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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-783.mp3
This is tape number ET31 from the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. Two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1, entitled Supportive Order Inherent in Life.
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]
As a continuation of our time together last week, I want to read, today, from The Inward
Journey. And this has to do with the unity of life. "In all the waking hours, the tentacles of time
give channel to each living thing-- the bird on wing, the mole moving in darkness underground,
the cricket chanting it's evening song, the primeval whale sporting in chilly seas or floating
noiselessly in turbulent waters, in mountain crevice or sprawling meadow, the delicate beauty of
color-stained flower or fragile leaf.
High above the timberline, the sprig of green dares wind and snow. In the barren parchness of
desert waste, the juiceless shrub and water logged cactus. High in the tree top, the green-pearled
fruit of olive mistletoe and the soft gray stillness of creeping moss. The infant, the growing child,
the stumbling adolescent, the young adult, the man full-blown or stooped with years-- the
tentacles of time give channel to each living thing.
And beyond all this, thoughts that move with grace of being, light thoughts that dance and sing
untouched by gloom or shadow or the dark. Weighty thoughts that press upon the road with
tracks that blossom into dreams or shape themselves in plan and scheme.
Thoughts that whisper, thoughts that shout, thoughts that wander without rest, seeking, seeking,
always seeking. Thoughts that challenge, thoughts that soothe. The tentacles of time give channel
to each living thing.
Out from the house of life, all things come. And into it, each returns again for rest. When I
awake, I am still with thee.
There is not only a built-in unity and harmony in the organism-- in yours, in mine. But there is a
unity that is inherent in the particular life. This unity is determined by many factors, some of
which we understand and some we do not understand.
Why does your foot grow and grow and then stop growing? Why does some other part of your
body develop? And then something gives the word. And it stops it. It makes an end of growing.
The thing that's in my mind is that there is, in the individual life, a kind of built in logic and order
that is inherently a part of the individual's life, so that everything in your life counts. It is a part
of the order that is inherent in the living stuff which is your own life.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now this does not mean as it seems, that I am making some left handed case for a kind of ranting
determinism that suggests that everything that concerns your life or my life is fixed and ordered.
No. I am saying, however, that because of the harmony that is within the movement of the
private life, every thing in that life belongs.
Pitts Theology Library
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And if I could understand the totality of a man's life, how he has responded from the day of his
conception to the present, to all of the forces that have played upon his life to which he has
responded, then the story of his life would make sense. For there is, within the life, an order and
a harmony.
And this is the basis upon which so much of the therapy that people are using now at the hands
of the disciplined minds-- the doctors who work with us when we have emotional upsets and
emotional disturbances, or we have some other things going on within us that are unmanageable
and that cause us to do things which are out of character. And how do these men work?
They assume that there is a logic here that somewhere in the development of your life or my life
or the individual's life that is seeking help, something happened. An event took place. And I
responded to that event in a certain way.
And as a result of the impact of this-- upon my life and my response to it, what I am
experiencing now is the order. This is how we study diseases. We say that the cure for a disease
is unknown. But we do not say, ever, that the cure is unknowable.
For the assumption is that there is an order that is inherent in the operation of the disease, that
there is a rational order in the mind. This rational order is always trying to penetrate, to make
contact, to touch, to sense, to become aware of, to understand.
The principle of order that may be at work and the behavior of this body of cells, so that when
the rational principle in the mind makes contact with the order that is in the disease, so that the
mind says that the logic in my mind and the logic here in this disease flow together, and give me
an insight, then men can talk in terms of curing the disease or of reducing it so that it will not,
any longer, threaten life.
What I'm saying is that we are surrounded by an order of which we are part and of which all of
life is a part. And that if there are those experiences in life that break the order, those experiences
that rupture the community, these things are regarded as being against life.
And the purpose of life from this point of view is to develop more and more order, more and
more synthesis, more and more wholeness, more and more creativity. And wherever there is that
which is divisive, wherever there is that which tears asunder, which [? rends ?] this must be
regarded as being against life.
And he who works for order, who works for harmony, who works for a total experience of
integration, life is on his side. And he who works against this, whatever may be the private
grounds for the judgment that monitors the enterprise, this is against life. And if it is against life,
it is against God."
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord,
my rock and my Redeemer.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The preceding program was pre-recorded.
This is tape number ET31, from the Library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. This is
side 2, entitled For Love's Sake.
[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]
Today I am reading, as the background for our thinking, a prose poem from the greatest of these.
"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. Thus spoke one whose very life and deeds these words fulfilled.
Contacts with one another abound in a world grown small. Because the mind of man has worked
unceasingly to banish barriers set by nature here and there, everywhere. But where there is no
will to love, to make an act of grace towards fellow man, contacts may degrade. Outrage nip the
tender shoots of simple trust.
Love abides when all else sickens and dies from sheer revulsion and disgust. The fruit it bears
sustains the nerve and makes the life a harbor of repose for the weak and tottering, a heavy
judgment for the cruel and hating, a precious bane for those who seek to know the way of God
among the sons of men.
With it, the deeds of men are measured by man's great destiny. It meets men where they are,
sometimes cruel, sometimes lustful, sometimes greedy, often callous, mean, of low design, and
treats them there as if they were full-grown and crowned with all that God would have them be.
For love's sake, and love's alone, men do with joyous hope and tender joy what no command of
heaven, hell, or life could force of them if love were not. To be God's child, to love with steady
mind and fervent heart, this is the law of love."
The apostle, Paul, in one of his letters, has left a very significant and pointed line which has
bearing on our thought for today. He says, "My prayer to God is that your love may grow more
and more rich in knowledge and in all manner of insight, that you may have a sense for what is
vital, that you may be transparent and of no harm to anyone."
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We are surrounded today by a climate of impersonality, I suppose, is the best way to put it. It is
very difficult for the individual in our society to keep from becoming anonymous in his
relationships and in his estimate of himself, so that any thought about the thickening of human
relations, the tidying of relationships-- so that when men move in the midst of each other, they
will have no sense of jeopardy, no sense of being threatened, is a most important consideration.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
The basic statement that I would make, that I hope you will remember, with reference to this
whole idea is that in our kind of world today, there is but one refuge that any man has on this
planet. And that is in another man's heart. And when I close the door against any man, it means
that I undermine my own sense of emotional security as I seek to live my life on this planet.
Now there are many contexts which we have, contacts, for the most part, are contacts without
fellowship. Now contacts without fellowship tend to express themselves in a kind of
unsympathetic mood.
They are, essentially, unsympathetic. They are cold. They are detached. Sometimes they are
cruel. The contacts are there. But they are not warm. They are unsympathetic. They are hard-the sort of thing that you feel, sometimes, when you go into a man's office. And he looks at you
with a with a dead hard stare in his eyes. And you wonder whether the third button on your shirt
is open or closed. But you dare not feel to see.
