In Love with Life

Sometime before his death, Arthur Ashe was asked a question: If he could spend an evening with three of the most important persons in all of history, who would they be? He named Jesus, Albert Einstein, and Howard Thurman. Jesus is known as the central figure of the Christian religion, Albert Einstein as a central figure in science and philosophy, but who is Howard Thurman? Why would Arthur Ashe include him among such an esteemed trio?

Howard Thurman was a philosopher and theologian, mentor to many of the civil rights leaders of the 20th century, and author of 26 books and numerous religious articles. He served as dean of the chapels at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Boston University, as well as co-founder and pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco (the first interracial, interfaith church in the United States).

Called "seminal" by some, Thurman's ideas have been the focus of a number of scholars pursuing doctorates, but curiously few modern theologians (except for African Americans) have explored his thought. This would suggest that his appeal is limited to people of color. That is too bad, because his viewpoint and appeal transcends any particular racial or religious orientation.

ALTHOUGH I HAD KNOWN of Thurman for a number of years, our first meeting took place in San Francisco in 1977, when he invited me to his home. We became friends immediately, our contacts becoming more sustained as I became a staff member at Fellowship Church, then executive director of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust.

When we were together, it was always lively because there were so many facets to his person: large expressive eyes that conveyed that they had seen much of life; a face that reflected presence without intrusion--lighting up with impish joy at the slightest provocation; a voice that was commanding but never demanding. He was a joyous man who had suffered much and had learned through his suffering, a person alive and in love with life.

He loved nature, especially the ocean, and we used to go down to the pier at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf to watch the waves come in. The cries of the gulls, the restless skies, the playing people, all so immensely alive--he delighted in the whole thing, feeling total congruence with it.

He spoke about the scene in a way that seemed to permeate his understanding of all creation: Creation is a continuum, rather than a hierarchy with humanity at its acme. All of life moves toward realization, and every form of life is to be respected.

This complex but fundamental order in life implies, but does not prove, the existence of a Creator, such affirmation belonging to the province of faith, which comes from One who is self-revealing and mysterious. Humanity's response to this Presence is worship (awe and ritual) and work (social responsibility). (Thurman laid great emphasis on the experiential quality in life, not discounting that which is rational, but insisting that experience must be affirmed beyond logic and science.)

Truth cannot be the captive of any enterprise, even religion. ("Truth is in a religion because it is true, not because it's in a religion," Thurman wrote.) Spirituality is a fundamental aspect of existence, to be experienced and explored by all, not by a few in some esoteric manner.

A central issue for Dr. Thurman was the meaning of Jesus, whom he loved. He had questions: Had Christianity made a fetish of Jesus, ignoring the religion that Jesus embraced? Yet, he would profess that "Jesus was about all you were going to get of God." Jesus was Savior because he made the nature of the eternal real. Jesus made love, truth, and life real, and wherever and whenever these abstractions are brought to life the incarnation takes place.

Often Thurman spoke of his encounter with a rough-talking, roughly dressed "Good Samaritan" at a railroad station in his hometown--a black man whose help literally made possible his entry into the academy, a man who went on his way after his unheralded deed, never to be seen again (see "A Gruff Savior," page 14). I believe that this kind of action is significant to Thurman's ideas on incarnation.

After six months at Fellowship Church, I had a question for him: How does one maintain the integrity of one's particular religious beliefs and tradition while, at the same time, truly recognizing the validity of others' religious experience? It would seem to be a serious issue since religion, by definition, is a matter of ultimate concern.

After a moment's silence, he threw back his head, laughing, eyes alit with humor: "I've been trying to figure that out for at least 30 years!" His advice was, "Don't remove your neighbor's landmarks."

Thurman lived what he spoke and wrote. Immense integrity and self-possession came from his faith in the One who created him. Toward the end of his life, when physical pain and weakness challenged him each day, he once said to me, "Death will come, but I'm not going to open the door for it."

Soon after his death, I was asked to write a statement about him. I close with it:

Howard Thurman was a child. Of God. Notwithstanding the fact that he was a man. His keen intellect, his enormous sense of responsibility, his wisdom born of experience, his mature judgment were the unmistakable marks of a man. However, those qualities were matched by a childlike wonder and delight of life, a simplicity which needed no status symbols, a penetrating candor that went to the very core of issues concerning the human spirit, a sense of humor that lit up large eyes and carried a touch of profundity and had its genesis in a clear recognition of the tragic comedy of existence.

He sought to demonstrate that the experience of struggling with issues was of immeasurable value to personal growth, meaning as much or more than the intellectual exercise, moving to depths beyond those of intellectual reach.

He loved God, and saw in Jesus of Nazareth the fulfillment of God's will for humankind in a special way; but he loved other great religious leaders also, and did not discount the integrity of their understandings. For him, Buddha, Tagore, and Gandhi were vessels through which the rich flow of life came as well. His religious experience was the experience of the substance without form; the antithesis of form without substance.

His lack of concern for his own authority, reputation, and power was obvious. He disdained being seen as a "guru," a mystic, or a saint. Yet he held tremendous power to draw others to him to find the strength in themselves to live life unto God. He did not seek status, yet his name is known among ordinary and extraordinary people in many places around this Earth. He laid no claim to ownership of the Truth; rather, he invited others to join him in his search so that they might claim their own truth. And as a poet he articulated, in the language of beauty and clarity, the unspoken revelations of the hearts of all of us. He was our spokesperson.

His spiritual journey was never finished. He never claimed to have "arrived" at that place we all seek; rather, he had an appealing hunger of spirit that yearned, as we all do, to return again to the wellsprings of the presence of God. His struggle, in those final days, was to make sense out of the event of his dying. He never quite resolved that, which is as it should be. It was a reflection of his determination not to cooperate with death. At one point, when his physical condition would not seem to permit it, he spoke with fierce intensity:

"Marvin, Life shall have dominion!"

Now I must say it. Howard Thurman is dead. But our belief in his immortality is demonstrated by us. For as long as we show integrity of spirit, honesty of conviction, and love of heart, his immortality is assured. And so is ours.

Marvin Chandler was the recently retired pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, a workshop leader and lecturer, and living in Indianapolis when this article appeared.