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394-784.mp3
This is tape number ET37 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman-- this is side one, entitled, "The Meaning of Love."
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
May I remind you that if you are interested in receiving transcriptions of my talks, you may get
them by addressing me either here at the channel five or at Marsh Chapel, Boston University. I'm
continuing our thinking together about the meaning of love. And today, I want to read a few
verses from Moffitt's translation of the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians.
Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy. Love makes no parade, gives itself no
airs, is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful. Love is never glad when others
go wrong. Love is gladdened by goodness-- always slow to expose, always eager to believe the
best, always hopeful, always patient.
The working definition that we are using is this-- that love is the experience of being dealt with
at a point in one's self that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. To love is to deal with
another person at a point in him that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil.
There is something in the experience which has with it always a note of security-- of emotional
security. And security in its simplest terms means the experience of having one's needs satisfied.
And whoever is able to satisfy one's needs-- simple needs or complex needs-- the response,
because of this sense of satisfaction, is in terms of not only dependence, but in terms of trust, in
terms of confidence, in terms of affection, in terms of love.
It is for this reason that religion insists that God loves man and that it is man's experience of the
love of God which, in the first instance, enables him to be able to love anyone. I wonder if you
take for granted the fact that so many of your own basic needs are satisfied by life. And, if you
take this for granted, then your attitude towards life may not be one of responsibility,
responsiveness, of reverence, of gratitude. It may be an attitude that is simply callous.
You may decide, for instance, that you reap the fresh air that you breathe and the cool water that
you drink and all of the other simple creature ways by which your needs are satisfied. But, if you
reflect upon your total experience of life in this regard, then your attitude towards life will be one
of reverence and towards the creator of life, one of trust and confidence.
Now, with this background, let us deal more specifically with the question before us. Love
means in simple experiential terms the ability to let one's life be filled with many simple deeds of
gratuitous extras, gratuitous kindnesses as manifested towards people by whom you are
surrounded.
When I was a boy, I could hardly wait for Thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving meant that
Christmas was in the offing. And, from Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve midnight, I was a
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model boy. I would respond almost instinctively to my mother's needs during that whole period.
For instance, she did not ever see the bottom of the wood box because I kept it full of wood all
the time. I had a sense of what was vital for her, I can anticipate her needs. All of this because I
knew that Thanksgiving meant that Christmas was around the corner and when Christmas came,
that I would be rewarded for all of these simple gratuitous extras by which I had filled my
relationship with my mother.
Now, this mood that I manifested during that time is an indication-- it's a sampling of what
happens all the time in your relationships with people for whom you have this kind of love and
affection. You can sense their needs. You can anticipate their needs. And, at the heart of this
anticipation, at the heart of this awareness, there is a kind of clear-cut and definitive
understanding so that your response to the need is an intelligent response, as contrasted merely
with the sentimental or emotional response.
At the center of the dynamics of the feeling, there must be an understanding mind. If I were to
put it in a rather caustic phrase, it would be something like this-- that, in love, the mind must be
as hard as ice, the heart as warm as a kitchen stove. This is what I mean. Now, there is a second
dimension here.
There is the tendency to feel ownership towards the person that you love and to demand that you
will be loved in kind and in quality as the proof that your love has been received. We want to be
loved back. Now, this is perfectly normal, very natural, but it is my thought that the necessity to
be loved back in exchange for, or in return for loving, is an extraneous and irrelevant necessity, if
I may put it that way.
Love does not-- at its best, love does not demand that love be given back to one in return. This is
illustrated in a rather melodramatic story written many years ago by Olive Schreiner. She calls it
the story of Tausa. Tausa was a little dog. He sat with his tail in a puddle of mud. It wasn't
raining except out of his eyes, for he was very sad.
Presently, a fine looking aristocratic mastiff who lived next door came out of his yard and passed
Tausa's house and he saw Tausa weeping and he stopped-- Tausa was a little terrier. He said to
Tausa-- what's the trouble with you, little fellow? Do other dogs bite you? No, I manage to take
care of myself pretty well.
Do you get enough to eat? Yes, I have bones and occasionally there's meat on them. Do you have
a place to sleep? Yes, I have a box with some rags in it. Well, what's the trouble with you? Tausa
said-- I want to love people and I want to feel that people love me. And the mastiff said, love,
what is that? Have you ever seen it? No, said Tausa. Have you ever smelled it? No, said Tausa.
Have you ever tasted it? No, I haven't ever tasted it. Well, what good is it anyway?
And thus applying the pragmatic test to that kind of reality, the mastiff went on down the street.
Tausa got up, shook the water off his tail and the water out of his eyes and went in the opposite
direction. Presently, he saw a ragged newsboy coming-- a newsboy who had a very sad face.
And he went running up to the newsboy literally in a ball of excitement. He didn't know whether
to lick the boy's hands first or his feet. He just wanted him so.
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And the boy called him-- doggy, doggy. And when Tausa came very close to him, he kicked him
in the nose. But the lonely boy laughed. There was a singing in Tausa's ear now as he went down
the other side of the street. He wasn't so sure about how he felt. He came to the outskirts of the
village and there, he saw a cottage. The gate was open. He went through the gate, up the steps, at
the door, he looked in, he saw an invalid stretched out on a bed.
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He made a noise at the door, which being interpreted was, if you ask me, I'll come in. So the
invalid asked him in, and Tausa found that she was a very lonely person. She had had a dog once
upon a time, but he'd gone away somewhere. Tausa tried to amuse her during the daytime by
catching his tail with his teeth so as to take her mind off of suffering. And then in the nighttime
when he would hear her cough, he would get up from his pad and walk over by her bed and rub
his head against her hands and lick her fingers to let her know that even though it were
nighttime, he knew that she was suffering and he cared.
