Birds Still Sing

“Life Goes On”

Dur­ing these tur­bu­lent times we must remind our­selves repeat­ed­ly that life goes on. 
This we are apt to forget.

The wis­dom of life tran­scends our wisdoms;
the pur­pose of life out­lasts our purposes;
the process of life cush­ions our processes.

The mass attack of dis­il­lu­sion and despair, dis­tilled out of the col­lapse of hope, has so invad­ed our thoughts that what we know to be true and valid seems unre­al and ephemeral.

There seems to be lit­tle ener­gy left for aught but futility.

This is the great deception.

By it whole peo­ples have gone down to oblivion with­out the will to affirm the great and per­ma­nent strength of the clean and the commonplace.

Let us not be deceived.

It is just as impor­tant as ever to attend to the lit­tle graces by which the dig­ni­ty of our lives is main­tained and sustained.

Birds still sing; the stars con­tin­ue to cast their gen­tle gleam over the des­o­la­tion of the battlefields, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the gra­cious deed.

There is no need to fear evil.

There is every need to under­stand what it does, how it oper­ates in the world, what it draws upon to sus­tain itself.

We must not shrink from the knowl­edge of the evil­ness of evil.

Over and over we must know that the real tar­get of evil is not destruc­tion of the body, the reduc­tion to rub­ble of cities; the real tar­get of evil is to cor­rupt the spir­it of man and to give his soul the con­ta­gion of inner disintegration.

When this happens, there is noth­ing left, the very citadel of man is cap­tured and laid waste.

There­fore the evil in the world around us must not be allowed to move from with­out to within.

This would be to be over­come by evil.

To drink in the beau­ty that is with­in reach, to clothe one’s life with sim­ple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sen­si­tive­ness to the move­ment of the spir­it of God in the quiet­ness of the human heart and in the work­ings of the human mind—

this is as always the ulti­mate answer to the great deception.

Excerpt­ed from Med­i­ta­tions of the Heart by Howard Thur­man, pub­lished by Bea­con Press. Originally published January 1953.

Where can you drink in beauty today?
Who can you bless with simple deeds of kindness?
How can you keep alive your sensitivity to God's Spirit?

I was embarrassed when I admitted I didn't know who Howard Thurman (1899-1981) was. His book Jesus and the Disinherited (1949) was required reading for a class and quickly became a favorite. In time, I came to love and appreciate the pastor and educator's deep wisdom and character. His theology of radical non-violence influenced a generation of civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We need his kindness and strength more than ever today.

JUDY