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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-769.mp3
This is tape number ET7. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1 entitled, Jesus, His Contribution.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[CHURCH BELLS TOLLING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my strength and my Redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Since this is the beginning of Lent, I want to read a meditation from the Inward Journey and
make a comment.
"In many ways beyond all calculation and reflection, our lives have been deeply touched, and
influenced by the character, the teaching, and the spirit, of Jesus of Nazareth.
He moves in and out upon the horizon of our days, like some fleeting ghost. At times when we
are least aware and least prepared, some startling, clear thrust of his mind is our portion.
The normal tempo of our ways is turned back upon itself. And we are reminded of what we are
and of what life is. Often, the judgment of such moments is swift and silencing.
Sometimes, his insight kindles a wistful longing in the heart, softened by the muted cadence of
unfulfilled dreams and unrealized hopes. Sometimes, his words stir to life long forgotten
resolution, call to mind an earlier time when our feet were set in a good path and our plan was
for a holy endeavor.
Like a great wind they move, fanning into flame the burning spirit of the living God. And all
leaden spirits are given wings that sweep beyond all vistas and beyond all horizons.
There is no way to balance the debt we owe to the spirit which he let loose in the world. It is
upon this that we meditate now in the gathering quietness. Each of us, in his own way, finds the
stairs leading to the holy place.
We gather in our hands the fragments of our lives, searching eagerly for some creative synthesis,
some wholeness, some all-encompassing unity capable of stealing the tempests within us and
quieting all the inner turbulence of our fears.
We seek to walk in our path, which opens up before us, made clear by the light of his spirit and
the radiance which it casts all around us. We join him in the almighty trust that God is our father.
And we are his children living under the shadow of his spirit.
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�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Accept the offering of our lives, oh, God. We do not know quite what to do with them. We place
them before thee as they are, encumbered and fragmented with no hints, no suggestions, no
attempts to order the working of thy spirit upon us.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Accept our lives, our Father, work them over, correct them, purify them, hold them in thy focus,
lest we perish and the spirit within us dies."
Many years ago, a book was written in which this line occurs, "men may come to God through
nature. Men may come to God through other good men. But he who seeks God with all of his
heart, will somewhere in his quest, encounter Jesus."
If I were to summarize in short and narrow compass what seems to me to be the significance of
the impact which he has upon the world, it would be stripped of what is formally recognized as
systematic Christologies, or theologies, or dogmas-- stripped to the literal substance of itself.
There are three things that stand out in my thought. One is that he, Jesus, did give to the world, in
creative summary and compass, the vision of a great ideal.
And that ideal, very simply put, is built upon the compact structure of the primary family unit.
For he insisted that all men are children of God. And as children of God, they have a common
father.
There is one family, and that is the human family and the thing that is binding, is intrinsic, and
inherent in the very nature of being itself. The vision of a great ideal that all men everywhere in
every climb, every class, every background, every affirmation, all men, are members of one
family.
And the second important and searching contribution which he gives, growing out of that, is that
there is a way of living that underscores, and highlights, and even dramatizes, if you please, how
this family concept can be implemented at the level of the individual with his aspirations, and his
hopes, and his dreams, and his fears.
And he said that the method, the technique, the process, the procedure, the way, the spirit that
makes it possible for the dream, which is literal in the mind, may be reduced to literal fact or
expressed as literal fact.
And he called this way, this procedure, this mood, this spirit, this technique, this skill, this art-he called it love. And to love means to deal with a member of the family of God at a point in that
person that is beyond all of his faults, and all of his blemishes, and all of his virtues-- to deal with
him totally, to encompass him.
So that within the sweet of your caring, all aspects of his life may be exposed without, in turn,
his being threatened by this exposure. And he said that to be loved, is to have a sense of being
dealt with at a point in one's self that is beyond all of one's virtues and beyond all of one's fault, a
sense of being completely, and thoroughly understood, and dealt with gently and cared for
tenderly, and spontaneously, and deliberately.