It is something that strips you, that lays you bare, that exposes you. It's hard. It's devastating. It is
destructive. Now an unsympathetic attitude tends to express itself in the exercise of a will that is
distorted, a will that is ill, a will that is sick.
And there is a subtle contagion about a sick will. Many people who come into direct contact with
it or are exposed to it find that they are contaminated by this. And the same sort of disposition or
attitude which is theirs, which is to be found in the mind and the life of the person with the ill
will, becomes characteristic of those to whom it is exposed.
Now an ill will that is dramatized in the life of a man is what we mean by hate walking on the
earth. Now the reverse of this is true.
Contacts with fellowship are warm. And they make for an understanding that is sympathetic-the kind of understanding that we all seek, the sort of understanding that gives the individual a
sense of inner freedom, that gives the individual the feeling that he need not pretend.
He need not cover up. The vulnerable things in his life will be protected by someone who
understands him in a sense that is increasingly total. And this is what we seek, after all-understanding that is sympathetic, so that in its warm glow, the weaknesses and the strengths, the
good points and the bad points, are not held in any sense that is judgmental.
But they are gathered up in a healing mood of not only compassion but of understanding. This is
what we seek among ourselves. This is what our children seek. This is what adults seek.
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Now sympathetic understanding tends to express itself in the exercise of a will that is good. Now
a good will is the creative expression of one man's total attitude towards another man.
Pitts Theology Library
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It is, laced, if I may use that word, in a kind of kindness. And here, something very important
must be said. No one ever quite deserves kindness. Men deserve respect as human beings. Men
deserve honor, sometimes, for the contribution which they have made to the redemption of the
common life or the contribution which they have made to some stark human need to which they
are exposed.
But no one ever quite deserves kindness. For when you are kind to a man, it means that you
place upon him something that he does not merit. It is like placing a crown over his head that, for
the rest of his life, he is trying to grow tall enough to wear, so that when you are the recipient of
the kind act, you know deep within yourself that you cannot ever repay this deed to the person
from whom the deed issued to you so that the only thing that you can do is to seek to confer that
kind of meaning upon someone else as your response to that kind of meaning that has been
conferred upon you.
Now a goodwill caught, dramatized, epitomized, for instanced in the life of a man is what we
mean by Love. And when we love, it means that we deal with each other at a point in each other
that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. There is but one refuge that one man has
anywhere on this planet. And that is in another man's heart.
Will you keep your door open that whoever knocks may enter?
[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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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
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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/394-783.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
Edited - GL 7/26
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Supporting Order Inherent in Life; For Love's Sake (ET-31; GC 11-24-71), 1971 Nov 24
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
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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394-783
Creator
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Supportive Order Inherent in Life (1963-05-17); For Love's Sake (1958-05-30)
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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1963-05-17
1958-05-30
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reads from his text, "The Inward Journey." Thurman's reading speaks to the intricate ways in which human life and experience is ordered in a synchronistic fashion. It is in one's understanding of creation's interrelatedness, Thurman suggests, that one can come to understand that the entirety of one's existence belongs.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects upon a poem from Eugene V. Debs, speaking to notions of solidarity and love. He notes that notions of love and disease both have a contagious characteristic, and that there is great responsibility in one's choosing of love or disease. To share one's heart, thus one's love, is to invite fellowship and community. To share one's disease, is to invite isolation and individualism.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Dustin Mailman
belonging
contagion
creation
creativity
ecology
Eugene V. Debs
experience
fellowship
harmony
healing
heart
interconnectivity
inward journey
love
order
organism
Paul
Philippians
poetry
relationship
security
society
synchronization
synthesis
tentacles of time
unity
vulnerability
wholeness
will
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Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
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394-773.mp3
This is tape number ET16. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, two
meditations by Howard Thurman. This is side 1 entitled, The Image of Perfection.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[CHURCH BELLS TOLLING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That 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 the Inward Journey. "There is much conversation about making a good life.
Deep within the human spirit is a concern that insists upon perfection. The distinction must be
made between perfection in a particular activity, in a particular skill, and the central concern of
the human spirit for perfection as a total experience.
The former can be measured in terms of standards and concrete goals. I know a man who is most
meticulous about many things that have their place but are inconsequential. He is so insistent
about the temperature of his coffee, that he neglects simple courtesy to the person who serves it.
Sometimes the attitude is more comprehensive. It has to do with staking out an area and covering
it in a certain way with a satisfying structure. It has to do with plans and their fulfillment, ends
and the means by which the ends are secured.
This kind of perfection often makes for arrogance of spirit and unbearable snobbery. It says to all
and sundry, there is but one way to do a thing and this is that way. It does not always follow that
arrogance is the result.
There may be a simple pride in the beauty and the wholeness of the flawless. To behold a lovely
thing in all its parts-- be it a deed, a well-rounded idea, clear, beautiful, and perfect phrase, or a
way of performing-- is to experience a moment of glory and sheer delight.
But the central concern for perfection lies outside of all manifestations and all deeds. It is more
than and other than all expressions of every kind. And yet, it informs the ultimate character of all
expressions of every kind.
It is the image which the sculptor sees in the block of marble, the dream in the soul of the
prophet and the seer, the profound sense of life in the spirit of the dying, the picture of the
beloved in the eyes of the lover, the hope that continues when all rational grounds for confidence
have been destroyed.
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It is what remains when all doors have finally closed and all the lights have gone out, one by one.
Here at last, we are face-to-face with what man is in his literal substance, the essence of his
nobility and dignity.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
In religion, it is called the image of the creator, and is the authentic for instance of the given-ness
of God. To be aware of this is the source of all man's confidential endurance through the
vicissitudes of his living.
This is to sit in judgment on every deed, however good and perfect it may be within itself, to
move with reverence through all of life always seeking and finding, always building and
rebuilding, always repenting, always rejoicing. This is to walk with God."
There is in every man, I think, what for lack of a better term I am calling the image of perfection.
It is deeper than plans, deeper than propositions, more profound than any act of reflective
thinking or deliberation.
It seems to be a part of the literal stuff of a man's life. It is the ground of all of his striving, and
activities, and his functioning. It manifests itself in many ways.
For instance, a man tries to do a particular thing. And when he thinks about it, when it is a dream
in the mind, when it is one of the private and intimate feeling tones of his life, it seems so whole
and so complete, so rounded, so finished.
But when the deed expresses itself externally, when that which was in the mind now becomes a
part of the living texture of the act or the deed, then between the moment when the idea or the
dream leaves the mind and fulfills itself in fact, an adulteration sets in.
