With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman

by Howard Thurman

From the beginning of my ministry I tended to be highly self-conscious in public prayer. I found it difficult to express, in public, utterances of the inner spirit. My felt needs were so profound that at first there seemed little room for the other and possibly unconnected needs of my congregation. But as I began to acquiesce to the demands of the spirit within, I found no need to differentiate human need, theirs and my own. I became more and more a part of the life of my people and discovered that at last I was able to pray in public as if I were alone in the quiet of my own room. The door between their questing spirits and my own became a swinging door. At times I would lose my way in the full tide of emotions as a sense of the love of God overwhelmed me. At such moments we became one in the presence of God. At the same time, my preaching became less motivated by the desire to “teach”; it became almost entirely devoted to the meaning of the experience of our common quest and journey.