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�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Not only did he suggest this technique by which the dream can become instant fact, but he also
suggested, and made manifest in his living religious experience, a resource that is available to the
individual member of the family that will enable him to carry out this, to endure, as he works out
the fulfillment of the dream through the manifestation of the technique.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And he said, this source is God. And he said that God is very close. He said that God is the
ground of life, the creator of life, the creator of the living substance, the creator of existence. And
he suggested three things that God is.
That when he prayed, even though the prayers are translations, of translations, of translations, of
translations, as you read them in the Bible, when we read them, we have a sense that when he
prayed, he was sure that he was talking to somebody. He met somebody. He had a personal
encounter.
And the second thing that his faith taught him was that God is near, not way off somewhere high
above the earth in the heavens looking down upon man. But that God is a living part of the very
stuff of life, close at hand.
Speak to him, thou, for he heareth and spirit with spirit may meet, closer is he than breathing,
nearer than hands and feet. And then he also felt that God was love, that the universe is not some
cold, impersonal manifestation of energy and power.
But that God the creator is also God the Father, close as breathing, and yet, very tender and
caring. And why did he seize upon this notion of love as the key to God? Because when a man
loves, he will do, for his beloved, what no power on earth, and heaven, or hell can make him do
without love. This is his contribution to our time.
[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]
This is tape number ET7. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 2 entitled, The Triumphant Entry.
[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]
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�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Next Sunday is a very important Sunday in the Christian calendar. It is the Sunday of the
triumphant entry of the Master into Jerusalem. I would like to read as a background for our
thinking about this from the Inward Journey.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
"Searching, indeed, must have been the thoughts moving through the mind of the Master as he
jogged along on the back of the donkey on that fateful day, which marks, in the Christian
calendar, the triumphant entry.
The experience must have been as strange and out of character for him as it was for the faithful
animal on whose back he rode. For more than two years, Jesus had been engaged in a public
ministry.
Once, when there were those who want to make him a King, he had refused. My kingdom is not
of this world, he said. He had walked the countryside with his band of disciples preaching,
teaching, healing, and spreading a quality of radiance that could come only from one whose
overwhelming enthusiasm was for God and his kingdom.
He had kept many lonely trysts in the late watches of the night. Trueing his spirit and his whole
life by the will of his father. So close had he worked with God, that the line of demarcation
between his will and God's will would fade and reappear, fade and reappear.
Step by resolute step, he had come to the great city. Deep within his spirit there may have been a
sense of foreboding or the heightened quality of exhilaration that comes from knowing that there
is no road back. He had learned much.
So sensitive had grown his spirit and the living quality of his being, that he seemed more and
more to stand inside of life looking out upon it as a man who gazes from a window in a room out
into the yard and beyond to the distant hills.
He could see all the sparrow-ness of the sparrow, the leprosy of the leper, the blindness of the
blind, the cripple-ness of the cripple, and the frenzy of the mad. He had become joy, sorrow,
hope, anguish to the joyful, the sorrowful, the hopeful, the anguished.
Could he feel his way into the mind and the mood of those who cast the palms and the flowers in
his path? Was he in the cry of those who exclaimed their wild and unrestrained hosannas?
Did he mingle with the emotions that lay beneath the exhortations, ready to explode in the
outbursts of the mob screaming, crucify him, crucify him. I wonder what was at work in the
mind of Jesus of Nazareth as he jogged along on the back of the faithful donkey?
Perhaps, his mind was far away to the scenes of his childhood, feeling the sawdust between his
toes in his father's carpenter's shop. He may have been remembering the high holidays in the
synagogue with his whole body quickened by the echo of the ram's horn as it sounded.
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�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Or perhaps, he was thinking of his mother, how deeply he loved her, and how he wished that
they had not been laid upon him the great necessity which sent him out on the open road to
proclaim the truth, leaving her side forever.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It may be that he lived all over again, that high moment on the Sabbath when he was handed the
scroll, and he unrolled it to the great passage from the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me.
