Jesus and the Disinherited – Howard Thurman

Pondering life and faith and division in our country… reading and reflecting on the words of Howard Thurman (his language was not inclusive… his understanding was inclusive… his language was from his era)

“If a man knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection.”

“If a man is convinced that he is safe only as long as he uses his power to give others a sense of insecurity, then the measure of their security is in his hands. If security or insecurity is at the mercy of a single individual or group, then control of behavior becomes routine. All imperialism functions in this way.”

“It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong and the powerful and against the weak and oppressed—this, despite the gospel.”

However, in the end, he reminds me of hope… in his book, Meditations of the Heart — “Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”

May we find that Hope, Joy, and Peace…