So that if I were to ask you, what deed of yours is the most complete and utter expression of your
life? You may quickly suggest a particular thing, a particular act, or a particular thing that you
have done.
But before the sound of the word dies, you will want to call it back. Because you will say, no,
that isn't quite perfect enough. That doesn't quite contain all that I mean by the very essence of
me.
It is for this reason, I think, that men do not ever give themselves up. You may not be as good as
your friends think you are, or you may not be as good as your mother thinks you are, or your
wife, or someone else thinks you are.
But you do not give yourself up. You cling to yourself with a kind of abiding enthusiasm,
because you are sure that if given enough time, this deeply, grounded image of perfection, which
is in you, will finally fulfill itself in time and space.
And I think this is one of the simple psychological grounds for man's belief in immortality, the
feeling that one span of life, one time interval, however full of deeds, and activities, and
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
fulfillment it may be-- but this is not enough to contain all that is in you, so that more and more
time must be available.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
There must be a larger margin for fulfillment. There must be more room. There must be more
growth. There must be more facility for developing the techniques and the skills for grasping the
thing that is the central image of perfection, the central core image of wholeness that has to
reveal itself.
So that if you cannot do it in one time interval, then you feel that you must have more time
intervals. And then if one round of existence can't quite be time enough and room enough for the
image to fulfill itself, then you must come back again and again.
So hence, men for many generations have had a notion about the transmigration of the soul.
Fundamental to this whole concept is the feeling, the awareness, that deep within a man's life is
the image of perfection, the imago, of God.
And therefore, a man's life is not complete. A man's life cannot fulfill itself until this buried
image has time to work itself up through all the reaches of one's being until at last, the deeply
hidden image and the overt expression of the life become one thing.
Therefore, the master suggests to us that we should be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is
perfect. The image, the hidden image, must work itself out through the deeds, through the
thoughts, through the fulfillment of a man's life.
And as long as this has not happened, a man has hope about the fulfillment and the meaning of
his life and his existence.
[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 ET16. From the library of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust, this is
side 2 entitled, Imagination, The Angelos of God.
[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]
3
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
May I remind you again that if you are interested in receiving transcriptions of these Friday
morning broadcasts, if you will send a postal card or a note to me at Marsh Chapel, Boston
University or in care of this station, your name will be put on the mailing. list. And you will, in
due course, receive the transcriptions.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This morning, I'm reading a meditation from my new book of meditations, The End of Journey.
"Many years ago, a brilliant, young sociologist at Columbia College delivered a lecture to his
class on the philosophy of a fool.
He ends the first part of his address with these words, 'on the seventh day, therefore, God could
not rest. In the morning and the evening he busied himself with terrible and beautiful
concoctions. And then the twilight of the seventh day, he finished that which is of more
important than the beasts of the earth, and the fish of the sea, and the lights of the firmament.
And he called it imagination, because it was made in his own image. And those under whom it is
given shall see God.'
We are accustomed to thinking of the imagination as a useful tool in the hands of the artist, as he
reproduces, in varied forms, that which he sees beyond the realm of fact that encircles him.
There are times when the imagination is regarded as a delightful and often whimsical
characteristic of what we are pleased to call the childish mind.
Our judgment trembles on the edge of condescension, pity, or even ridicule when imagination is
confused with fantasy in the reports that are given of the inner workings of the mind of the
simpleton or the fool.
We recognize and applaud the bold and audacious leap of the mind of the scientist, when it soars
far out beyond that which is known and established to fix a beachhead on distant, unexplored
shores.
But the place where the imagination shows its greatest power as the angelos of God, is in the
miracle which it creates when one man standing in his place is able while remaining there to put
himself in another man's place, to send his imagination forth to establish a beachhead in another
man's spirit.
And from that vantage point, so to blend with the others landscape, that what he sees and feels is
authentic. This is the great adventure in human relations. But this is not enough. The imagination
must report its findings accurately without regard to all prejudgments and private or collective
fears.
But this is not enough. There must be both a spontaneous and a calculating response to such a
knowledge, which will result in sharing of resources at their deepest level. Very glibly are we apt
to use such words as sympathy, compassion, sitting where they sit.
But to experience their meaning is to be rocked to one's foundation. The simple truth is we resist
making room for considerations that swerve us out of the path of preoccupation with ourselves,
our needs, our problems.
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We make our imagination a thing of corruption when we give it range only over our own affairs.
Here, we experience the magnification of our own ills, the distortion of our own problems, and
the enlargement of the areas of our own misery.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
What we do not permit our imagination to do in the work of understanding others, turns in upon
ourselves with disaster and sometimes terror. To be to another human being what is needed at the
time that the need is most urgent and most acutely felt-- this is to participate in the precise act of
redemption.
The imagination acting under the most stringent orders can develop a technique all its own in
locating and reporting to us its findings. We are not the other person. We are ourselves. All that
they are experiencing, we can never know.
But we can make accurate soundings, switch when properly read, will enable us to be to them
what we could never be without such awareness. The degree to which our imagination becomes
the angelos of God-- we ourselves may become his living instruments."
To use the imagination as the probing point that enables us to enter into the life of another human
being, even though we are not that human being-- this is one of the rare and extraordinary gifts
of personality.
Many years ago, I was spending a few days with a friend of mine who had a little boy who was
just moving around on his kiddie cart. I don't remember his age. He rode his kitty cart into the
living room where I was seated reading the morning's paper.
He stopped his kiddie cart at my feet. And he said, Mr. Thurman, will you please help me change
my tire? I just had a blow out. So I put the newspaper down, helped him jack his car up, and take
the old tire off, and put the new one on, and all the ceremony and etiquette that go with that sort
of thing.
Then, he sat behind the wheel, stepped on the starter, and the motor wouldn't stop. Then he
pulled out the choke, stepped on the starter, nothing happened. He got out of the car, walked
around, raised the hood, tinkered a little on this side.
Then raised the hood on the other side, tinkered a little. And then, he sat in the car to try to start
it and nothing happened. And then, a strange thing happened. I saw his little shoulders tighten,
and his spine stiffen, and a grim look came in his face.
And he began talking to his car, saying the things he'd heard his father say under such
circumstances, and still nothing happened. Then he got out and walked over to me. And he said,
Mr. Thurman, do you have a pencil?
So I gave him a pencil out of my pocket. He went around behind the car, took the top off the
tank, put the pencil down into the tank, held it up, and said, ah. The tank is empty. So he went
out into the kitchen, asked his mother for a glass of water, brought the glass of water back, sat in
5
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
his car, drank the water, started his motor up, and drove out of the living room, into the dining
room, into the kitchen.
A simple sense of self projection that enabled him to put himself into his father's place really.
