioned me, this does not alter at all the fact
that it is I who will be living the life. It is I who is doing the deed, and therefore, it is I, and I
alone, who must take the responsibility.
And this, I think, is the important contribution that religion makes here. For religion insists that
whatever may be the extenuating circumstances that may provide alibis for behavior, ultimately,
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
every human being, according to this insight of religion, lives his life under the scrutiny of God-that he is a responsible creature, and that he is not merely responsible to his life and for his life in
a tight circle of awareness, but he is responsible as a living thing responsible to the creator of life
for the behavior of his life, and therefore, at no point is he at liberty to say with reference to any
aspect of his life that it is commonplace. It is incidental. It is meaningless.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
I'm a victim of circumstances of which I am unable to exercise any control whatsoever. None of
these things ultimately alter the fact that it is my life, and I must live my life, and I must live my
life responsibly. And my responsibility is not merely to myself as crucial and as critical as this
responsibility is, but my responsibility is to the God of life who is also the creator of my
particular life. I must live responsibly.
[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.
This is tape number ET21 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two entitled Qualitative Living.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words out of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O'
Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.
May I remind you that if you are interested in receiving transcriptions of the television talks on
Friday, if you will send your request with your name and address to me at Marsh Chapel, Boston
University, or in care of this station, your name will be put on the mailing list in order to receive
it.
When our minds are sick with frustration and division, when fear eats away the foundations of
our peace, be present, our Father, to heal, to bless, and to make whole. When our hearts are
heavy with sorrow and misery, when only a heaviness is our daily portion, be present to heal, to
bless, and relieve.
When our friends are difficult because of misunderstanding and loss, when the beauty of
comradeship has wasted like the noon day, be present, O' our Father, to restore, to bless, and to
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, our Father, to reassure, to make steady,
and confirm.
When our well-ordered plans fall apart in our hands, when hopes give up having run their course,
be present, our Father, to replenish, to create, and to redeem. When faith in our fellows wallows
in the mud, when through disappointment, through failure, through flattery, all seems lost, be
present, O' our Father, to revise, to renew, and to reassure.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Many years ago, in a conversation with Dr. Cabot who, at that time, was on the faculty of the
School of Medicine at Harvard University, he told me a very interesting incident out of the rich
life which was his, and I want to use that incident as the basis for our time together this morning.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
He said that he had been invited to give an address before the National Conference of Social
Work. He decided that he would select a topic which seemed to him to be important not only for
busy social workers and busy doctors, but for human beings who themselves were concerned
about a deeper meaning and a deeper structuring to their lives.
The topic which he chose was this-- the limitation of intake. His thesis was very simple, but very
comprehensive. He said that if a man worked a thousand years, 24 hours a day, without taking
time out either to eat, sleep, or to rest, at the end of the 1,000 years, the work remaining to be
done would be infinite.
He said, if a man decided that he would devote all of his waking hours and all of the hours that
other people are sleeping to meeting human needs, at the end of thousand years, the human need
remaining would be infinite. If a man decided to read books all day and all night for 1,000 years,
at the end of the 1,000 years, the number of books remaining to be read would be infinite.
Therefore, he said, that it seems clear that a man cannot make a quantitative impression on
infinity. The number five, continued Dr. Cabot, bears the same relationship to infinity that the
number five million bears. So if a man be wise, then he tries to structure his life so that he will
increase the quality of what he does while the quantity will not be for him so significant.
This reminds me of an incident that is described in the Watchers of the Sky-- a very long and
interesting poem, which depicts the science of astronomy and its development over the years, but
it is done with poetic insight. There is a descriptive passage about the famous Danish
astronomer, Tycho Brahe.
It seemed that Tycho Brahe was the director of a famous observatory in Uraniborg. There was a
shift in Danish politics, and a commission was appointed to go out to see what this strange man
was doing with the money of the state.
Tycho was impressed with his visitors. He took them into one of the large rooms. And there, he
spread out before them maps of the stars which he had done. They looked at each other, winked
their eyes, and decided that it was true that this old man was wasting the state's money, so the
school was closed.
The last night of the school, Tycho Brahe called his students around him, and he said to them
something like this-- tomorrow, I go forth from what, for 25 years, has been my home while you
merely go forth from a place that you've used in a temporary sense as a home. When I came here
25 years ago, I had an idea, and a dream, and a plan to chart 1,000 stars before I died.
I have charted in these 25 years only 700, but, said he, these 700 stars will never have to be
charted again. This idea of bearing down on quality and relaxing on quantity is the essential
point.
