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." In this recording, Howard Thurman reflects with the participants what it means to live into one's calling as an offering of Thanksgiving to God. At the center of navigating his sense of calling, Thurman indicates that life feeds off of itself, and that it is in one's recognition of life's innate interwovenness, that the only response one's mind can have is making sense of one's lived reality.

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: Albert Schweitzer, Brooklyn, calling, conversation, Cornell University, creative encounter, doctrine, dynamism, historical Jesus, John R. Mott, journey, life feeding upon life, light, meaning making, meaning of life, meditation, Meister Eckhart, mind, mysticism, Oak Tree, oyster bed, Quakers, religious experience, Rufus Jones, San Francisco, swamp, tape recorder

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in NA

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Conversations with Howard Thurman, September 1980, Parts 1 and 2, Side B,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/298.