And to act there as if he were his father, even though he remained himself.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now this is what the imagination enables us to do, to stand firmly within our own context, to
project ourselves into another situation in which another person is involved, look at that situation
through their eyes, even though we remain ourselves.
Now the degree to which we are able to do this, we are able then to relate to other people's needs
from inside those needs, and to do with them the thing which is needful in their situation, not the
thing which is needful in our situation.
But to be to them as if we were a part of them, even though we remain ourselves-- now this, it
seems to me, marks man as being, in literal truth, in possession of a quality of personality that
makes of man a living instrument in the hands of the living creator of the living world.
The imagination is the angelos, the messenger, of God. And if we have it and use it, we are
blessed of him.
[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]
6
�
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/394-773.html" ></iframe>
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
The Image of Perfection; Imagination, the Angelus of God (ET-16; GC 11-19-71), 1971 Nov 19
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
On "The Angelos of God," the name of Thurman's text "The Inward Journey" is transcribed as "The End of Journey."
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1960s
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-773
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Thurman, Howard
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The Image of Perfection (1963-04-26); Angelos of God (1961-09-29)
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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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1963-04-26
1961-09-29
Description
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In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects upon his writing within, "The Inward Journey," reflecting upon what it means to obtain perfection. He critiques narratives of linearity being the means of perfection, naming such notions as harmful and unhelpful. Thurman leans into the dynamic nature of life, naming perfection as an individual journey which unfolds on its own, personal terms.
In this recording within the We Believe Series; Howard Thurman reflects upon his writing within, "The Inward Journey," reflecting upon the ways in which imagination influences the spiritual life.
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Dustin Mailman
authenticity
Columbia
contextuality personality
dynamism
experience
fulfillment
imagination
individualism
inward journey
perfection
philosophy of a fool
projection
psychology
relationship
sculptor
sociologist
synchronicity
wholeness
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-649_A.mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[CHOIR SINGING]
Close, present Father, we are overwhelmed by the strength and vitality of thy spirit within us,
moving at so many different levels of our being, kindling our minds in the ceaseless search for
truth and understanding, present in the glow which we feel when we remember that someone
loves us and that we love someone, the overwhelming sense of caring that distributes itself in so
many little manifestations of grace-- a kind word here, a thoughtful gesture there, sometimes, the
nodding of the head or the quickening light in the eye.
In the sense of inadequacy which we feel when there is so much that we would do and are unable
to do, so much that we would feel, but cannot quite feel, the great and over-reaching desire to be
better than we are through so many levels of our being, our Father, thy spirit moves with such
unerring strength and insight.
We would know thee better. If happily we might, we would enter into thy dreams for us and for
thy children. We would understand thy understanding that so much that confuses and bewilders
and distresses our minds and spirits would have no power over us. But our Father, we are just
men and women, weak and strong, gentle and harsh, loving and hating, sinning and being
righteous. We are just men and women, our Father, in a world of men and women.
Touch us with thy glory that the fear of ourselves will be relaxed. And even for one swirling
moment in thy presence, let us sense that we are thine and thou art ours. Does this seem too
much? Does it seem to thee to be the expression of pride and arrogance and conceit? The hunger
for thee will not be stilled, O God, O, O God, O God.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
"I have a heart that cries to God abandoned across the blind imperfect avenue of mind. I have a
heart that cries to God. I have a heart that cries to God across the quarried stones of thought, the
labored temple slowly wrought, a heart, a heart that cries to God.
I have a heart that cries to God immediately and must dispense with faltering through the world
of sense and calls across the mind to God, that calls across the worlds to God, nor stays to
elaborate the tongue of sacrament to slowly wrung. I have a heart that cries to God."
And then another poet expresses it this way. He is "on the far horizon, the infinite, tender sky,
the ripe, rich tint of the corn fields and the wild geese sailing high. And all over upland and
lowland, the charm of the golden rod-- some of us call it Autumn. And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea beach when the moon is new and thin, into our hearts high yearnings
come welling and surging in, come from the mystic ocean whose rim no foot has trod. Some of
us call it Longing. And others call it God.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
A picket frozen on duty, a mother starved for her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock, and
Jesus on the rood, and millions who, humble and nameless, the straight, hard pathway plod-some call it Consecration. And others call it God."
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
We are continuing our quest of the inward journey. And today, we will take just a hard,
penetrating look at the man, as it was said of him, from whom God hid nothing, Meister Eckhart.
The words which have to do with the story of this man's life are not particularly relevant words
for our purposes except to say that he did live. He was born. And he died. His period is the early
part in the middle of the 14th century. He was a Dominican, a man who was regarded by some
disciplinarians in the field of metaphysics and philosophy as the father of German philosophy.
But all these things are not of particular importance for our purpose.
But here is a man who had the strange and wonderful gift of being able to wrestle with great and
imponderable aspects of existence and to reduce them, in some ways, to manageable units of
understanding. He must have been an extraordinarily scintillating and gifted personality. For
when you read his sermons and his [INAUDIBLE], it is almost impossible to understand him
with all of the background of knowledge that has been developed since his period. And yet
wherever he preached in Strasbourg or in any of the other parts of Germany, the scholars and the
theologians and all of the people who were supposed to know those persons who were prestigebearing figures in the world of religion were always crowded out by the masses of the people.
The simple, the unsophisticated, crowded everywhere just to hear him speak. And either they
were extraordinarily perceptive or he was exceptionally gifted or we are very dumb.
[LAUGHTER]
You can take your choice.
I remember hearing Rufus Jones give a two-hour lecture once to freshmen on Hegelian logic.
And every 10 or 15 minutes, the fellows were in gales of laughter. And later in the afternoon,
when I went up to the library, I saw one of the freshmen poring over the dictionary. And I said,
well, what are you doing? He said, did you hear Rufus this afternoon? I said, oh yes, I did.
He said, I went to the library. I took the two volumes of Hegelian logic out. And I was sure I was
going to have a very exciting and wonderfully relaxing time. And now I'm at the dictionary
looking up the word "T-H-E" because I know that the way Hegel uses it, it must be different
from the way I understand it.
So I was telling Dr. Jones about this. And I said, how does it happen that you have this
extraordinary gift? And he told me an interesting story. And it's very important here, even though
I'm taking precious time from Eckhart to tell you.
He said when he was graduated from Haverford College, he was a young radical. As a matter of
fact, his class was the most radical class that had been graduated from Haverford up to that time,
so radical that it was they who brought Matthew Arnold to America to lecture for the first time.
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
He was invited to give-- he, Rufus, was invited to give a sermon at the Friends Meeting in
Cleveland. And he prepared a very elaborate sermon. And he delivered it at the right moment in
the quiet. And when he unfinished, there were three comments made. One was made by a man
who sat near him. And he said, thee did very well, even though what thee had to say came from
underneath a mustache because Quakers were not supposed to have any new-fangled notions,
like mustaches.