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now this means that in the daily living which is ours, we must find a way to give to our
activities, to our thinking, to our reading, to the things that we are about. A center of focus-some point around which all the rest of the functioning would move and would take on a
meaning that is qualitative and is significant.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The other night, in listening to a panel discussion on the radio, one of the men was talking about
life in New York City, and he said that one of his friends who lived in New York and then
moved somewhere else longed to be back in New York. And he said that because being in New
York, he has many, many things to do. There's always something going, something cooking, as it
were.
But he discovered that he had to fill all of his hours with these kinds of activities not because he
was busy, not because he was finding significant living, but he had to do these things because he
was bored. And it struck me as a very exciting notion that so often, we think of boredom as
something in which people are sitting down with nothing to do. They're wringing their hands, or
suffering from what the French call "ennui," but rather, this notion that very often, we spend all
of our energy moving from thing to thing to thing to thing because we are bored, not because we
are so full of zeal and energy.
Now how does one work at this problem? There are many kinds of advice that people give, of
course, but the suggestion that comes to me this morning is this-- that if we are able for limited
time intervals to select one thing and devote one's mind to it-- in the religious life, for instance,
or a person who is concerned about developing his spiritual experience in prayer, instead of
praying for all kinds of things all over the lot-- just having a catalog of recitals of prayer-- select
one thing, and put all of your thought and mind, your energy, on this thing.
Let your reading enrich your understanding of this thing. Find one thing. Put your mind to it, and
little by little, a very interesting thing will begin to happen. Your whole thought life, all of the
feeling tones by which your spirit may be invaded, will begin to take on the character, the quality
of the one thing on which you're concentrating. And this is true in the living of our lives from
day to day.
Find something which to you is important, and see if you cannot move that thing to the center of
your concern and put at its disposal your energy, your thoughts, your reading, even your
conversation. This is one important way by which you can put a crucial limitation on your intake.
[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.
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
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/394-777.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Psychology and Religion; Qualitative Living (ET-21; GC 11-20-71), 1971 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
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394-777
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Psychology and Religion (1963-10-25); Qualitative Living (1960-10-07)
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963-10-25
1960-10-07
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman reads from his text, "Meditations of the Heart," discerning the implications psychology has on the religious identity. He emphasizes that there is great danger in wishing one's life away. He emphasizes that it is in the responsibility that one finds in a religious identity that finds what it means to honor their own existence.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Thurman reflects upon the way in which American culture makes sense of love. He notes that typically, the "flow of love is chocked beneath the deep recesses of the heart." This is the product of quantitative love rather than qualitative love. He reminds the listener, that qualitative love is more significant than any price tag or number of accoutrements one acquires. Qualitative love speaks to the depths of the human experience.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
bears
behavior
Cabot
candidacy
character
Christmas
circumstances
consciousness
discipline
God
Harvard
heart
longing
love
martyrdom
meditations of the heart
National Conference of Social Work
need
psychology
quality
quality of life
quantity
responsibility
self-actualization
truth
Tycho Brahe
-
http://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pittsthurman/original/9f280810f9f601fab20f987446d1f833.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI4CD764Y635IGLNA&Expires=1711715400&Signature=wQDwHQttVLK8mTVkoM08aJLo7o0%3D
4141fcff9b2cc8eee082f4db67bba07e
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-776.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 20, from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side one, entitled, "Our Little Lives, Our Big
Problems."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading this morning from Meditations of the Heart. "Our little lives, our big problems, these,
we place upon Thy alter. The quietness in Thy temple of silence again and again rebuffs us.
For some, there is no discipline to hold them steady in the waiting and the minds reject the
noiseless invasion of Thy Spirit. For some, there is no will to offer what is central in the
thoughts. The confusion is so manifest, there is no starting place to take hold. For some, the evils
of the world tear down all concentrations and scatter the focus of the high resolves.
War and the threat of war has covered us with heavy shadows, making the days big with
foreboding, the nights crowded with frenzied dreams and restless churnings. We do not know
how to do what we know to do. We do not know how to be what we know to be. Our little lives,
our big problems, these, we place upon Thy alter.
Brood over our spirits, Our Father. Blow upon whatever dream Thou hast for us that there may
glow once again upon our hearts the light from Thy alter. Pour out upon us whatever our spirits
need of shock, of lift, of release, that we may find strength for our days, courage and hope for
tomorrow. In confidence, we rest in Thy sustaining grace which makes possible triumph in
defeat, gain in loss, and love in hate. We rejoice this day to say our little lives, our big problems,
these, we place upon Thy alter."