And then one day, the dog that belonged home came back. And Tausa heard the invalid say, I
don't want to give Tausa away, but what shall I do with him? Tausa didn't want to be given away,
so he went out in the backyard and disappeared. But, as he went along, he had the feeling that the
invalid for the first time in her life had had an experience with someone to whom her invalidism
was not a burden.
Tausa saw a boy just ahead of him-- a boy with a large piece of meat under his arm. And a man
jumped from behind a tree, accosted the boy, threw him to the ground, and was trying to take the
meat from the boy. And Tausa barked at him furiously and, presently, the man got up and ran
away because he thought somebody was coming. The boy looked at Tausa's face peppered with
rage and he said, do you try to do that to me after all that your master has done to me?
So, he attacked Tausa. Tausa was thrown into the bushes. The last time I saw him, says the story,
he was stretched out in the road, now, what does this mean? That love at its best does not
demand requitement. It gives, and in its giving, it finds its strength and its security and its ability
to give more and more and more. This is our privilege and this is our opportunity.
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 ET37 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side two, entitled, "A Sense of What is Vital."
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.
It is a pleasure to announce to you that beginning next Friday and for the two succeeding
Fridays, our guest on this program will be Dr. Edwin P. Booth of the graduate school of theology
of Boston University. Today, I am thinking with you about a phrase taken from the letters of the
apostle Paul. The phrase is this-- a sense of what is vital.
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It suggests the necessity which we all feel, for the honoring of overtones, of meaning, and
understanding, and wisdom which may not be a part of the ordinary garden variety insight. We
note this, particularly, on the personal level. For instance, when you consider the difference
between a kind act and merely an act of graciousness, there is an element that is unmeditated, an
element that is unreflective, and an element that is spontaneous and creative about kindness.
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It is for this reason that men do not ever quite manage to deserve the kind act. It is true that there
are many men who deserve honor, because of the nature of the contribution which they have
made to their generation or to other generations. All men according to the most creative kind of
ethic deserve respect as human beings-- or, in the language of religion, as children of God.
There are men who deserve varying degrees of recognition because of the way by which they
have identified themselves with a particular movement in time and space or in human history.
But no one ever quite deserves the kind act. There is an element of gratuity, of something extra
in the kind act. Have you been on the receiving end of a kind act? And, because of this kind act,
you have tried to repay the person for the kind act, only to discover that it cannot quite be done?
You can't quite balance it out, because what the kind act did for you was something so intimate
and so searching and so utterly without merit that it isn't possible for you to measure it in kind.
This is why the kind act seems somehow always to be identified with what religion recognizes as
the grace of God-- the manifestation of a dimension of life which is our experience even though
we do not quite merit it. The psalmist says he has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us
according to our iniquities.
Wherever there is the element of something extra-- something that goes beyond the balance-something that spills over-- that has no necessity inherent in its operation except the out-flowing
quality of the deed itself. This is the kind act. And this is to have a sense for what is vital.
Very often, this sense of what is vital is manifested in various kinds of human relations. I have a
friend in San Francisco, for instance, who works at a mortuary. He is a sculptor. His professional
job is to sculpt the faces of the corpses so that they may be lifelike and be characteristic of the
person when the person was alive. Whenever he comes home from his day's work and when his
wife greets him and his handkerchief is hanging way out of his pocket, she knows that this is not
his good day. And whatever she has in mind to discuss that requires some measure of emotional
tension or something else, she knows that this is not the time to talk about it.
They agreed on a symbol like this so that the symbol will communicate to the other person what
is vital and what is not vital for that particular time. Whenever he greets her, as she has on a
beautiful, handmade embroidered apron that he brought to her from Czechoslovakia many years
ago, he knows that this is not her day. And whatever he has on his mind that the discussion of
which may involve a certain amount of emotional tension, he knows that this is not the evening
to talk about it.
This symbol suggests to each that whatever is vital in terms of the need of the other person, this
is the time to honor it. Now, there's a third aspect here-- we are all concerned, finally, about
having experiences in which we ourselves have a sense of being understood. So much of that
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which upsets the emotions, so much of that which depresses and casts down in human experience
has to do with a private feeling of not being understood.
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Haven't you said it to yourself many times-- in this deed, I am not understood. One of the most
dramatic illustrations of it that comes to my mind is something that I read many years ago
written by a national news reporter who had attended the burial services of Dillinger the famous- or infamous-- gangster, as the case may be.
He said that the only person present at the burial moment, other than a minister, was the mother
of Dillinger and this particular newspaper reporter. As the mother turned away from the grave of
her son, she said to herself over and over in the presence of the newscaster-- they didn't
understand my boy. They didn't understand my boy. If they had understood him, he would not be
where he is today.
This is a rather extreme expression of the thing that's on my mind. There is deep within all of us
a great need for understanding, a need for the feeling that, with reference to our lives, with
reference to the things that we do, which, to us, are important-- we are not required to be on the
defensive. To experience the integrity of the act without being under the necessity for being
apologetic for the act-- to feel that not only are my acts interpreted and somehow understood,
but, more importantly, that I am understood.
I remember talking with a little child once who always insisted on getting headaches or footaches
or back aches. And I remarked to her-- I'm sure you're doing this because you think that your
mother and your father do not love you, do not understand you, so that you are trying to attract
attention to yourself by getting a headache or getting a backache or getting a toothache. But why
don't you be smart? I said.
You should know now that when you use this device in order to be sure that you are being cared
for, that the thing that gets the attention is the headache or the backache or the toeache. And,
after all, you do not get the attention. And if you are trying to have a sense of being understood
and being cared for, this is not the way to go at it.