The second said, thee did very well. But thee did not have very much unction because when thee
arose, thy coat was caught in thy belt. And when thee sat down, thy coat was still caught in thy
belt.
And then the third, the third was a lady. And she said, we enjoyed thee friend, Rufus-- that is,
some of us. But there is one thing that thee has forgotten. Our blessed master said, feed my
sheep, not my giraffes.
[LAUGHTER]
This is the idea. So Eckhart must have remembered this. His great and central insight has to do
with one of the most persistent questions of the mind. How can you get behind the creation of the
world? How can you get behind God?
If God is the revelation, then there must be that which is behind God that is inarticulate, that is
unformed, that is a pulse beats of being. And here I use the word "being," which is a form of
"this-ing" and "that-ing," a form of differentiation.
Eckhart was trying to get behind all of the manifestations of life. And he comes upon what is the
heart of his theological interpretation that there is a Godhead, which is the very ground of all
existence. It is undifferentiated. It is inarticulate. It is what he calls the "unnatured nature." It is
unknowable. He even refers to the Godhead as the great nameless nothing, trying to put into
words what cannot be put into words.
And he says, out, out of the Godhead, God moves. God is the self-consciousness of the Godhead,
moving always towards the manifestation of all of creation that there is no evolution, no gradual
development of things, except as a delusion, for all existence is mirrored in God, not as
something that is in process, but as pure thought, pure idea. Existence is. And all of the external
world is but an expression of the mind of God, the total existences, but an expression of the mind
of God.
Therefore, wherever you touch anything that is created, wherever you have any primary
experience with any sense data, wherever knowledge, which is a form of differentiation, a form
of expression, a form of thisness and thatness, a form of distinction between that which is known
and the knower-- wherever you come into any touch with any aspect of your whole sense
experience, it is as if you are a vast cathedral. And remove your shoes because it's holy.
Now, if this is true, says Eckhart, then man must partake of this. And then here his thought
moves in two, apparently, opposite directions. You see, he's trying to account for man and for the
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one who thought the things that he thought. And he says that there is-- on the one hand, there is
something in man that is a part of the unnatured nature, a part of the Godhead, the part of that
which is beyond all values, all good and evil, right, wrong-- that is, that which is beyond all
forms of judgment and all dimensions of conception, that which is deeper than thought, deeper
than feeling, that which is inarticulate.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
This is at the very center of man. This is man's-- this is the core of man's soul. And it is not an
aspect of the Godhead. It is not a manifestation of the Godhead. It is not an emanation. But it is
the Godhead itself in man and the process by which man becomes conscious and by which he
begins to develop in terms of the creative, the process by which man can hold in his mind
thoughts and ideas and watch as a dreamer in his sleep watches the dawning of day, watch ideas
take flesh and become expression of that which, at one time, was mirrored in the mind.
And we've all seen it happen, haven't we, an idea that you have? And you brood over it. You turn
it over and this way and that way. And finally, you are able to reduce the idea to a form that will
give it manifestation. And then, once the idea is, for instance, in time and space, the idea begins
to take on a character and a life and a history and a development of its own. But it is but an
expression of something that was in you that was not developed, but something that existed
whole, total, complete.
Now, how practical is this? What does this mean? The closest that I can come to an expression of
it is that when you love somebody, you see that person whole. This is why it is so difficult to find
a way to recognize the faults in someone you love.
You see them totally. You see them complete. And in your spirit, you deal with them totally. But
as you begin to express this in terms of your own pattern of details, what you express is always
so much less than what you see and sense. What you are trying to realize in a pattern of behavior
is but a broken manifestation of the thing which you see and sense and regard as whole.
Now, the baring of all of this on our journey is not far to seek-- that if it is true that there is in
every man that which is God, then growing in life means finding ways by which all the things in
your life that keep you from realizing in your own mind and spirit this which is inherent and
indigenous to you must be done away with so that we find in Eckhart a great deal of emphasis
upon getting rid of creatureliness. He says one-- in one place that, if I am able to empty myself of
creatureliness, if I am able to empty myself of the things that create conflict in me, if I'm able to
purify my life by putting out of it those things that block my visions, then automatically, he says,
the God in me gets on the move. And when it begins to move, it fills all the spaces that had been
occupied by my wedding to things, occupied by my anxieties, occupied by my acquisitiveness,
occupied by all of the things that keep me from being, in the language of the master, true to my
truest self.
And the same thing applies as he moves out into the world. He says, always, behind whatever
manifestation of the external world that I encounter, I must see that the Godhead, and let us not
be upset by his language-- the Godhead is trying to break through to the Godhead that is in me.
When, then, I, through quiet, through discipline and his great word through contemplation-when I am able, through focusing my life, to create in the upper regions of my being a vacuum
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that pulls the Godhead up through me so that it begins to manifest itself in all aspects of my life,
he summarizes by saying, what I sense in contemplation, I must express in love.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Always, then, he comes back to the same simple, but profound insight. Every man, be he rich or
poor, be he sane or insane, be he sick or well, be he wise or stupid, every man has the same
essential increment in him. And when I deal with a man, I am really dealing with this spark-- this
think line, as he calls it. And I am never, then, at liberty to deal with him on the basis of any
particular manifestation of his life.
But always, I must recognize that even in his goodness and in his badness and the things about
him that I despise or the things that I admire, always, that which is pushing from deep within
him, trying to move out so as to join with all of the other expressions of this in all creation, this is
the thing that I must honor in him and in me. And I must not sit in judgment then upon any
particular expression of my life and say, this is I. But always, I must do a double take behind all
of the expressions.
There is something that is trying to be born in me. And all of life, perhaps, is summarized in
trying to find ways by which this can be born in me, can break through, to use the contemporary
term-- break through and become radiant in all of the expressions of my life. And to deny this is
to deny all meaning not merely in me, but in those above me, and not merely in those above me,
but in the great world outside.
Speak to Him, thou, for he heareth. And spirit with spirit may meet. Closer is He than breathing,
nearer than hands and feet. It is a wonderful thing to me to know that God is not at the mercy of
the institution, not at the mercy of the book, not at the mercy of the sacrament. But He is as close
as is the breath I take.
What a boon this must have meant to those people back in the 14th century, dying like flies from
the Black Death, the church in a great battle, having no time from its struggle to administer to the
private, personal desperations of the little man. What a boon it must have been to them to feel
that the hunger in their heart could be answered in their heart, for the hunger for God perhaps can
never be separated from God, for it may be that God is the hunger. God is the hunger.
