Friends Five-Year Meeting, Part 3: Jesus and the Natural Order (continued), 1969 July 22

Description

In this brief add-on to Thurman's sermon on Jesus and the Natural order, Thurman discusses the paradox that human beings are at once a part of the natural order, and yet also seem to be over and against nature. Human beings always feel themselves to be threatened by the impersonal forces of nature, which ultimately feeds the fear that perhaps we are alone, cut off, isolated in this world. If only the world could acknowledge us, to know our private world of hopes, dreams, and aspirations, perhaps we would feel comforted and assured. For this reason, Thurman says we are always trying to put a human face onto the world of nature so that we may be in conversation with it. For this reason, Thurman spoke to the ocean and to the stars as a boy, hoping to break his isolation.