If I knew you and you knew me and each of us could clearly see by the inner light divine the
meaning of your heart and mind, I am sure that we would differ less and clasp our hands in
friendliness if I knew you and you knew me. This need for understanding is so important in
human life that it is the insistence of religion that, in the supreme act of worship in the human
spirit-- when the human spirit is before its god, when it is laid bare before god, that it has a sense
of being totally dealt with and being completely understood so that there is a moment when I can
act with utter freedom and with utter enthusiasm and with utter involvement, because I know that
not only my deed, but that which is deepest in me-- my intent, my purpose, the creative
movement of my desiring-- all of this is gathered up in the understanding of the individual.
A sense of what is vital-- this is one of the great necessities of our spirits.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, oh, Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
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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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Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Meaning of Love; A Sense of What is Vital (ET-37; GC 11-26-71), 1971 Nov 26
Time Period
The decade in which the recording was produced.
1950s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-784
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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The Meaning of Love (1958-03-07); A Sense of What is Vital (1959-01-30)
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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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1958-03-07
1959-01-30
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon a passage from 1 Corinthians to elaborate on his understanding of love. He defines love as "the experience of being dealt with at a point in oneself that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. He notes that the love of God functions as the exemplary love to which humanity should strive towards. Thurman's conception of love is not possessive nor transactional, rather, it is interdependent and comes from the heart.
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon the Apostle Paul's phrase, "a sense of what is vital." Thurman continues by developing his understanding of wisdom, and how wisdom points one towards awareness of vitality. Because you can only know of vitality by means of signs, Thurman suggests that it takes wisdom to discern which symbols actually point towards vitality.
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Dustin Mailman
1 Corinthians
A sense of what is vital
affection
community
confidence
Dillinger
discernment
dog
experience
interconnectivity
love
meaning
Moffatt
mortician
mortuary
Olive Schreiner
ownership
Paul
requitment
San Francisco
satisfaction
security
symbolism
trust
understanding
vitality
wisdom
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394-360_A.mp3
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To walk in the light while darkness invades, envelopes, and surrounds is to wait on the Lord.
This is to know the renewal of strength. This is to walk and think not. There was another. In the
experience of life, not in life will teach a person not to fear life, but to love life. When he or she
discovers that the test of life in him is to be found in the amount of pain, frustration, he can
absorb without spoiling his joy in living.
And so many of these things seem part-- well, are part of what we were talking about, and so
much a part of what I am experiencing, oh, and we all are in our own living of our lives every
day. But it seems to be magnified right at this moment for me.
On Monday, there was a teachers' meeting at our school, the new school I've gone to. And they
met to decide, without me, what my next-- this year is going to be. And it was almost like being
tried by a jury, and you don't know what on earth they are saying, or-- it was a strange feeling
not to be able to have any part in that decision. And the decision is very exciting.
And I think there is-- I know that there are some opportunities in it that are exactly the things that
I wanted to do. I never had a chance to in planning the program myself. So it's very exciting. But
all those things I was up this morning thinking about.
And they were there for me to find, to-- there's one other thing. I don't want to-- well, some
words of a song kept running through my mind, and I don't know if any of you have seen the
musical "A Chorus Line," but it's a story about young people who are dancers, who are trying out
for a show, and the conflicts, the competitiveness, the personalities, the worry, the struggle, the
needing a job that is a part of it.
And the director interviews each person on the stage, and there's one, Morales, a young woman,
who tells in her story a bit about her growing up and dancing and a class that she was in, in
acting. And it was where you'd have to be something, pretend you're a couch or a chair or a
snowflake. And her song was, so I dug right down to the bottom of my soul to see what I could
feel. I dug right down to the bottom of my soul and I felt nothing.
And through several different things that she was supposed to try to feel, the instructor caused
her to feel something was wrong with her, because she couldn't feel things, and everybody else
was feeling a table and feeling a-- and dancing it out. But she couldn't feel it.
And later, she heard the instructor had died. And she sang and I dug right down to the bottom of
my soul to see what I could feel. And I felt nothing. That says a lot of things about a lot of
things. The first part of it, I couldn't help but be thinking about yes, last night, so many things
had all come together and to try to sort them out and to feel them. I'll stop.
[INAUDIBLE] the continuing series on the inner life today, and if I were to use a text, I would
use the words from the psalmist. [INAUDIBLE]
[INAUDIBLE]
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And the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. The past two Sundays, I called your
attention to the centrality of the idea of the nerve center of consent, which is in each one of us.
And it is the clue to the way in which we consciously work out our destiny and achieve some
measure of fulfillment in living.
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We have a resource upon which we draw, a resource that [INAUDIBLE] light, and as profound
as is the plunging spirit of man. The outer and the inner-- I'd like to focus our thinking about that
this morning. If I may look at the words of the psalmist just a moment [INAUDIBLE].
The words, but the words of our mouth, the words refer in my thinking. To all of the outward
expressions of the light, all of the activity, all of the external, and of course the meditation in my
thought refers to the inner, to the nerve center of consent to that fluid area of purpose that
provides the power for focusing of the spirit.
We live very externally. For the most part, we tend to because life seems to demand that that of
us. I think one of the reasons why we enjoy going to the country is the fact that we, in the
country, occasionally, we encounter people who have been sufficiently unhurried to salt down a
few of their observations, let them ripen.
And I think that's why people that live in the country are always glad when summer's over, and
the city people go back home. [INAUDIBLE] The other life, the inner life, is due primarily to the
influence, I think of Greek thought on Western culture and civilization, and particularly upon
Christianity.
