Theologian Howard Thurman speaks often and eloquently of the primacy of community. He perceives the struggle between good and evil as being very much a struggle between community and the lack of it. “The loneliness of the seeker for community is sometimes unendurable,” he warns us.
Thurman explains Adam’s fall as being his loss of a “sense of community with the rest of creation.” The fall is a fall away from the community of all Creation with one another. Thurman believes that both the Genesis creation story and the creation story of the Hopi people tell the story of the “climate of community” in which our species began and to which we yearn to return. We are always seeking a return to our beginnings a healing and redemptive community. When this community is torn asunder awful things happen to the human psyche.
Thurman actually defines sin as our being outside community. In community, one receives “an integrated basis for one’s behavior so that there is always at hand a socially accepted judgment that can determine for him when he is lost, when he has missed the way—that is when he is out of community.“
He also warns about too inbred a community when he says:
The community cannot feed for long on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are giving way to the coming of others from beyond them—unknown and undiscovered brothers.
This sounds a lot like Walt Whitman to me.
We need to resist the ‘will to quarantine’ and to separate ourselves behind self-imposed walls. For this is why we were born: Men, all men, belong to each other, and he who shuts himself away diminishes himself, and he who shuts another away from him destroys himself.
Scholar Walter Fluker tells us that for Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., “like Thurman, community is the single, organizing principle of King’s life and thought.” King’s call for “‘the beloved community’ is rooted in the interrelatedness of all life and in the unity of human existence under the guidance of a personal God of love and reason who works for universal wholeness. ”
A person becomes a person only in community according to King:
An individual reaches the level of personhood only in social relations, a person grows and deepens through social relations with other persons.
For King the cross of Jesus signifies a concrete shift in human history from revenge to compassion.
Only a refusal to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and lead us toward a community where men live together without fear.
This is clearly seventh chakra talk.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “Community and Interdependence,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 85-88.
To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: Photo of Howard Thurman by On Being, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Photo of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Marion S. Trikosko, August 26th, 1964, United States. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Queries Contemplation
How important is Thurman’s warning about the “will to quarantine” and the shrinking of our sense of community in today’s world of social media and the rest? Do you agree with King that Jesus’s cross represented a shift in human history from revenge to compassion? (Or might do so?)
Recommended Reading
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
13 thoughts on “Howard Thurman and MLK Jr. on Community”
Matthew, Our Queries Contemplation for today are: “How important is Thurman’s warning about the ‘will to quarantine’ and the shrinking of our sense of community in today’s world of social media and the rest?” Thurman perceives the struggle between good and evil as being very much a struggle between community and the lack of it. Thurman also sees Adam’s fall as being his loss of a “sense of community with the rest of creation”–for all creation itself is a community. And Thurman actually defines sin as our being outside community. Finally, we need to resist the will to “quarantine” or separate ourselves from others–other individuals and other groups.
“Do you agree with King that Jesus’s cross represented a shift in human history from revenge to compassion? (Or might do so?)” Yes, is the short answer. For as it is said, “Only a refusal to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and lead us toward a community where men [and women] live together without fear.” And remember, the scriptures say, “There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out all fear.” (See: 1 John 4).
I was having this very conversation with a friend just last night. Always, perfect meditation topics for the people of God, which means, all people.
Family, community, church, and cultural contexts can be double-edged swords. On the up-side, from a healthy developmental, identity formation, and persons-in-living-social-contexts perspective, they are indispensable and foundational. On the down-side, past a certain point their requirements for conformity in order to matter and belong, or “group think,” can hinder healthy individuation and or psycho-spiritual identity formation. One need look no further than the life of Jesus for both the best and worst of these influences. Ditto MLK and Thurman. Jesus had to learn and conform to the Judaic religious community norms and traditions before he could break those rules as a non-conformist to expand and transcend them. This was especially so when it came to being true to his deeper identity in what he faithfully referred to as “my Father” (not Joseph). There is no community or system that is without its skewed and spiritual-identity hindering elements. In those instances, one must learn to live and walk alone, if necessary, separate from belonging systems, and/or their toxic influences, especially if they are incorrigible. Jesus, the prophets and mystics did so, as has our own Matthew Fox. Without the price he paid, in Christ, we would not have these insightful DM’s. So as for healthy community, yes. Unhealthy community, no. One need look no further for the latter than in traditional forms of educational, religious, political, or lawmaking “communities,” to say nothing of dysfunctional families and marriages. The corruption of what is meant to be the best and most sacred of what our institutions and communities are meant to be, is the worst. Overall, never bite the hand (community) that feeds you, unless it keeps you from feeding yourself, or developing your uniqueness as God intends it to be.
