Joy is of Many Kinds

Joy is of many kinds. Sometimes it comes silently, opening all closed doors and making itself at home in the desolate heart. It has no forerunner save itself; it brings its own welcome and salutation.

Sometimes joy is compounded of many elements: a touch of sadness, a whimper of pain, a harsh word tenderly held until all its arrogance dies, the casting of the eye into the face that understands, the clasp of the hand that holds, then releases, a murmur of tenderness where no word is spoken, the distilled moment of remembrance of a day, a night, an hour, lived beyond the sweep of the daily round—joy is often compounded of many things.

There is earned joy: an impossible job tackled and conquered, leaving no energy for assessing the price of or measuring the cost, only an all-inclusive sense of well-being in the mind, and slowly creeping through all the crevices of the spirit—or it may be some dread has reared its head, gathering into itself all hope that is unassigned, until it becomes the master of the house, then relief that the president's ideology comes through fresh knowledge, new insight, clear vision. What was dread now proves groundless and the heart takes two wings like an eagle in its flight.

There is the joy that is given. There are those who have in themselves the gift of Joy. It has no relation to merit or demerit. It is not a quality they have rested from the vicissitudes of life. Such people have not fought and won a hard battle, they have made no conquest. To them Joy is a given as a precious ingredient in life. Wherever they go, they give birth to Joy in others—they are the heavenly troubadours, earthbound, who spread their music all around and who sing their song without words and without sounds. To be touched by them is to be blessed of God. They give even as they have been given. Their presence is a benediction and a grace. In then we hear the music in the score, and in their faces we sense the glory which is the very light of Heaven.

(For the Inward Journey: the writings of Howard Thurman.
Selected by Anne Spencer Thurman. pages 251-252
Originally published in The Inward Journey)`

Another Wednesday. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. I will note that last night I listened with admiration and deep joy as Sen. Corey Booker completed his twenty-five hours (plus!) speech to Congress. I had spent and will spend a day with my sister Donna. And I made the choice to include (above) a writing that Thurman himself associated with the Christmas season. Lots of ways to prepare for Easter.

Introduction to Thurman’s life, by Vincent Harding
(part four, continued from the March 26th post)

In 1965 Howard Thurman formally retired from Boston University, having gradually withdrawn from active leadership over a two year period to provide for a smooth transition. He and Sue returned to San Francisco, a city he loved and the site of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust they had established. The trust was a base for them, but just as important, the gifts received by the trust from friends and supporters enabled Howard to continue and expand his career-long pledge to help young people seeking an education, just as he had been helped many times along the way. Meanwhile, he tried to meet some of the demands from across the country for his presence as lecturer, counselor, preacher, and teacher, and he organized a series of small seminars for young leaders. All the while, Sue kept reminding him that he was not the young man of the 1930s and 1940s anymore. Sometimes he listened. Sometimes his body, especially his lungs, forced him to change pace.

It was during that post-Boston University period that I first met Howard Thurman (although I sometimes feel I have never not known him). He came to speak in Atlanta while I was teaching at Spelman College, and I went to visit with him, for I had long known and appreciated his work, initially through Jesus and the Disinherited. From that first encounter in the mid-1960s, my family and I found the Howard Thurman who had watered so many lives in deep, deep places.

I remember the times in his San Francisco study or living room, especially after our time of mourning for our mutual loss of Martin King. I recall how carefully and sympathetically he questioned me about the Black Power/Black Identity movement. “What are the young people doing, what are they thinking, where do you think they're going?” Critical, compassionate, hopeful, and eager to understand—he was all of these things as we talked into the night. Often his great eyes would be filled with mischievousness, and he'd have an appropriate story to tell—and he always enjoyed the stories at least as much as anyone else. Sometimes his stocky frame would shake with laughter. This was an earthy mystic, filled with pranks and jokes, ever ready to laugh at himself, at life, at anything else close at hand. This was a perambulating mystic, tiring out younger folks on his walks up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco.

I remember going to him in times of deep personal need, sometimes talking by phone, sometimes face to face. He was always solidly present, listening, understanding, admonishing when necessary, sharing silence, surrounding and undergirding me with prayers, doing whatever else seemed helpful. We could feel Howard and Sue keeping our entire family in a special place of love and meditation between them. I remember our silences. They were filled with his wisdom and compassion. Indeed, it may be that he was the wisest man and most compassionate man I have ever known.

(For the Inward Journey: the writings of Howard Thurman.
Selected by Anne Spencer Thurman. pages xiii-xiv)