We make a sharp distinction between the outer and the inner. We assume, for instance, that the
spiritually minded individual confines himself exclusively to the inner. And we assume that the
so-called practically minded man, the man of business, the man who works with his hands, the
toiler-- the two aren't the same necessarily-- is a man who deals with the things that are external,
that he [INAUDIBLE] to be thoughtful. He handles the tragic.
So we set up a separate category for these two human beings. And if the man who is supposed to
give his thought and time to things spiritual, spills over into this other area, we say that he should
stick to his knitting. And if the man who is supposed to give all of his time to the tragic, moves
over to the other area, we say that something is wrong with him.
We have seen that the church is the psychiatrist. Something's wrong with him. This dichotomy is
so clear. We see it in our-- even in our worship. We make a very radical distinction between two
kinds of gods. I have mentioned this to you many times, because it seems to me to be a very
consistent aspect of our culture, the god of religion on the one hand, the god of the sanctuary, the
god of the cloister, the god of the dim light, the soft, treading step, the god of the holy place, the
god of piety, the god of the extremities of life, and then the god of life over here, the god of the
market place, the god who stays outside.
And so persistent is this dichotomy in our thinking and feeling that we tend to split our
allegiance right down the center. And we say, for instance, that the god of life is at a
disadvantage in the place where the god of religion holds for. When the god of life comes in to
the place where the god of religion dwells, the god of life is spent.
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[INAUDIBLE] the god of religion move out into the traffic of the world, he's at a disadvantage,
so we say about a religious insight that is trying to be implemented in terms of the context.
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I'd like for us to dwell there a little, because it is so essential to the quest of the human spirit for
wholeness, for-- not unity, but the union, I guess is a better word, and since we cannot handle the
distinction, which I think is an artificial distinction between the practical, and the theoretical, our
feeling about-- I don't quite know how to put this-- that the truth of a thing, the meaning of it is
contingent upon how practical it is, so that the only way we can communicate within this kind of
emotional security in this whole realm, as far as religion is concerned is by symbolism.
Or way back when I was in college, and they had the great Passaic, New Jersey, textile strike,
one of the first great, heart breaking labor brutalities in the history of American business, a
forerunner of the brutality of the coal mines.
When the Rockefellers were laying the foundation for their wealth, these people were killed and
so forth. But the great Passaic, New Jersey, textile strike. And the church wanted to give us
witness, and we're just beginning to get what was a conscience about the responsibility of the
Christian for the fate of the defenseless, the exploited, resisted the beginning of this sort of thing.
And to move into the area in New Jersey where the strike was on meant that you moved at your
own risk if you were not a part of the owners of the factories, who supported the police and
through their taxes, had the power of the state on their side, and the only way that the religious
community of the period could have any effect through its coming in to bring soup and
administer to the this and thatness of life.
The men who represented the church had to wear clerics, because if the if they had clerics, then
there was a certain respect, which had nothing to do with religion, but a great deal to do with
superstition. And this kind of dualism has crept into a private feeling about the relevancy of the
spiritual in terms of the practical journey that our lives take.
So that the dualism-- this is what I'm getting at. The dualism is one that dogs our footsteps, that
without realizing, without sensing it, there is a sort of internal convincement that in the world of
things and practicality in which we function, the god we worship is always at a disadvantage.
Now, hang around that a little, so that you can stir it up and it'll do pitch hitting for you down the
road. It's very hard to believe and to affirm that God is God, in the nitty gritty, rough and tumble
survival issues of life. I don't know how to that in-When I was a student in Atlanta, my senior year, I was going from one part of town, where my
college was located to another part, across in a business area. There was a section where Martin
King's church is located, or was located.
And in those days, there were no traffic lights but you had policemen, and one of the main
thoroughfares went by the railway station down through the center of town out to [INAUDIBLE]
Avenue. And at every big traffic center, there was policeman to direct the lights, to direct the
traffic.
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This young minister and I were driving along in his car, and we were talking. And so at first, we
didn't even see the policeman. In present day, this great big six feeter, six footer, six feeter. What
is it? Feet? Six footer, six foot. Anyway, you get the picture,
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And the minister who's driving the car was absorbed. He was just talking. He didn't see or think
about him until he saw this huge mass in the air, saving its life, sitting up there talking. And he
blew the whistle. I mean, he blew the whistle with his gut, not with his lungs. And even the car
froze.
It was one of those breathless moments. My friend pulled to the side, and he came forward to us,
pulled his-- what we called it in those days, his billy, little, short, leather club out with his right
hand, reached in with his left hand to pull this driver's head in reach. And my friend said Officer,
you wouldn't hit a man of God, would you?
And the thing froze, and he sputtered and said something. Now, the subtle thing for all of us is to
make, if we can in our religious experience, the distinction between religion and superstition.
And we have prostituted religion into symbolism.
And the symbolism stands in the stead of the vitality and the rawness and the intensity of the
religious experience itself. So back to Passaic. At the fever of all this brutality, a man walked in
with his clerics on.
There was at once a part of his protection and the thing for which he stood on behalf of these
defenseless people, a kind of magic, because it was anyone of these people. Somewhere in his
history, it would start a feeling that the sacred cannot be touched, and the sacred can be known
by a certain kind of symbolism.
So that if you have the symbolism, then the symbolism draws on the whole evolving of the
human spirit with reference to the untouchable, the Shekhinah, the uncreated light by which the
throne of God is surrounded.
So I find that in my own spiritual struggle, even though my mind functions in terms of anybody's
mind, functions in terms of symbolism, as the opening through which meaning comes. The
symbolism is so deceptive, because it becomes the meaning.
And this is-- yes.
There's a story I heard out of Kentucky. The fellow who did it was telling it. He was a musician.