I remarked in our meditation last week that each of us must deal with our lives on the basis of
two dimensions. First, there is the image which we have of ourselves. And it was about this that
we talked last week.
Now this morning, I want to think about the second dimension. We must deal with ourselves on
the basis of our fact. To state it in a more comprehensive term, it would be something like this,
that each of us must have a sense of fact with reference to his facts.
Now, it is comparatively easy to have a sense of fact with reference to other people's facts. We
are functioning all the time in the light of the readings which we make from our sense of fact, of
other people's facts. We are sensitive to their wrongdoings, their attitudes towards us. We are
sometimes, not always, critical and judgemental as we deal with the raw materials of their facts
as we encounter them in the living of our facts.
1
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
But the burden of my idea this morning is that we must have a sense of fact with reference to our
fact, with reference to our own fact. In other words, I must accept my fact. Now, it may be very
different, and often it is, from the image that I have of myself. My fact is the raw material, the
raw stuff, out of which I make all the meanings that I have with reference to what my life is
saying by what my life is doing.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, when I accept my fact, it means that I call all of the elements in my fact by their true name,
what may be regarded in the estimate of others as something that is unscrupulous, as a dealing
that is not quite ethical, not quite on the level, to use the phrase. When I raise the same question
about myself, I may call it shrewdness. I may call it cleverness. I may tone it down so that as it
turns up in the context of my living, it glows. It has a significance and a meaning and a
wholeness which I may not allow as I react to your sense of fact, for instance.
So I must call what I see in me by its true name. And in doing this, I'm able to assess my facts in
terms of my intent. Again and again, I discover that the thing that I intend to do, the thing that I
will to do, as it moves out from me seeking to fulfill itself in the context of my experience,
becomes adulterated, becomes watered down, becomes something perhaps so different from
what I intended. When the words leave me, there's a grace and a wholeness and sometimes a
healing and a beauty in them. But by the time they reach the object towards which they are
going, something has happened to them.
Now, I must deal with this aspect of the difference between the deed itself, the fact itself, and
that which is my intent. And all the time, I must bring the deed under the judgment of the intent
until at last, the deeds become the lung through which the intent breathes or the manifestation of
the intent.
The second thing is that I must, in my sense of fact, recognize that I will not give myself up. It is
true that I may not, as I think about it, be as good as my mother thinks I am or as my friends
think I am or as someone else thinks I am. But despite this fact, despite the fact that I have an
inside knowledge of what it is that I am, in true essence, I do not give myself up.
I do not relax my hold on myself. I cling to myself with an abiding enthusiasm because this is all
I have. To state it almost crassly, I am stuck with me. For better or for worse, I must negotiate
the time interval of my living with the stuff that I am.
Now, there's a third thing. I recognize that so much, so much, much, that is not good flows from
me out into the world, affecting the lives of others, that this knowledge of the not-good that
flows from me to others gives to me a charity, a tenderness, an understanding of the not-good
things, as it were, that flow from other people to me. Now, let me state this again. So much that
is not good flows from myself out to others that I am learning slowly how to be charitable
towards others for the not-good things that flow from them to me. I must accept my fact, a sense
of fact with reference to my facts.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
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]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is tape number ET 20 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled "Periodic Rest."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord,
my strength and my [? Redeemer. ?]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm reading from my book The Inward Journey. "The need for periodic rest is not confined to
mechanisms of various kinds. Rest may be complete inactivity when all customary functioning is
suspended and everything comes to a pause.
Rest may be a variation in intensity, a contrast between loud and soft, high and low, strong and
weak, a change of pace. Rest may be a complete shifting of scenery by the movement of objects
or the person. All things seem to be held in place by the stability of a rhythm that holds and
releases, but never lets go.
Under this same necessity lives the mind, as well. There is an inner characteristic of mind that
shares profoundly in the rhythm that holds and releases, but never lets go. Rest for the mind
takes many forms. It may come in the change of material upon which it works. It may be ranging
widely and irresponsibly over strange areas of thought.
It may be tackling a tough problem with more than the customary intensity. It may be
daydreaming, that strange and wonderful fairyland of sugar plums and candies. It may be the
experience of being swept to a perilous height by a sudden gale that rushes in from some distant
shore or of being caught in the churning spiral of a water spout that moves up from some hidden
depth. It may be all, any, or none of these, but something else again.
Rest for the mind may be a part of its activity. Thus, working and resting are a single thing.
Perhaps this is true because the mind takes its energy neat, in a manner direct and immediate.
Now, under the same necessity lives the spirit, as well. There is no clear distinction between
mind and spirit. But there is a quality of mind that is more than thought and the process of
thought. This quality involves feelings and the wholeness in which the life of man has its being.