Leave us not either to the thoughts that we think or the things that we feel. But teach us how we
may trust thy spirit within us, O thou who lighteth every man that cometh into the world, our
Father.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHOIR SINGING]
5
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-649_A.html" ></iframe>
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
Time Period
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1960s
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394-649_A
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Meister Eckhart (3); The Inner Light (4), 1961 Oct 15, 22
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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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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
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1961-10-15
Description
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This sermon is the third of nine in a series of sermons given in Marsh Chapel that are titled "The Inward Journey." In this sermon, Thurman reflects upon Meister Eckhart's description of the Godhead. In his dissection of Eckhart's Godhead, Thurman wrestles with the tension between the external Godhead that exists in the world, and the internal Godhead that wrestles within the self, noting "The Godhead is trying to break through to the Godhead that is within me." Considering this sermon series' emphasis on mysticism and discovering the spirituality that is innate within human existence, Thurman uses the Godhead concept as a means to describe the indescribable nature of God, and God's relationship to the human experience.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
Autumn
Black Death
conflict
contemplation
creatureliness
Dominican
ecology
existentialism
geese
Germany
Godhead
grace
Haveford College
heart
Hegel
holiness
in-breaking
Incarnation
language
longing
love
manifestations of life
Matthew Arnold
Meister Eckhart
mysticism
panentheism
patterns
prayer
purification
Quakers
Rufus Jones
self-consciousness
Socrates
unknowingness
wholeness
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-178_A.mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
That the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and I cite, oh, Lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We are continuing this morning. I was thinking together about the experience of love. As
background for our idea this morning, I'm reading two paragraphs. There is a movement of the
heart that envelops another in varied patterns of joyous fulfillment and renewal. It cycles the
entire life at an atmosphere of wholeness that releases the self to grow, to expand without fear
and without penalty.
There comes a moment when the individual feels that he is deeply cared for at his center. Such
an awareness is not related to merit or demerit, to beauty or ugliness, to strength or weakness. It
is an awareness that is beyond all good and all evil as they are found in the life of the beloved.
The need for requitement, the desperate urgency to be loved in return for loving, or the searching
obligation to be worthy of so great an affection, all these drop away in the creative moment when
one human spirit at its deepest salutes and touches another human spirit at its deepest. When the
object of love is to center up on anything that is less than the very core of another, when it
becomes involved in the contemplation of virtues of qualities, or characteristics of its object, then
love becomes binding and stifling and possessive and sets no man free.
The movement of the heart that releases, renews, and recreates is a movement which gathers into
its sweep the total life of the beloved. To be made captive by such an invasion is to share in the
great surrender, without which there can be no freedom. Love at its best is to involve the
innermost center of the beloved. Love at its weakest is to involve something less than the center
of the beloved. They are not one and the same. Beware and confuse them not.
The working definition that we are using in this series is that love is the experience through
which an individual passes when he relates to another human being at a point in that human
being that is beyond all good and beyond all evil. And to be loved is the experience of being
dealt with at a point in oneself that is beyond all good and beyond all evil. Love, then, means,
essentially, trust, trust.
And trust, in my definition in this particular context, is to experience another person. Not merely
to believe in another person, not merely to believe in one's ability or to believe in the other
person's capabilities or even to believe in the other person's integrity. For this is essentially an
operation of the mind. It is a process of thought and reflection. When the mind lifts out some
particular characteristic of another person and holds it at dead center and contemplates it and
embraces it and envelops it and says this is that other person.
Now love operates-- in my point of view-- at a deeper level than this. It is to experience the other
person, to let the other person pass through you, and you pass through the other person. And in
1
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so doing you take in to the quality of your own being, the quantity of the other person. And this
is very, very important for it undertakes, then, to address itself to something in the other person
that is very private and very personal and very intimate.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is to deal with the person at the point where his own self-confidence operates. And we all have
this confidence in the self. We may not be aware of it at all times, but it is always operating. We
do not ever quite give it up.
For instance, you may not be as good as operating-- we do not ever quite give it up. For instance,
you may-- your husband or your mother or your father thinks you are, but you don't give yourself
up even though you have an inside track on all of the facts about yourself. You cling to yourself
with a kind of abiding enthusiasm. You don't give yourself up.
Now trust-- when another person trusts you-- it means that this person somehow activates this
essential quality of trust that is inherent in you, and it begins to grow and unfold and expand. So
that there comes into the life a quality of stability that enables the individual to go through many
rough places without excitement. Two simple illustrations occur to me.
Some years ago when my dog Kropotkin was just a puppy, and we wanted him to be taught how
to respond to behavior under pressure and so forth. We took him to a kennel, and there he was
taken over and the kennel keeper said when I brought him in, what is it that you want me to teach
this dog? And I said, I want him to learn three or four basic rules-- how to respond when he's
called even though other things are going on, in other words, how to recognize his name under
pressure, how to wait at the curb until I get there and to walk along after the dangers of crossing
our path-- these simple things.
He said, well, that should not be too difficult. He said, you know, I have been training dogs for
about 17 years, and in the course of these 17 years my life is surrounded with a certain kind of
acceptance-- the kind of dog acceptance-- so that any dog I see is at once enveloped into this
climate of acceptance. But, he said, my experience is that it takes me about two weeks to activate
the trust in the dog so that the dog will trust me. Now he said, if the dog will trust me then I can
teach him anything else.
But if I cannot activate this basic trust in the dog then I can't teach him anything. So to me is
time enough and if it ended to me I have not been able to activate the trust in your dog then I'll
call you and you can come and get him because the rest of the time would said to be wasted. This
idea, you see, that there is a way to relate to another living thing at a point of trust so that the
trust that is inherent in the individual will begin to activate itself and stabilize the life.
Another very simple illustration I picked up in a newspaper last summer when I was in San
Francisco. It carried a dateline of July 8, I believe, and the city was Denver. It described how a
high school girl was given a very unique kind of job.
She was hired at the veterans hospital as a mice petter. Her job was to take these white mice out
of their cages three, four, five, 10, 12 times a day and to pet them and croon over them and gentle
them because they discovered that mice that were petted in this way, that something deeper in
them was so stimulated-- a certain intrinsic self-confidence and assurance and immunization
2
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
against the pressures of the environment-- that they responded to treat to various kinds of
experiments. They did not crack up under pressure.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now this is essentially what I mean. When you love a person and there is trust-- for you can love
without trust-- then you love aspects of the person. But when you love in the sense that I am
defining it, it means that you trust. And when you trust it means that you experience the other
person. In other words, the other person passes through you and you absorb some of the texture
of their flavor and themselves. And this becomes a part of your own texture.
