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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Tags: 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

Description by Dustin Mailman

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Meister Eckhart (3); The Inner Light (4), 1961 Oct 15, 22,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1071.

This sermon is the second of nine in a series of sermons given in Marsh Chapel that are titled "The Inward Journey." In this sermon, Thurman reflects upon Jacob Boehme's philosophical text "The Mystic Will." Thurman uses this text to make sense of the order that is embedded in the natural world. He notes that it is a natural inclination for humans to make sense of the order of their life by means of external resources; however, with the help of Boehme's writing, Thurman emphasizes that one must also utilize internal resources to make sense of the order of one's life.

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Tags: creativity, external world, German, Incarnation, intention, Jacob Boehme, mysticism, order, personality, philosophy, pigeon, poetry, prayer, questions of the human spirit, religious experience, revelation, sparrow, spirit, The Mystic Will

Dustin Mailman

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “The Innward Journey (1); Jacob Boehme: The Mystic Will (2), 1961 Oct 1, 8, Side B,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1070.

This sermon is the first of nine in a series of sermons given in Marsh Chapel that are titled "The Inward Journey." In this sermon, Thurman questions the ways in which one is seeking fullness, freedom, and responsibility. Though it is tempting to seek these ideals of the human spirit in the external world, Thurman notes that it is within the internal spirit, the voice of the genuine that is within all, that one may actualize one's potential for fullness, freedom, and responsibility. It is in the act of "centering down," that one gives themselves the opportunity to find the voice of the genuine within themselves, thus actualize the potential that rests within oneself.

Part of the Collection, NA

Tags: center down, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, division, Genesis, Halley's Comet, Hitler, immunity, Incarnation, inward journey, Kingdom of God, Marsh Chapel, metaphysical purpose, Mr. Conrad, musk deer, Mussolini, Noah, order, pills, prayer, preaching, preliminaries, remnant, seedbed, sermon, sound of the genuine, temporality, traffic, violence

Dustin Mailman

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “The Innward Journey (1); Jacob Boehme: The Mystic Will (2), 1961 Oct 1, 8,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1069.

In this final sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman finishes with the prophet's dream of lion and lamb lying down together. Thurman says that those who dream of utopia and community often make them on the basis of discrimination – there are insiders and there are outsiders who stand as threat to community. For this reason, Thurman says that the dream of community must extend to all living things, a dream in which no manifestation of life will be a threat. In this sermon, Thurman offers one of his main theses: meaningful experiences of unity are more compelling than the things that divide. It is these experiences that will undermine the barriers that separate, and bring the prophet's dream into frutition.

Part of the Collection, Community and the Will of God

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Community and Prophet's Dream II, 1961 May 21,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1067.

In this sixth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman explores the ideas that influence our search for community. There is the idea that the meaning of human life is to be found beyond humanity, in the God that both moves in history and transcends history. Thurman says that this idea inspires our belief in universal order and the infinite worth of human beings. This is the foundation of democracy and our dreams of utopia, but Thurman says that this belief is disintegrating in society. Thurman says that without this fundamental belief, there can be no sense of community, and thus a society cannot support itself, for the prophets say that the knowledge of God will cover the Earth, bringing people of all sorts and circumstances to know their absolute worth before God.

Part of the Collection, Community and the Will of God

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Community and Prophet's Dream I, 1961 May 14,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1066.

In this fifth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman reads from several pieces, each pertaining to the realities of war and the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thurman says that, for the first time in human history, a single man could extinguish the entire human race, even accidentally. Religious tradition has always kept alive the possibility that, even with great destruction, some human remnant would pick up the pieces and continue the redemptive work of God. But if there are no human beings left, then that redemptive possibility is nothing. Thurman ends says that no one is exempt from responsibility: We each must creatively seek a way for human life to still have chance in the world, to participate in the will of God.

Part of the Collection, Community and the Will of God

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Community of Fear, 1961 May 7,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1065.

In this fourth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman talks about the notion of the Self. At some point in our development, we begin to discriminate between ourselves and the rest of the world. When we build the bounds of Self, we also meet the social community in which our Self is embedded. We have a deep, original need for the fulfillment of community. To develop the Self in community is to reclaim this sense of inner wholeness in which we find ourselves as a part of the whole of life. In this, our personalities are brought into focus and all our activities are renewed with purpose and tranquility.

Part of the Collection, Community and the Will of God

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Community and the Self, 1961 April 16,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1064.

In this third sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman illustrates what it means to be a living creature. According to Thurman, life is always unfolding towards the fulfillment of community. Looking at human beings, Thurman sees that there is an organic harmony in our bodies, each organ working towards biological community. The mind, however, has been separated from this harmony, and must learn again how to be at home in the body. By this, both mind and body together can fulfill the intent of life, which is the very will of God.

Part of the Collection, Community and the Will of God

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Community and Creatureliness, 1961 April 9,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1063.

In this second sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman delves deeper into innocence. We are born innocent, with a sense of inner wholeness; however we eventually lose this innocence and find ourselves between our highest ideals and the reality of our lives. This tension between who we are and who we strive to be creates an inner need for balance. Thurman says that this is the nature and fate of human beings: to seek the redemption of wholeness after this loss of innocence. In this search for community and wholeness, we seek what God seeks.

Part of the Collection, Community and the Will of God

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Innocence and Goodness, 1961 March 5,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1062.

In this first sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman describes community as a structure and a goal that is inherent in life. Everything is striving to fulfill itself in community. This movement towards harmony is what binds and interconnects the lives and actions of living beings. With this intertwining comes the reality of personal responsibility. To know that we are connected to others in this way is to lose a degree of innocence. Drawing on the story of the Garden of Eden, Thurman says that human beings are trying to work their way back to the garden, not as innocents who are ignorant to the world, but as people consciously dedicated to the work of harmony.

Part of the Collection, Community and the Will of God

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Community and Innocence, 1961 February 26,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1061.