And one time-- he played the accordion or whatever-- one time, it was the miners on one side
and the state police on the other side in this rally. And he walked down the middle and played his
music. And that day, they didn't fight. So that's sort or the other side of the coin versus this guy
in his clerical, standing between-Yes. Yes, and you see, the important thing is the distinction with which we wrestle all the time is
the distinction between what, in our minds, is the secular and the spiritual, the practical and the
theoretical.
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It's a kind of dualism that serves, I think, as a-- oh I hate to feel this, but I do. That is a padding, a
shield, to keep us from the naked exposure to the spirit of god.
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And I find that deep in my own soul-- if I may use a word like that-- I'm always trying to find a
way to escape the dualism, so that I will not live with accumulated delusions. I can handle one,
but they breed like cats in an alley.
Over and over again, I find myself saying this is true. I know it's true, but in this kind of world, it
won't work. You lost me. I mean, you lost me. What I'm saying is that over and over again, with
reference to something you believe in, you say I know this is true, but in this situation, it will not
work.
And I don't know about other human beings [INAUDIBLE]. One. But I'm always trying to find a
way by which the distinction between the practical and the theoretical will disappear.
[INAUDIBLE]
Yes. Excuse me.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Oh, never through, but go ahead.
Thinking about the things that you've said and what came to mind as far as the practical and the
theoretical becoming one, is an incident that happened, I guess last week or so, and I didn't read
the accounts of it, but these are Christians taking a stand and acting on their belief. And I know
of that because in New Haven, [INAUDIBLE] this group was praying for these people,
[INAUDIBLE] and another young man from New Haven who I guess took their blood and
poured it on classified information.
And men are being punished for their crimes. But it seems to me that the dichotomy disappears
maybe when something of an incarnation appears and people act on strong beliefs or have
behavior of this type in the room in which-Yeah.
I guess, maybe it's a rare thing rather than a common thing.
Yes, I think so. This sort of thing where the spiritually sensitive person I think is to resist the
temptation to prove something. I mean, this is the-- and yet, our whole culture and civilization
and everything depends upon tests, making dry runs, checking it out, and somewhere between
these two, I think is the thing that nourishes and sustains.
In the evolution of mind, in the whole journey of the evolving of human, of the personality, to
test a thing to prove it is so incredibly essential. And without that kind of validation, there can be
no security in knowledge, and yet, the integrity of the insight can never be tied to the necessity of
external validation.
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Now, it's a dilemma for which the human spirit finds no solution in terms of the pilgrimage of
values of which it's engaged. The moment you try to prove your truth, you become defensive
with reference to your truth. And yet, if you're not willing to test it, then the environment in
which we've grown up in Western civilization says that you don't know what you're talking
about, unless you make these dry runs.
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So that somewhere in there between these two dilemmas, the confidence in the insight has to be
its own validation, and bearing in mind all the time that I'm sure is that I am right, I may be
wrong. And it may take me in my journey 50 years to discover that 50 years ago, I should have
turned left rather than right.
But it took me 50 years for that dimension of the truth to break into my mind and spirit. Just go
on, [? Georgia. ?] Do we have a break?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Let's take a break.
Thank you. And may I have some coffee?
You bet.
May I ask one question? You said, the minute you tried to prove [INAUDIBLE] how did you
complete that?
Oh, I have no idea.
I mean, the thought. The minute we try to [INAUDIBLE], then it becomes our truth, rather than
the real truth.
And you see, the minute you try to prove it, to your soul, that becomes, a vote of no confidence
in it. It has to say it, and be accepted for that, because you can't-- the moment, I think that in the
end journey that we take to prove it is to satisfy an observer, not ourselves.
And the observers, the integrity of the observer is not at stake. I think the greatest temptation of
Jesus, whatever testimony he brought forth in telling his disciples about the baptism and all of
that was the greatest temptation, I think, of his-- when the people around him, as he was fighting
it out between life and death on the cross, they were saying, now, if you were every to, say, come
down from the cross, I-I think everyone who's involved in the grounds of living his life by a deep, inner guidance has to
affirm the integrity of his or her journey. And the journey becomes the proof.
[INAUDIBLE] printing office. Is that all right?
Yeah.
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Do you want to start just [INAUDIBLE]?
Yeah, please.
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Hate and love, [INAUDIBLE] impulses loose insights that we are trying to validate in that kind
of context are impractical. [INAUDIBLE]
A little louder, Joyce.
The outer and the inner are separate in our thinking. What the psalmist says is let the outer and
the inner both be acceptable in thy sight because it should be one and the same. [INAUDIBLE].
There are attitudes that we take towards living. It seemed to me to invalidate the sense of
integration, which may be summarized in terms of the free and easy flowing between the outer
and the inner, free and easy access between these two interactions this way.
And one of those attitudes is one which insists that we should not recognize that there is a
relationship between these two things. Think back over this week in your own life, just this
week. How many things have you done which seemed to you to be expedient, necessary, but
above which you have deep within yourself, the profoundest kind of inner reservation?
Let's think about it. So that you found yourself functioning and developing a behavior pattern or
deepening in behavior pattern, activities, agreements, yes-ing or no-ing, and you said to yourself,
what I am doing is not remotely connected with my own inner nerve center of consent.