And you are capable then of dealing with them in a profound sense as if you are dealing with
yourself. To love them means to deal with a person at a point in that person that is beyond all
virtues, beyond all goodness and beyond all evil, and to be loved is the experience of being dealt
with at a point in one's self that is beyond all virtue and beyond all merit and demerit. In other
words, to love means to be totally dealt with, and to be loved is to have a sense of being totally
dealt with.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable and I cite, oh, Lord, my
rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
3
�
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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/394-178_A.html" ></iframe>
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Love and Self-Confidence, 1959 Nov 6
Time Period
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1950s
Location
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-178_A
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Love and Self-Confidence (1959-11-06)
Date
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1959-11-06
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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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<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.
Description
An account of the resource
In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman unpacks his understanding of love, the experience of love, and the nature of love. Thurman describes love at its best to be an involvement with the "innermost center of the beloved." Thurman describes the experience of love as being "totally dealt with," noting that trust, responsibility, and consent all point to the creative moment that composes one's understanding of "love." Love is shared, love is transcendent, and love speaks to the most profound truth that one can find at the center of one's existence.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
center
creative moment
dog
experience
fluid center
love
Peter Kropotkin
spirit
trust
urgency
wholeness
-
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239f8867074867c63d01c0af7266e888
PDF Text
Text
Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-017_A.mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) We are the [INAUDIBLE].
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
It is with a sense of enormous relief and reassurance, our Father, that we come into Thy
presence, with our lives as they are, confident that Thou will understand us and deal with each of
us in accordance to his needs. It is such a relief, our Father, not to be under any necessity to
pretend anything to be, but to be open and free-- not trying to hide from Thy scrutiny, but to
spread before Thee the whole story, both the things that are good and the things that are sordid,
the things that are worthy of the best that is in us and the things of which we are so terribly
ashamed.
We make no demands upon Thy Spirit for we ask nothing. We are in Thy presence as we are.
Oh, love of God, love of God, You with us in this weary moment-- what God would do with us
we trust Thee, our Father, as best we can. And beyond that, we yield to Thy grace, oh, God our
Father.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In the quest for peace-- this will be divided into two parts. This morning, I shall deal primarily
with peace in terms of the individual's experience with his own life and in the context of human
relations. And, next Sunday, I shall deal with the quest for peace in terms of that which broods
over our common life, as the possibilities of complete and devastating destruction. I want to take
an extra minute or two to read something that is important for our thinking. So consider this as a
part of the sermon.
A man cried up to God. And God sent down an angel to help him. And the angel came back and
said to God, I cannot help that man.
And God said, how is it with him? And the angel said, he cries out continually that someone has
injured him. And he would forgive him. And he cannot forgive him.
And God said, what have you done for him? And the angel said, I have done all. I took him by
the hand. And I said, look, when other men speak ill of that man, you speak well of him.
Secretly, in ways he shall not know, serve him. If you have anything you value, share it with
him. So, serving him, you will at last come to feel possession in him and you will forgive him.
And the man said, I will do it.
Afterwards, as I passed by, in the dark of night, I heard one crying out, I have done all. It helps
nothing. My speaking well of him helps me not at all. If I share my heart's blood with him, is the
burning within me less? I cannot forgive. I can't do it.
1
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Transcription
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And I said to him, look back on your own past. See from your childhood all smallness, all
indirectness that has been yours. Look well at it. And in its light, do you not see every man your
brother? Are you so sinless you have a right to hate?
He looked. And he said, yes, you are right. I too have failed. And I forgive my fellow.
Pitts Theology Library
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Go. I am satisfied. I have forgiven. And he laid him down peacefully and folded his hands on his
breast. And I thought it was well with him.
But scarcely had my wings rustled and I turned to come up here, when I heard one crying out on
Earth again-- I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive. Oh, God, I cannot forgive.
It is better to die than to hate. I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive. And I went and stood outside his
door in the dark. And I heard him cry, I have not sinned so, not so.
If I have torn my fellow's flesh ever so little, I have kneeled down and kissed the wound with my
mouth till it was healed. I have not willed that any soul should be lost through hate of me. If they
have but fancied that I wronged them, I have laid on the ground before them that they might
tread on me and so, seeing my humiliation, forgive and not be lost through hating me.
They have not cared that my soul should be lost. They have not willed to save me. They have not
tried that I should forgive them.
I said to him, be content then. Do not forgive. Forget this soul and its injury. Go on your way-- in
the next world, perhaps.
He cried, go from me. You understand nothing. What is the next world to me? I am lost now,
today.
I cannot see the sunlight shine. The dust is in my throat. The sand is in my eyes. Go from me.
You know nothing.
Oh, once again, before I die, to see that the world is beautiful-- oh, God, God, I cannot live and
not love. I cannot live and hate, oh God, God, God. So I left him crying and came back up here.
And God said, this man's soul must be saved. And the angel said, how? And God said, you go
down and save him.
And the angel said, what more can I do? And then God bent down and whispered in the angel's
ear. And the angel spread out its wings and went down to the Earth. And partly I awoke. And
then I went to sleep again.
The angel went down and found the man with the bitter heart, took him by the hand, and led him
to a certain spot. Now, the man wist not where it was the angel would take him or what he would
show him there. And when they came, the angel shaded the man's eyes with his wing. And when
he moved it, the man saw someone on the Earth before them. For God had given it to that angel
to unclothe a human soul, to take from it all those outward attributes of form and color and age
and sex, whereby one man is known from among his followers and is marked off from the rest.
2
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The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
And the soul laid bare before them, as a man turning his eye inwards beholds himself. They saw
its past, its childhood, the tiny life with the dew upon it. They saw its youth when the dew was
melting and the creature raised its mouth to drink from a cup too large for it. And they saw how
the water spilled.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
They saw its hopes that were never realized. They saw its hours of intellectual blindness men call
sin. They saw its hours of all-radiating insight, which men call righteousness. They saw its hour
of strength when it leaped to its feet, crying, I am omnipotent, its hour of weakness when it fell
to the earth and grasped dust only. They saw what it might have been but never would be.
The man bent forward. And the angel said, what is it? He answered, it is I. It is myself. And he
went forward, as if he would have lain his heart against it.
But the angel held him back and covered his eyes. Now God had given power to the angel
further to unclothes that soul, to take from it all those outward attributes of time and place and
circumstance, whereby the individual life is marked off from the life of the whole. Again, the
angel uncovered the man's eyes. And he looked.
He saw before him that which, in its tiny drops, reflects the whole universe. He saw that which
marks within itself the step of the furthest star and tells how the crystal grows underground
where no eye has seen it, that which is where the germ in the egg stirs, which moves the
outstretched fingers of the little newborn babe and keeps the leaves of the trees pointing
upwards, which moves where the jellyfish sail along on the sunny seas, and it's where the lichens
form on the mountain's rock.
And the man looked. And the angel touched him. But the man bowed his head and shuddered.
He whispered, it is God.
