A Strange Freedom

'Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.'

These words of Howard Thurman, quoted by a Ffriend, made a powerful impression on me and I wanted to know more about him. So I took the opportunity of being at Woodbrooke yesterday to visit the Library there and borrow this collection of his writings.

He was an amazing man, by any measure - one of those people who, when you come across them, make you wonder why you have never heard of them before. He was an author, philosopher, theologian, educator, civil rights leader and a preacher of great power, who influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, amongst many others. He was the first black dean at a white university and led the first delegation of African-Americans to meet with Gandhi in India in 1936; he co-founded the first interracially pastored, inter-cultural church in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco.

He studied at Haverford College with Rufus Jones, a Quaker philosopher and mystic. Some of his writing shows clear Quaker influences, such a piece titled 'How Good To Centre Down!'.

All this only scratches the surface - I'm particularly intrigued by his combination of mysticism in his writings with a vision of acting out his beliefs in the world in a way which places non-violence at its centre. Looking forward to getting deeper into this book over the coming weeks.