7
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Internal Notes
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Edits: will(?) provide his light; Georgia; any of those(?);
Time Period
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1980s
Original Title
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Conversations with Howard Thurman (parts 5 and 6), 1980 Sep 19-21
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394-360_A
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Thurman, Howard
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Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 5 and 6, Side A
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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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1980-09-20
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Description
An account of the resource
This recording is a part of a wider series of conversations from September to October of 1980 where Howard Thurman met with a variety of young men and women who were discerning their calling to ministry. Thurman poses the intent of this group as an opportunity to "open up for one's self the moving, vital, creative push of God, while God is still disguised in the movement of God's self." This recording opens with one student's reflection on the inner life, which is followed by a discussion on dualism, in relation to the inner life, from Thurman. Thurman explores the tension between the outer life and the inner life, religion and superstition, and the practical and the theoretical. Speaking to these examples of dualism, Thurman notes that dualism as "a padding, a shield, to keep us from the naked exposure to the spirit of God."
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Description by Dustin Mailman
A Chorus Line
authority
cleric
coffee
confidence
darkness
dualism
evolution
fluid area of purpose
inner guidance
inner life
inward journey
Jesus
Kentucky
Martin Luther King Jr.
Nature of God
nerve center of consent
New Haven
New Jersey
non-dual
Passaic
praxis
psalmist
reflection
Shekhinah
symbolism
teachers
temptation
test
textile strike
turning
ultimate truth
validation
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394-098_B.mp3
--of a certain power that he had, that in little ways of relatedness, the vision was always breaking
trough. We will call it an insight that was a derivative from this experience.
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And he seemed [INAUDIBLE] something else that, in the moment of vision, one of the things
that happens is the man becomes aware of his gifts, of his particular, peculiar gifts. And one of
the gifts of which Jesus became aware was the gift of healing. And I'd like to pause now to
comment a little about this.
I think that there is a gift of healing, just as any other gift. I think a man who studies medicine
becomes a doctor. And who has the gift becomes an extraordinary person. But he can be a doctor
without the gift of healing. And he does something. But there's a magic that the git of healing has
that addresses, stimulates, calls forth a quality in the sick person of which the sick person was
not aware until it was called for by this healer.
Now, I realize that there are all kinds of focusing that turn up at the moment I mentioned this.
About 10 years ago, Margaret [INAUDIBLE] wrote a book about a woman who lived in
Minneapolis, Mrs. Somebody, who was a healer. And I live on the edge of curiosity all the time.
And I'm always sniffing things that seem to be out of my life that will throw light on my life.
After reading her biography and I found that she'd lived down in Minneapolis-- I was going there
for a weekend. And I wrote her ahead of time asking if she could give me a half hour on a
Saturday evening. I wanted to visit.
So when I got to the hotel, there was a note from her saying that the appointment was at 7:30 that
evening. And I went out to her apartment. I was met at the door by her sister, who was dressed in
a nurse's white [INAUDIBLE]. She took me into a small room, which apparently was a treatment
room.
There was [INAUDIBLE]. There was a table. And on the table was an old bible. On the wall
above the table was a print of Hofman's Head of Christ. To the left against the wall was an oldfashioned doctor's treatment-- what do you call it? Well, a table. That's the word. And then a
bright kind of [INAUDIBLE] and then a little stool.
And I was told to be seated at a chair. And presently, Mrs. Rhodes-- that's her name. Mrs.
Rhodes came in. And when she a face of [INAUDIBLE] that she had a goya that hung way down
her dress. She was a healer.
And I said to myself, even under the most overwhelming kind of insistent commitment and
passion diluted, oh, you are one of the most [? brazen ?] human beings I've ever seen.
[INAUDIBLE] healing people. So we introduced ourselves. And we began to talk.
And I said, you know, I have never met a live healer before. I said, that's why I'm here. I'm
curious. Tell me a little bit about you.
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And she said, I'm a simple farmwoman. I think she said maybe in second or third grade-- her age
at that time was probably seven or eight-- she had been a healer maybe two or three years. And I
said, tell me what happened? How did you--
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And she said that one morning, she felt a hand on her shoulder. But there wasn't anybody there.
Nothing. And she was told that from that time on, until such time as there was a change, her life
was under the direct direction or control of a spiritual person [INAUDIBLE].
Well, I settled back into my chair. I said, well, how does it work? She says, when someone
comes to see me, they see him. "He" refers to this person. He tells me what to say. He tells me
what the disease is, where it is located, where to place my hand, and at the same time, he tells me
whether or not healing can come through me to heal the disease.
And I obey. So then some people could come, as soon as I've touched them, I'm told that no
creative energy can flow through me to touch [INAUDIBLE]. And then he won't come back.
Other times, yes.
When I got through that with my mind, Then she said, last night, a very extraordinary happened.
She said, [INAUDIBLE]. And I was shaken. And I was told to get up and go to my desk, take
my pencil and paper, and write. And I was told that I was to write a symposium on the soul. And
I said, you will have to spell "symposium" because I've never heard of the word.
And I was told that my job was to write, and not to ask. So I wrote. I wrote 10 pages. And I
looked at my watch. And my half hour was up. And knowing how I wish people who came and
talked to me would observe the time, I said, my half hour is up. And I don't want to stay a minute
longer, because this is all I asked for. And then she said, oh, stay another half hour.
So I settled back in. And we talked more about this strange energy that flowed through her, that
she could not control, but that came at a moment in her life that she was nothing but powerful.
And thus, before the half hour was up, she said, may we pray. Would you be embarrassed? I
said, oh, no. I a prayer kind of [INAUDIBLE]. So there was a silent prayer where she said-- I
don't remember anything relevant. The words aren't [INAUDIBLE]. And I realized that she had
stopped talking.
She had stopped verbalizing for some time. And when I opened my eyes, her eyes were riveted
on my hands. And she said, when I looked at your hands, all the insides of your hands are worn.
But he tells me to tell you to pay no attention to that, but to keep your hands holding firmly the
thing that they're holding. Now, I don't know what that means. Does it make any sense to you,
she said tome. I said, well, I don't know. I'll have to put it in my hopper and see what comes out
of it.