And the angel recovered the man's eyes now. And when he uncovered them, there was walking
from them a little way off. For the angel had reclothed the soul in its outward form and vesture.
And the man knew who it was.
And the angel said, do you know him? And the man said, I know him. And the angel said, have
you forgiven him? And the angel looked into the man's eyes as he said, how beautiful my brother
is.
And the angel shaded his own face with his wing from the light. The angel laughed softly and
went up to God. But the men were together on the earth.
The quest for peace is an ancient quest for the human spirit. Peace is a sense of well-being, a
sense of being at one within oneself, the sense of being in active and creative correspondence
with one's environment. It is the sense of inner togetherness. It is a sense of tranquility, a sense of
being whole. And the quest for it is a persistent one. That is, the peace of innocence when there
is an inner sense of wholeness and completeness that has not been sullied by any things that
invade and disrupt. It is a peace of little children, who have not been brutalized and whose lives
have not been outraged by the madness and the distemper and the conflicts of the environment. It
is the peace that is peaceful because that's all that knows.
3
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Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And wherever knowledge invades, the peace is ruptured. And there is no more critical problem,
with which those of us who are engaged in education, than this. How can in you help young
people move from innocence to knowledge without the inner disturbance that may become
chronic in terms of some form of guilt? How can the guilt be made to work as redemptive
energy, forcing and guiding the individual to establish in the knowledge the tranquility that once
upon a time was present in the absence of knowledge?
Then, of course, there is the peace that belongs to those who are exhausted. The peace that is
yours because you have burned out everything. And there isn't anything left. The peace that
comes to people in whom all of the ability to feel is dead. Dead.
Of course, the perfect art illustration of this lesson, I'll mention it in passing, is the statute on the
grave of the wife of Henry Adams in the old part of the Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington
DC. It is a statue done by Saint Gaudens. And it is of a woman seated in the chair, resting her
chin on her right hand. Her whole body is draped in a greenish call that covers everything,
including her feet, except her face and this one hand. And she's looking straight ahead. Her face
is dead. Her eyes are dead. There aren't anymore tears to shed. She's not like one of my friend's
grandchildren, who told him, "I'm not crying anymore, but I haven't turned off my tears." There
is that kind of peace.
Then there is the peace of reconciliation. When you've had a rupture in your relationship with
somebody and through great trouble and anguish, they have finally been able to forgive. Jesus
talks about this. If, in going to present your gift before God, he says, and you remember that
there is aught in someone's mind and spirit against you, don't pretend before the alter that all is
well, he says. Leave your gift. It'll keep. Go, he says. Fly. Seek out. And put at the disposal of
the relationship all of your own [? tongues ?] of understanding and reconciliation and
forgiveness. Whether you're forgiven or not, to forgive. And to free yourself of that which binds
within. Then, come back and say to God, I've done all I can. Accept the gift, even as you accept
me. Because all that matters-- the hate, bitterness has been drained out of me.
There is the peace that comes from conformity. It is a peace of cowardice. This peace is the
wrong way, but I think it's the right word here. The peace that is maintained all the time because
you fail to do anything but affirm. Don't want to make an enemy. You don't want to disturb. You
don't want to perturb. So you stretch yourself out of shape. And do all kinds of internal violences
to your spirit to maintain external harmony, while deep within yourself, you have lost respect for
yourself.
Then there is the peace that is the-- that represents triumph. Triumph over one's weaknesses.
When one has wars within, and one been assailed by temptations that hound and dog one's
footsteps as an emissary from hell. And one runs and juggles and shifts. One does everything,
until at last, one has to turn around and look into the face of that which seeks to undermine and
destroy the life and join it. Wrestle. Until out of some deeper region there begins slowly to flow
up into one's spirit, that which gives courage and strength. That which is the [? Angelus ?] of
God. Then there's quiet. And one may fail again and again and again. But against the failure,
something is always pushing, if I seek it.
And I do not understand it. I do not understand it. I don't know how the miracle takes place when
it does. All that I know is, there are times when we triumph. Maybe this is what Isaiah means.
4
�Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
They been waiting for the Lord to renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings as eagles.
They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Maybe this is what he means.
But no one can understand it from outside of it. One has to be in the churning vortex of this to
make the great discovery.
Pitts Theology Library
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And then, finally, there's a peace that comes that represents not victory, but trials. Trials. This is
as a shade of difference here and my thinking about it. It is the-- it is what Felix Adler calls the
peace that passeth understanding. He says that when a man is hungry and gets food to eat, or is
sick and gets well, or lonely and finds a friend, that he can understand the sense of physical and
emotional well-being that is his. This kind of peace he can understand. But he says, the peace
that passeth understanding is the peace that comes when the pain of life is not relieved. It is the
peace that comes shimmering on the crest of a wave of pain. It is the spear of frustration,
transformed into a shaft of light. It is the peace that one finds when the condition doesn't change.
When there is no ministering angel who comes to aid externally. When you get up in the
morning, the situation is just as it was-- as far as your condition is concerned, as it was when you
went to bed at night.
But to look into the depths of the pain until you see the face of a friend. This is triumph. God
help us all. When that season is upon us, we shall remember We shall remember.
(SINGING) I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies. No sudden rending of the veil of clay. But take
the dimness of us away. Oh God. God, take the dimness of our soul away.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
5
�
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Title
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Quests of the Human Spirit (1962, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA)
Description
An account of the resource
”Quests for the Human Spirit” is an eleven-part lecture series focused on the creative process of self-actualization. Thurman shows how this process centers and affirms a person’s purpose in life. Discussing pursuits like freedom, stability, values, identity, and integrity, he illuminates the importance of questing in identity formation.
Date
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1962
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Descriptions by Dr. Tim Rainey
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Audio with Transcription
<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-017_A.html" ></iframe>
Internal Notes
Notes for project team
*"relationship all of your own [? tongues ?]" >> powers
*Angelus
- GL 5/15/19
Location
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
Time Period
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1960s
Original Title
Title as transcribed from tape cassette
Quests of the Human Spirit (IX): The Quest for Peace, part 1, 1962 May 6
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394-017_A
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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Quests of the Human Spirit, Part 9: The Quest for Peace, 1962 May 6
Date
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1962-05-06
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.
Description
An account of the resource
In the first of this two-part lecture, Thurman defines peace as a sense of “inner togetherness.” Experiences of peace are diverse and unfold through manifestations of innocence, exhaustion, reconciliation, conformity, and triumph. Here, Thurman emphasizes peace associated with “trials.” He does so because only tranquility on these terms persist within when external conditions do not change. This, he says, is the peace that passes all understanding.
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
Contributor
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Description by Dr. Tim Rainey
forgiveness
peace
tranquility
wholeness