There is no need to tarry over the correctness of definition or even over the preciseness of
meaning. What is being considered is what a man means totally when he says, I am. This self
shares profoundly in the rhythm that holds and releases, but never lets go.
3
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There is the rest of detachment and withdrawal when the spirit moves into the depths of the
region of the great silence, where world-weariness is washed away and blurred vision is once
again prepared for the focus of the long view, where seeking and finding are so united that
failure and frustration, real though they are, are no longer felt to be ultimately real. Here, the
presence of God is sensed as an all-pervasive aliveness which materializes into the concreteness
of [? Communion, ?] the reality of prayer. Here, God speaks without words and the self listens
without ears. Here, at last, glimpses of the meaning of all things and the meaning of one's own
life are seen with all their strivings. To accept this is one meaning of the good and great line from
the book, 'Rest in the Lord, O rest in the Lord.'"
I think it was Professor Hawking, formerly professor of philosophy at Harvard University, who
first gave wide currency to a very familiar and ancient experience of man, experience of the
human spirit. And the term that he used to capture the meaning of this universal aspect of man's
living experience was the principle of alternation. And by this, he meant, as all men have found
and have experienced, that we pick up the responsibilities of our lives and carry them, and then
we put them down.
We pick them up. We put them down. There is this principle that defines the rhythm of man's
life. Another way of putting it-- on again, off again; on again, off again.
Now, interestingly enough, this is a necessity that is built into the nature of the organism. And I
think indeed, it is built into the nature of any kind of mechanical instrument or device or
machine, the need for working it and resting it, for providing the things that will give to the
intensity of the function a break, as the broken field runner on the football field. He runs, and one
of the reasons why it is so difficult to counteract him and to pin him down is that he breaks his
speed, but he breaks his speed within the rhythm of his movement.
Now, this seems to me to be fundamental to our bodies. We work and we sleep. We work and we
rest.
It is fundamental to our minds. If we are students, we study and then we stop studying. Or we are
reading and then now and then, we close our book or we leave our book open and look far into
the distance, letting our eyes rest, and let our minds range in a leisurely manner over some of the
material that we've followed with great intensity.
The same sort of rhythm is true in relationships. If we are too full of togetherness. In the
relationship that you have with another human being who is very close to you, if in that
relationship, there is no room for breathing, no rhythm in the relationship, but it is always full of
the same kind of intensity, pretty soon, there is an exhaustion. And when that exhaustion takes
place, it is so difficult once again to rehabilitate it and give to it meaning and the significance
that it had.
Now, the same thing is true in one's spiritual life, in the way that we handle the problems of our
spirit. There is a quality in us that's like the quality of the eager beaver. We pounce upon a thing
and we stick with it and will not take a moment to break the intensity of it. And pretty soon, there
is a weariness that comes.
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And interestingly enough, it is a weariness that starts on the edges, on the outer edges of the
experience, and works slowly towards the center. And when it gets to the center, then the whole
context is flattened out and full of exhaustion. Therefore, in the living of your life or even in the
living of any person's life, to practice the principle of periodic rest, the principle of alternation-carry your burdens with [? full-on ?] responsibility, making room on your shoulders for the load
which is your load.
But now and then, put it down. Let it rest. And then pick it up again. Or you may carry your
burden on one shoulder and then change it over to another shoulder.
This is the principle. On, off. Pick it up, put it down. And once this becomes the rhythm of the
movement, the respiration of your spirit, then many crooked paths will become straighter and
heavy burdens will be lighter. This is the law of life.
[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]
5
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
Description
An account of the resource
<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
AudioWithTranscription
Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript
Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-776.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Our Little Lives, Our Big Problems; Periodic Rest (ET-20; GC 11-20-71), 1971 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
394-776
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Thurman, Howard
Title
A name given to the resource
Our Little Lives, Our Big Problems (1963-01-25); Periodic Rest (1963-03-22)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963-01-25
1963-03-22
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "Meditations of the Heart," working with the tension between factuality and intention. In this tension, one must accept their "self-fact" in order to navigate a faithful deed or image.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "The Inward Journey," reflecting upon the significance of rest and restoration. He uses philosophical and ecological imagery to portray the significance of daydreaming, making sense of the cosmos, and finding integration in one's own life.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
aliveness
altar
communion
creativity
daydreaming
detachment
discipline
fact
fairyland
image
individuality
intention
interconnectivity
meditations of the heart
mind
pacing
raw materials
reality
rest
rhythm
solitude
spirit
Stephen Hawking
sugarplum
waiting
withdraw