The Sound of the Genuine — Howard Thurman

Some words of wisdom inspire by a beautiful Substack blog by Carrie Newcomer. In response to her writing, I shared these portions of Howard Thurman’s baccalaureate address at Spelman College on May 4, 1980.

There are so many noises going on inside of you. So many echoes of all sorts. So many internalizing of the rumble and the traffic, the confusions, the disorders. By which your environment as people, that I wonder if you can get still enough– not quite enough– still enough to hear rumbling up from your unique and essential idiom, the sound of the genuine in you…

There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself…

There is in every person, that which waits, waits, waits, and listens for the sound of the genuine in himself. There is that in every person that waits, and waits, and listens for the sound of the genuine in other people. And when these two sounds come together, this is music God heard when he said, let us make man in our image.

Baccalaureate Address source

Carrie’s Substack