I agree with you. It is very important to find a community that is centered in the universal Christ. Many of us find ourselves within a community that is far from that. How do we grow when we are surrounded by a community that is living within its commitment to white supremacy and idolizing guns and private property?
Community and a sense of belonging are deeply interconnected. One can be in a community, yet still experience a lack of the sense of belonging. I have personally encountered this, not only within my spirituality, but also within my workplace. I chose to leave both a church and a job, because these two things… community and belonging were imbalanced.
On the light side of social media… one can experience both community and a sense of belonging, and the interconnections of these, in a balanced way. I personally have encountered this within these DM’s… which has been expansive rather than contracting.
What I see, unfolding, evolving and emerging within this on-line community… is a sense of belonging with others, whom have chosen to acknowledge, and respond to the continuous movement of the paradigm shift in conscious awakening that Jesus ushered in… a movement from fear and its many distressing disguises and deceptions… to love and its many virtuous reflections, expressions and manifestations.
Although many of us have not met in person… we have chosen to be vulnerably personal and honestly open with one another… in the sharing of our comments. This is community to me. Although we do not all share the same spirituality or walk the same spiritual paths… we freely share and accept the commonality of the golden threads that run through them all… interconnecting diversity within unity. This is a sense of belonging to me.
I am grateful for the blessing of the balance of both community and a sense of belonging… and all that unfolds, evolves and emerges through these DM interconnections… for it has expanded my heart, mind and soul in many challenging, yet beautiful ways.
I agree. Thank you for your sharing.
Thank you, Matthew. An outstanding meditation.
Faith, Hope, Love, Wisdom, Truth, Peace, Justice, Prayer, Compassion, Community, Beauty, Creativity, Joy,… within our selves, our relations with others, Mother Earth and all Her beautiful abundance and living creatures, and All Living Evolving Creation in our multidimensional and multiverse Cosmos… Divine Love~Loving Diverse Oneness~Cosmic Christ Consciousness… and more humanly personal in our daily personal lives here on earth in the sacred present process of our compassionate spiritual journeys with one another and our eternal loving evolving Souls….
🔥❤️🙏
“The will to quarantine” is the MOST important point that can ever have been made.
The quarantine/divorce of humanity from Nature has led inevitably to the present Eve of Destruction.
Jesus’ cross definitely posed the *possibility* of change from revenge to compassion, but those who took up that cross evolved very quickly into a theocratic dictatorship where the Church dictated, demanded, and politically manipulated for its own power—NOT for the inclusion of compassion in world affairs. If a church exists today, it is not organized, has no committees, does not jump into a pulpit on a certain day at a certain hour, dressed in whatever uniform its denomination demands—it exists in the hearts, the actions, of people dedicated to the just treatment of Creation.
Since I can trust essentially nothing ever taught in any church I attended, I reserve comment on the possibilities of the presumed life and death of Jesus.
Olive, These are true words if I ever read them: ” those who took up that cross evolved very quickly into a theocratic dictatorship where the Church dictated, demanded, and politically manipulated for its own power—NOT for the inclusion of compassion in world affairs.” And it still is doing it–in the majority of denominations and churches. Thank you for your comment !!!
It is good to return often to the beautiful mystic Howard Thurman. His words and heart are a much needed balm in these times. }:- a.m.
Mary Baker Eddy said that church is ‘a structure of truth and love’.
At one point, Richard Rohr has defined sin as separation also and the need to be superior and in control. But the need for community is so great that we have desperate and fearful people lining up online and in person to join even the most heinous communities, ones that foster hatred and destruction, that then become normalized. A high school here in Florida recently held an auction of guns to raise money. In this gun culture, it’s acceptable for children so casually to sell guns to support “education”. This kind of behavior is counter to the meaning of the sacrifice of Jesus and of so many since, that we must learn compassion instead of revenge. That message is critical always and even more so in this nuclear age. So many have gotten stuck in what Rohr has called my story and our story that “the story” is never reached, and that is real community in the sense that Matthew and Dr. King and Dr. Thurmond mean it.