Tagged: Howard Thurman
“A [human] life is a single statement. This does not seem to be the case because we measure our lives episodically, in terms of events, particular circumstances and experiences. But every incident is but a partial rendering of the total life. Some events are marked by dramatic intervals, by pain or joy, which may cause us to mark the place and to memorialize it for all our days. They are watershed moments.” – Howard Thurman, With Head and Heart
Long Live Life!
Howard Thurman
From Meditations of the Heart
There is something which seems utterly final about the end of a year. It means that we are one year older; this is a fact definite and inexorable. We are twelve months closer to the end of our physical timespan—one year closer to death. It means that in some important ways we are taken farther from, or brought closer to, the goal of our living, whatever that goal may be. It means that some crucial questions which were unanswered twelve months ago have been finally and decidedly answered, and whatever doubts there may have been about the result are completely removed; now, we know. It means that we are in fuller or lesser possession of ourselves and our powers than ever before.
During the passing of the twelve months, experiences have come into our lives which revealed certain things about ourselves which we had not suspected. Some new demand was made upon us which caused us to behave in a manner that was stranger to our established patter of life, and we felt shocked, surprised, enraged or delighted that such was possible for us. We met someone with whom we built the kind of relationship which opened up to us new worlds of wonder and magic, which were completely closed to us a year a go. It means that we are wiser by far than we were at year’s beginning.
The circling series of events upon whose bosom we have been wafted cut away our pretensions, stripping us bare of much beneath which we have hidden even from ourselves; when we saw ourselves revealed, there was born a wisdom about life and its meaning that makes us say with all our hearts, this day, that life is good, not evil. It means that we have been able to watch, as if bewitched, while the illumined finger of God pointed out a path through the surrounding darkness where no path lay; exposed to our surprised gaze a door where we were sure there was only a blank wall; revealed the strong arms and assuring voices of friends when we were sure that in our plight we were alone, utterly and starkly alone.
All of these meanings and many more counsel us that because life is dynamic and we are deeply alive, the end of the year can mean only the end of the year, not the end of life, not the end of us, not even the end of time. We turn our faces toward the year being born with a riding hope that will carry us into the days ahead with courage and with confidence. The old year dies; the new year is being born—Long Live Life!
Let Go of Everything but God
Howard Thurman
From Deep is the Hunger
I must let go.
For so long I have held to the habit of holding on.
Even my muscles
Are tense; deeply fearful are they
Of relaxing lest they fall away from their place.
I cling clutchingly to my friends
Lest I lose them.
I live under the shadow of being supplanted by another.
I cling to my money, not so much
By a wise economy and a thoughtful spending
But by a sense of possession that makes me depend upon it for strength.
I must let go—
Deep at the core of me
I must have a sense of freedom—-
A sure awareness of detachment—of relaxation.
I must let go of everything.
I must let go of pride. But—
What am I saying? Is there not a sense of pride
That supports and sustains all achievement,
Even the essential dignity of my own personality?
It may be that I must let go
My dependence upon triumphing over the fellows, which seems
To give me a sense of security in their midst.
I cringe from my pain; I do not relish
The struggle of life but I do not want to let go
Because the hurt and the tension of contest feed
The springs of my pride. They make me deeply aware.
But I must let go of everything.
I must let go of everything but God.
But God—May it not be
That God is in all the things to which I cling?
That may be the hidden reason for my clinging.
It is all very puzzling indeed. When I say
I must “let go of everything but God”
What is my meaning?
I must relax my hold on everything that dulls my sense of Him,
That comes between me and the inner awareness of His Presence
Pervading my life and glorifying
All the common ways with wonderful wonder.
“Teach me, O God, how to free myself of dearest possessions,
So that in my trust I shall find restored to me
all I need to walk in Thy path and to fulfill Thy will.
Let me know Thee for myself that I may not be satisfied
With aught that is less.
“Life is seen as being something to conquer, to struggle with and against. Life is the enemy. It is not to be embraced, to be lived. Hence we creep through our days, reacting to our world as if our faith were in magic, rather than in life.
[Humans] must experience life; they must feel it run through their whole being that life belongs to them and they to life…The test of life is to be found in the amount of pain, of frustration, they can absorb without spoiling their joy in living. To keep alive an original sense of aliveness is to know that life is its own restraint and a [human] is able to stand anything that life can do.”
-Howard Thurman, The Inward Journey
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