Howard Thurman - Deep is the Hunger: Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness

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Text originally published in 1951 under the same title.

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DEEP IS THE HUNGER

Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness

by

HOWARD THURMAN

Contents

To

The Resident Members and Members-at-Large

of

The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples

My custom is to write a weekly meditation for the calendar of the Sunday services at our church. As a result of many requests, fifty of these meditations were first published in 1947, followed, a year later, by a second edition which included fifty additional meditations. The response has been such that a third edition, greatly enlarged, is now being sent forth to reach an even wider audience. Included in this edition is a special group of twenty-five working papers, which we have used in the thirty-minute meditation period which precedes the service each Sunday morning. It is hoped that they will find a place of meaning in the lives of those who, though not a part of our service, share profoundly in the same quest and hunger for God.

The title, Apostles of Sensitiveness , was used as the subject of an address which I gave at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in February, 1946, under the auspices of the Interracial Fellowship of Greater New York. I am deeply of the mind that there is a need for materials of refreshment, challenge and renewal for those who are intent upon establishing islands of fellowship in a sea of racial, religious and national tensions. My experiences in sharing in the development of a church dedicated to so crucial an understanding underscore very simply the character of the desperate need for resource materials; that is the demand which called into being these paragraphs. The attempt is not to set forth a connected series of observations or reflections, but rather to throw a shaft of light on aspects of thought, of life, of religious experience, as they are encountered in the daily round.

Appreciation is due and gladly acknowledged to those who typed and retyped the manuscript: Mrs. Elizabeth Buchanan Miss Leila Bohall, Miss Marjorie Branch, Miss Louise Bessett and Miss Leila Hinton; and to Miss Julia Lee and Miss Grace Marrett who read the entire manuscript and gave many helpful suggestions. A very special word of appreciation to Miss Adena Joy, assistant minister of the Church, without whose technical skill, incisive mind and editorial wisdom the manuscript in its present form would not have been possible.

HOWARD THURMAN

November, 1950

The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples

San Francisco

Concerning Apostles of Sensitiveness:

And it is my prayer that your love may be more and more rich in knowledge and all manner of insight, enabling you to have a sense of what is vital....; thus writes the Apostle Paul to the Church at Philippi. To have a sense of what is vital, a basic and underlying awareness of life and its potentialities at every level of experience, this is to be an Apostle of Sensitiveness.

THERE is a universal urgency for both personal and social stability. This urgency can find fulfillment along several lines. A fresh sense of history must be developed. All the events of our world must be placed in a context of incident that reveals their profound interrelatedness. History on this planet must be regarded not as individual happenings unrelated to social processes, but, instead, as overlapping patterns of group behavior brought into play by a wide variety of creative personal and impersonal forces at work in the world. History is not irrational; it has a deep logic and consistency. God is the God of history. He does not stand apart as some mighty spectator but is in the process and the facts, ever shaping them (in ways that we can understand and in ways beyond our powers to grasp) to ends that fulfill a great and good destiny for men. This is no idle or pious wish. Examine the past and behold the unfolding of living process.

EVERYBODY knows that something has happened. Just when it happened, no one knows. But there is complete agreement that somewhere, something very important has given way and all sorts of things are pulled out of shape, or are sagging or falling apart. The results? Nerves! There is a sense of fear as of some impending doom around the next turning in the road. There seems to be a climate of disaster that does not quite materialize into cataclysmic incident; only a general loss of morale. Explanations abound. Some say that we are caught in the open independence of the sea, far away from any port, and a storm of world revolution is upon us. They point to the breaking up of century-old social patterns all over the world. India is free for the first time in centuries and deep within that freedom there is the division of Pakistan and Hindu. Nevertheless, the ferment within the country could not be stopped by half-measures; the great mass of Untouchables, by a stroke of the pen, are given freedom of movement and person within the wider political and social freedom of the country itself. Illustrations may be multiplied from the ends of the earth as well as from within our own country. Who would have dreamed that a report like To Secure These Rights would have been projected and produced by the Democratic party, the party of the Solid South? There is the fact that we have passed through a period of total war. Always in the past, war has been the specialized function of a particular group within the state, set up and organized for the purpose. But total war is new. By total war is meant that every man, woman and child in the state was somehow involvedalso that every conceivable resource of the national life was involvedthat every social force was oriented to that end. This meant, and continues to mean, that no one may claim detachment. The result is deep strains and stresses in the soul of a people, for which they had no preparation and from which there seems to be no sure basis for recovery. One could go on to call attention to the development and use of the atomic bomb. Many persons are sure not only that the development of the bomb marked the initiation of a new era for mankind but that it also killed something precious in the life of the race.

THERE is much discussion concerning what seems to be an increasing restlessness among people. This restlessness takes many forms. Sometimes it appears in easy irritation over matters of little or no consequence. Sometimes it results in the sudden rupturing of old ties of family, job and friends. It may be a general instability making for an unwillingness to assume responsibilities and to fulfill obligations. In its simplest and often most crucial form, it makes concentration on anything difficult because of an apparent futility. One of the reasons for this restlessness is not far to seek. During the past decade, the world has gone through a series of tremendous social upheavals, upsetting the equilibrium of the daily lives of millions of people everywhere. What has happened in Russia, Europe, Asia, the Orient and the United States has been more than the mind could adjust to without leaving in its wake a residue of impending uncertainty and, perhaps, even doom. In addition, there is upsetting of the balance in nature, whose children we are, by the far-reaching effects of atomic research and developments. This development has undoubtedly communicated to the physical organism a subtle unbalance creating overtones of ill-at-easeness in the mind and in the consequent behavior of us all. The list is by no means exhausted. But there is a deeper restlessness that belongs to the very structure of personality. Always roaming with a hungry heart, this is man in his essential nature. This characteristic has been and continues to be a primary concern of religion. Sometimes it is referred to as the divine discontent in the heart. Certain mystics call it the homing instinct in the human spirit. One characterizes it as the flight of the alone to the Alone. The classic expression of it in Christianity is the oft-quoted overtone from Augustine, Thou hast made us for thyself and our souls are restless till they find their rest in Thee. A modern poet suggests that God gave to man every gift but rest so that man would never be at ease, finally, except with God. In quietness and meditation, one must distinguish between the two dimensions of restlessness so as not to confuse them. After all, they may be one and the same. To the man who has found his rest in God, there comes the strength to reduce all the ill-at-easeness to manageable units of control, making for tranquility in the midst of change and upheaval.