Day twelve - the sound of the genuine
In 1980, Howard Thurman addressed the students at Spelman College, saying:
“The burden of what I have to say to you this afternoon is, “What is your name, who are you and can you find a way to hear the sound of the genuine in yourself?” There are so many noises going on inside of you, so many echoes of all sorts, so [much] internalizing of the rumble and the traffic, the confusions, the disorders by which your environment is peopled that I wonder if you can get still enough—not quiet enough—still enough to hear rumbling up from your unique and essential idiom the sound of the genuine in you. I don’t know if you can. But this is your assignment….
There is something in every one of you that waits, listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself and if you cannot hear it, you will never find whatever it is for which you are searching.… You are the only you that has ever lived; your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all the existences and if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life, spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls….
Who are you? How does the sound of the genuine come through to you?”
Todays question for reflection (please add any comments, questions, and dialogue with others below in the comments):