As I was leaving, I said, I'm going back to Boston tomorrow afternoon. But do you have the
things that you wrote the other night? I would like to read them. Let me keep them overnight.
And I'll return them by messenger or bring them to you by 10 o'clock in the morning.
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Now, I digress to tell you this. Because we live surrounded by the mysteries of life.
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She let me have them. My kind of strength would not let me copy them for myself. Since that
time, I think I regret that I didn't. But when I read it-- this still seems amazing to me-- here was a
detailed discussion of the platonic theory of the soul, which we'll be talking about when we get
to [INAUDIBLE]. Just a detailed, careful statement of the platonic doctrine of the origin of the
soul.
And now and then, there comes a moment in a man's life, or a person's life-- as was in the-- we
talked about the life of Jesus-- when the primary private wall, shell, skin-- whatever the word is-that marks the individual life, part from the whole, is transcended, is pulled, is wrenched, and
there flows into the light something that the individual is aware of as having always been there,
and then the wall rises again, and your private individual life becomes yours, but never the same,
quite never [INAUDIBLE].
And how it manifests itself subsequently depends upon how the person defines his location. So
that we see in the life of Jesus stripped of all of the theology, and the Christology, and all of that,
what we see in the light of Jesus is-- the thing that happens when the implications of the vision,
the experience of illumination casts shafts of light on the path that the individual will follow for
the rest of his days.
And therefore, there is a very striking innate relationship between the inner experience, the
energy, and the most radical kinds of change in social order. And the mystic experience, instead
of its being life denied, does in that way become life affirmed. And the rhythmic beat maintains
itself in what a man like Hawking called the principle of automation. [INAUDIBLE].
"And understood what it is that we are trying to work out. He was very old. And from the secret
swaying of planets to the secret decencies in human hearts, he understood. I used to watch him
watering his lawn, and scattering the food for the woodpecker, sweeping the crossing before his
house.
It was not that there was light about him visible to the eye as in the old paintings, rather an
influence tamed from you him in little breaths. When we were with him, we became other. He
saw us all as if we were that which we dreamed ourselves. He saw the town already clothed for
its tomorrow. He saw the world beating like a heart. Beating like a heart.
How may I too know, I wanted to cry to him. Instead, I only said, and how is it with you today.
But he answered both questions by the look in his eyes, for he had come to quietness. He had
come to the place where sun and moon meet, and where the spaces of the heavens opened their
doors.
He was understanding, and love, and the silence. He was the voice of leaves as he fed the
woodpecker." And then this.
"When my own life feels small and I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together and see, in an
instant, a multitude of disconnected, unliked phases of human life. A medieval monk with his
string of beads pacing the quiet orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy
fruit trees.
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Little Malay boys play naked on the shining sea beach. A Hindu philosopher, alone under his
banyon tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that in the thought of God he may lose himself. A
troupe of [INAUDIBLE] dressed in white with crowns of vine leaves dancing along the Roman
streets.
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An Epicurean discussing at a Roman bath to a [INAUDIBLE] of his disciples on the nature of
happiness. A martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow window to the sky and
feeling that already, he has the wings that shall bear him up. A [INAUDIBLE] witch doctor
seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside come the sound of dogs
barking, and the voices of women and children.
A mother giving bread and milk to her children in little wooden basins, and singing the evening
song. I like to see it all. I feel it run through me, that life belongs to me. It makes my little life
larger. It breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in."
To capitulate for a minute and start moving along, you will remember that the great primal
discovery, disclosure that Jesus made in the climactic experience of the baptism was a radical
disclosure of who he was.
And you'll remember the imagery, the symbolism that he used for the heavens up there. And the
spirit of God descended upon him like a dove. Symbolism. And he heard the voice say to him,
"you are My son, My beloved. This day, have I begotten thee. Are in thee am I well pleased."
Having this experience of heightened and acute awareness of himself, of his essence, his
substance, his core, having been penetrated at what may be called in psychological terms the
nerve center of his concept-- that this experience created a radical demand upon his life.
And the question that he had to answer now as a derivative from the vision-- it was, what is the
bearing of this disclosure on my life, my journey, my function, my work, my mission. And in
order to separate settle the thing, shake it down, so that he could derive from the experience what
may be called, for lack of a better term, a working paper for his life.
A working paper that was a derivative from this experience of illumination. And the first step
taken in the carrying out of this sense of trying to discover how this awareness of himself as an
essential part of God, of the eternal-- what difference does that make in how I relate to the other
kinds of identity by which I had found my meaning? And this is very important.
Now, I've skipped the wilderness and moved to the [INAUDIBLE] for that's the journey that I
want to finish if indeed I can this afternoon. Because [INAUDIBLE] is blowing down my neck.
And I want to get rid of him. The first identity which Jesus had to heal was the identity of
belonging. And this, of course, is your first identity [INAUDIBLE]-- mine, anyway. What
bearing does the vision have on the particular meanings of mine own sources identity?
Can I hold clear and distinctly this new awareness of myself in relation to the eternal, and at the
same time, work out some sort of construct with reference to the identity belongings by which I
have defined myself by? And with him, it was very tricky, because his identity of belonging was
Jewish. He was a Jew. A Jew.
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[INAUDIBLE]. How can I work out this awareness that has come to me, my self awareness
which I've discovered to be rooted and grounded in God so intimately that I am conscious of the
fact that I am his immediate offspring? What does that do with the identity by which I have
found my significant [INAUDIBLE]?
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For instance, when as a young man and Judas of Galilee was going around the community trying
to get young Jewish men to join him in insurrection against Rome, why didn't Jesus join?
