I’ve been fascinated to be learning more about Howard Thurman, one of the first African-American civil rights leaders to meet Gandhi.
He’s been on my mind as I explore the hidden thread between the Kural, Gandhi, and MLK in preparation for being a speaker in the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau.
Thurman was an author, educator, and theologian who was critical of institutionalized narrowness in religion and who helped found The Church for The Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco.
He possessed a remarkable ability to foster relationships that transcended boundaries–national, international, racial, cultural, and religious.
Here is a quote from his autobiography, With Head and Heart, that I find deeply inspiring, particularly in our divisive times:
One could easily say the same thing for a language or a cultural tradition.
And whether one is speaking about religion, language, or culture, I love how Thurman’s words remind us to seek what is true wherever we find it, in whatever ways it may have been expressed.
The Kural expresses a similar insight in its chapter, “The Possession of Knowledge”:
When I first fell in love with philosophy as an undergraduate, I also fell unwittingly into the assumption that the discipline of philosophy, as defined by North American academia, was the only place I’d find the love of wisdom—the literal meaning of the word “philosophy.”
Then, when I became disillusioned with academia, I began to remember what I knew as a child, and what both Howard Thurman and Thiruvalluvar can remind us: you can find truth and beauty and wisdom just about anywhere if you keep your ears and eyes open for them.
May you always be nourished by what’s true, wherever and however you find it.
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