DISCIPLINES OF THE SPIRIT

Disciplines of the Spirit
By Howard Thurman

African-American Howard Thurman (1900-1981), poet, mystic, philosopher, theologian, and Dean of Chapel at two major universities during his career, first published this book in 1963. Obviously it has become a classic, and aside from an occasional poem, it was my first real exposure to his work.

Thurman identifies 5 “disciplines” and discusses each one at length. Why he chose the term “discipline” to describe them I do not know- it implies to me that they are something one can take on and practice, like exercise. But that is not what he is getting at, which is best described in the opening sentences of his foreword:

“The purpose of this book is to examine certain specific aspects of human experience. These aspects are chosen because of their universality and BECAUSE OF THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR TUTORING THE HUMAN SPIRIT (emphasis added). There are five such areas included in the discussion: commitment, growth, suffering, prayer, and reconciliation.” (p. 9)

Each discipline (and now I am thinking he uses that term in the manner of “an area of study”) is well explored and articulated, but the discipline by which Thurman most struck me as suffering.

Suffering was a subject well discussed in my seminary classes- most notably in theology, but also in biblical studies. Yet Thurman found some points to consider that were either neglected or touched upon only lightly.

Suffering is both impersonal (“It humiliates and violates the person and very often the dignity of the human spirit,” p. 65) and personal. “Though suffering is a private encounter, and in the last analysis a man must deal with it in solitariness and isolation, it is ultimately reassuring if it can be placed in a frame of reference as universal and comprehensive as life itself.” (p. 66)

“Suffering is a form of physical pain.” (p. 66) Here Thurman probes some ethical consequences of that fact. Denying humanity, or personality, to our enemies makes it easier for us to choose to inflict pain- and even death- on them. In the modern era, we do this most often by demonizing them. Food for thought, there!

Thurman explores the summoning of spiritual resources by the sufferer. “Openings are made in life by suffering that are not made in any other way.” (p. 76) While there is nothing groundbreaking in that observation, Thurman takes one step further and explorers, if only briefly, the lives of those for whom suffering does not make “new openings.” Frankly, he has no answer to explain the dichotomy of experience, but he does have pastoral advice: “…the only thing is to wait it out, to affirm with avid recollection and present insistence that the contradictions of life are never final. All contradictions are held together in an almighty synthesis that gives them, ultimately a meaning and a context.” (p. 77)

Most helpful to me was Thurman’s exploration of the suffering of the innocent. Borrowing an idea from Margaret Kennedy’s novel “The Feast,” Thurman first explorers the idea “that mankind is protected and sustained by undeserved suffering- that swinging out beyond the logic of antecedent and consequence, of sowing and reaping, there is another power, another force, supplementing and restoring the ravages wrought in human life by punishment and reward. The innocent are always present when the payment falls due…Their presence in the world is a stabilizing factor, a precious ingredient maintaining the delicate balance that prevents humanity from p[lunging into the abyss.” (p. 79) This sort of thought was present in my OT 101 study of the suffering servant, but here is the first place I have seen it adequately explained.

Yet Thurman is not completely satisfied with that thought. “But what of those…whose lives are not girded by such a faith…Are these others abandoned by God and left to languish without a witness of His love?” (p. 80)

Thurman then probes the questions that suffering forces on the sufferer, foremost “Why?” Suffering “is part of the life contract that every living being signs at the entrance…To reject suffering is to reject life.” (p. 80) But how does suffering “pay” for its ride (what purpose does it serve?). One immediate conclusion is that without suffering there could be no freedom.

But Thurman has a greater idea. “The ultimate logic of suffering, of course, lies in the fact of death. The particular quality of death is found in what it says about the future. Death is a denial of the validity of the future. This is the logic of all suffering. It is what rallies the spirit and girds man to do battle. Suffering is the gauntlet that death throws down in the arena…Stripped of all cultural accretions and special limitations of specific historic situations, religion…says that life and death take place in a larger context, which religion calls Life. Life and death are the experience of living things, and here Life in some sense becomes identical with God…Death is seen as being an experience WITHIN Life, not happening TO Life (emphasis original).” (p. 81)

This is a thesis that Thurman developed wonderfully over several pages, and I do believe I will find myself referring to it again.

George R. Pasley
July 8, 2002