It is reasonable that he weren't in the rebuilding of the city Sepphoris, which was destroyed as a
hostile city by Rome because of his insurrection-- that young Jewish men, who were his
contemporaries, who were part of his life and with he'd participated. But he didn't go.
How could he continue living the life of a Jew in Palestine without locating his identity in his
Jewishness?
This meant at once, for instance, are the enemies of the Jewish community, with which I have
my identity-- are the enemies of the Jewish community my enemies? So then much of what we
find him doing with reference to the attitude towards enemies-- which has become a part of the
lip service doctrine of the youth in our religion-- is located in this critical problem.
How must I deal with the enemies of the Jewish community that I remain a Jew who has had this
moment that gives to him an awareness that transcends the group [INAUDIBLE]? And it's
interesting what he does.
For instance, the enemies in the Jewish community were three. One, the regular man that
everybody has-- people that you don't like, sometimes for good and sufficient reasons,
sometimes [INAUDIBLE]. But whatever your private reason-- And he says about Jesus that-[INAUDIBLE].
[INAUDIBLE]? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
[INAUDIBLE].
Yeah?
I didn't hear what you said.
Oh. Well, I don't know what I said. But I'll start. The private enemy that everybody has-- there's
nothing unique about that, people who, for one reason or another, there's a ruptured relationship.
But he begins there. And what did he say?
That if I discover, on my way to affirm, my awareness absolves-- and the language he uses is
symbolic-- "I'm taking my gift to the [INAUDIBLE]." And then I remember that there is a
ruptured relationship between me and someone else, the person [INAUDIBLE]. Then at the
point of my remembrance, I pick it up. I go back and I find the person [INAUDIBLE] the other
day.
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Now, the second category was the member of the Jewish community who had rented his mind
and his know-how to the Roman government, the tax collector. For the tax collector would say to
the Romans that, I know Jewish psychology. And I can get the tribute in a way that a gentile or a
Roman can't do.
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I will rent my know-how, my idiom. You can borrow it for a price. And so that the tax collector
was despised because he was a great betrayer. Now, how does Jesus, aware now of himself, who
also is a Jew-- how does he deal with this? Because these two things must not be in permanent
conflict.
He uses a very quaint way. He says that Matthew, or whoever [INAUDIBLE], is a son of
Abraham. And he tested it by inviting himself to be a guest in the tax collector's house.
And he soon realizes-- he said something of very great psychological significance in terms of
what he was working out in the light of his vision-- this is what I'm talking about all the time-that the ultimate intimacy between human beings is to break bread together. [INAUDIBLE].
And as systems and social systems in the world, where there is a desert and a gulf between
peoples, we will do everything together-- play together, sleep together, work together,
[INAUDIBLE]. Because when-- and why-- Oh, I'm getting far too [INAUDIBLE], and then I'll
come back.
Because when you eat, when you stop to eat, a lot of things that have been trying to catch up
with you all day and you haven't had a chance to pay any attention to-- you've been too busy-when you sit down to eat, then they come around.
And that's why I have never been [? inclusive ?] of where I am now. I've never happened on any
college or university campus in my life where people who eat in dining rooms or what have you
were satisfied with the food-- not because the food's bad, but because it is the one time that all
the things that have been bugging you all day and you haven't had a chance to pay any attention
to-- when you sit down, and you say, well, here you are now, and they come, and [INAUDIBLE]
regret and-[LAUGHTER]
I made you sandwiches, and huh? And so Jesus-- now, this is the clue. If I eat with the tax
collector-- I can do it-- and then the Roman who was the great enemy-- and I just have to take a
moment to throw it into context for you.
The Jewish community at the time that Jesus lived in Palestine had lost its political freedom. It
was a vassal of Rome. They were permitted-- "they" being the Jewish people-- were permitted to
have their own private religion, but they did not have-- now, the Jewish state-- they did not have
power of veto and certification over the life of a citizen.
That's why, for instance, when Jesus was tried and condemned, the Jewish community could not
put him to death. The Romans had to do that. Because the autonomy of a state at last seems to
rest on whether or not it has power of life and death over its citizens.
6
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
How can I handle this without destroying the integrity of this awareness that came
[INAUDIBLE]?
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And you know what, how did he do it? He rejected one by one--
7
�
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-098_B.html" ></iframe>
Location
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University of Redlands, Redlands, California
Internal Notes
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Edits: brazen human; Bacchanalians; never been inclusive - GL 5/20/19
Time Period
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1970s
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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394-098_B
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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On Mysticism, Part 12 (University of Redlands Course), 1973
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
Format
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audio
Publisher
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13042600.321303 4037296.9410534))
Date
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1973-02
Description
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This recording is the eighth lecture in our collection of ten that Howard Thurman gave at the University of Redlands in 1973 on the topic of mysticism. Thurman indicates that this lecture functions as a means to point the listener towards practical approaches to mysticism through lenses of psychology, philosophy, and religious experience. In this recording, Thurman reflects upon the life of Jesus, and an encounter he had with the author Margaret Rhodes, in order to make sense of what it means to heal. Here, Thurman indicates that the primary function of healing rests in the healing of one's "identity of belonging." In other words, Thurman is arguing that to heal, and be healed, is to be fully integrated into a life of community.
Contributor
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Description by Dustin Mailman
baptism
calling
christology
contemplation
creative energy
gifts
goya
Head of Christ
healer
healing
Henrich Hofmann
historical Jesus
imago dei
inner experience
interelatedness
Jesus
magic
Margaret Rhodes
Minneapolis
mystic experience
Palestine
Platonic doctrine
power
principle of automation
self-awareness
social change
Stephen Hawking
symbolism
symposium of the soul
wilderness
woodpecker
working paper