For me this will not be easy, nor do I lightly undertake it. Into God’s hand do I yield myself this day, with all that it involves for me, with the faith that I can take complete refuge in the knowledge and the love of God. I shall seek to broaden my exposure to those whose lives give forth confidence and calmness. I shall seek to limit my primary exposure to those who exploit my anxieties by their tendency to exaggeration and alarm. Conﬁdent am I that if I do not feed them they can- not long survive. I shall forsake them – cut them off from the food supply of my spirit. One thread is a strange thread - it is my steadying thread.The following meditation, “Take no Thought for Your Life,” is from Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart. The thread becomes a channel of newness of life. When the waste places of my spirit appear in arid confusion, When I am saddened, I tighten my grip and gladness glides

When I am lost, I pull it hard and find my way, One thread is a strange thread - it is my steadying thread I have tried so hard, but it won’t come right… Mistakes, false starts, lost battles, angry words - a tangled mass One thread is but a tangled mass that won’t come right Hardly aware am I of the moment when the tight line slackened

One thread comes from the failing hands of an old, old friend. Invading the common day with far-off places and visions bright… It quivers with the mighty current of fierce and holy dreaming One thread comes from a high-flying kite One thread comes from a life that is sick it is taut with anguishĪnd always there is the lurking fear that the life will snap. The threads go many ways, linking my life with other lives. Only one end of the threads, I hold in my hand. May they be the spirit-food we need to be nourished. So, here are some of Howard Thurman’s words for us today. There’s power there, in that kind of hope, where possibility can flourish. What we need is a hope that connects us to each other and allows us to imagine and dream of possibility. And what we need right now in this still wilderness land, surrounded by uncertainty after uncertainty, is a hope that energizes and restores. Yes, I hope beyond hope, I’ll wish on a star, or any lucky talisman. It struck me because this companioned practice of reading Howard Thurman feels like an act of hope, but not in the way I think we often think of hope. It is what energizes us to do the 3 things above.” This is a quote from the weekend virtual conference of Evolving Faith. Hope is the small poem that gives us imagination, energy, and perseverance. “Hope is not optimism, strategic plans, or evidence. He offers a word of hope in times of uncertainty. They are musings and thoughts on prayer, community, and life. As a way to be companions to each other in the next four weeks, a friend and I are reading Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman.

Meditations of the heart thurman