For he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to open the eyes of the blind, to unstop
the ears of the deaf, to announce the acceptable year of the Lord. I wonder what was moving
through the mind of the Master as he jogged along on the back of the faithful donkey?"
One day, when the Master and his disciples were going along a country road, a man suddenly
appeared, a man with a look of derangement in his face-- his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot.
There was a stare in those bloodshot eyes. And he looked here and there. His eyes dancing in
some kind of frenzy, and then closer scrutiny observed that dangling from his wrists were broken
chains and from his ankles the same.
And when he saw the Master, he spoke. And when he spoke, the Master asked him a question,
who are you? What is your name? And for a moment, just a swirling moment, a look of sanity
came across his face. And his mind that was tilted, righted itself temporarily.
And he said, I don't know. This is my great problem. If I knew who I was or if I know who I am,
then I could be whole. There are so many of me, and they riot in the streets. Their name is legion.
If I knew my own name, then I would know who I am and who God is.
Now the gift, the rare and extraordinary gift, of the Master, the gift that gives him, in some
amazing way, a place that places him at the center of much of the imagination, and aspiration,
and praise of a large section of the human race was the sense that because he knew where he
was, knew what his sense of mission, purpose, sense of goal were, what was his aim, what was
the integrity of himself-- because he was so secure within this, he was able to enable other people
to find for themselves the same quality.
So I wonder then, as he rode along at the triumphant entry-- when all the people were casting
down their flowers and praising him and saying the hosannas-- I wonder, did he feel secure in
that? Did he feel flattered by it? Did he feel, oh, yes. The people are right. Or did he wait for this
approval?
Now if he felt secure in what he was doing independent of the hosannas-- then a few days after,
when the same crowd began saying, not hosanna, but crucify him. Kill him. He would still be
secure. Because his sense of the presence of his father was not contingent upon whether they said
hosanna or whether they said crucify him.
5
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
And it is this, I think-- certainly for me that makes me call him Master-- that he was so secure in
his relationship with God, that he was not dependent for his emotional sense of well-being upon
the affirmation or the condemnation of the crowd.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
So that near the end, when he is alone in the garden and his three disciples are sleeping and he
prays, and he comes back and he finds that they are asleep-- he said, that's all right. Sleep. I am
not really, in essence, dependent upon your yes or your no.
Now I ask myself, even as I ask you, as we think about the meaning of this event in the Christian
year, in what is your security? Is it contingent upon the approval of X, or Y, or Z?
Or stripped of the literal substance of yourself, do you feel that God gives to your life his
approval? And if so, nothing else matters if God is for you, and you are for him, who, who can
be against you?
[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 prerecorded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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" />
Contributor
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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/394-769.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Jesus: His Contribution; The Triumphant Entry (ET-7; GC 11-16-71), 1971 Nov 16
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1960s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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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394-769
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Jesus, His Contribution (1963-03-01); The Triumphant Entry (1964-03-20)
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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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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1963-03-01
1964-03-20
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects upon his writing within "The Inward Journey," to speak to the impact Jesus has upon one's experience of life. Thurman notes that it is in one's seeking of God that they find Jesus, and when one finds Jesus, one has the resources to find synthesis, wholeness, and unity.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects upon his writing within "The Inward Journey." In this reflection, he gives a narration of the passage of scripture that is commonly referred to as "Jesus' Triumphal Entry Into Jerusalem," and provides a series of questions and perspectives from the perspective of Jesus and those who were with Jesus in this narrative.
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Dustin Mailman
christology
donkey
experience
fact
family
flowers
heart
historical Jesus
holiday
hope
ideal
inward journey
Jesus of Nazareth
kingdom
lent
longing
love
ministry
palms
prayer
process
prophet
quest
reflections
sanctification
spirit
story
synthesis
Triumphant Entry