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With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman
Howard Thurman was a unique man-a black minister, philosopher, and educator whose vitality and vision touched the lives of countless people of all races, faiths, and cultures. Index; photographs.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Howard Thurman
66 books329 followersHoward Washington Thurman was an author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century.
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February 19, 2025
The Autobiography Of Howard Thurman
I became interested in Howard Thurman (1899 -- 1981) through studying Martin Luther King, Jr; and, in particular, from reading about Thurman in Gary Dorrien's 2018 book, "Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Social Gospel." Dorrien's discussion of Thurman made me want to learn more about him, and I began with Thurman's most famous book, "Jesus and the Disinherited". This brief quotation attributed to Thurman fascinated me.
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Written in 1979, Thurman's autobiography "With Head and Heart" helped me understand how Thurman had taken his own advice; he found what made him "come alive" and went ahead to "do it". Thurman was an African American minister, civil rights activist, academic, and much more. "With Head and Heart" chronicles his career and the varied outward events of his life. Throughout the book, Thurman offers hints that his career and accomplishments, impressive as they are, do not capture what mattered and what Thurman found his life was about. Thurman comes closest to discussing what he found vital in his life in the concluding pages of his book: he discusses a lifelong and inward search for God and for an experiential knowledge of God. A philosophical and religious mystic, Thurman sought to understand in face of the many disappointments and instances of hatred in the common life "the secret door which leads into the central place where the Creator of life and the God of the human heart are one and the same. ....It is here that the meaning of the hunger of the heart is unified. The Head and the Heart at last inseparable; they are lost in wonder in the One."
The thread of the book runs through the detailed descriptions of Thurman's life, beginning from his childhood experiences in the highly segregated community of Daytona, Florida. From his youngest years, Thurman tells the reader how he felt a sense of the unity of all things through nature, observing the Atlantic Ocean, and sitting under his favorite oak tree. Thurman's great intellectual gifts were recognized early on, and he takes the reader through his educational journey through high school, Morehouse College, and the Rochester Theological Union. Thurman was married twice. When his first wife, Alice, died young after an illness, Thurman married Sue Bailey in a union that lasted for 49 years.
During his career, Thurman served as the first Dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University and later as the Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University. The position Thurman held between these two, however is the most intriguing. He left a tenured, secure position at Howard to become the co-founder and minister of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, the first interracial, intercultural, interdenominational house of worship in the United States. I was fascinated to learn of this church and of Thurman's long role in it. Other important events of Thurman's life discussed in this book include his independent study with the Quaker philosopher and mystic Rufus Jones, his trip to India, Ceylon and Burma with his wife in 1935, and his work, after his retirement from Boston University teaching religious philosophy in Nigeria. In the trip to India, Thurman experienced religious illumination and also had what became a famous meeting with Gandhi.
Throughout the book, Thurman combines the story of the outward events of his life with allusions to his deepening sense of understanding of what the events meant and of what his life was about.
The first six chapters of the book tell the events of Thurman's life in a largely chronological sequence. The final three chapters take a more thematic approach. Thurman does not discuss any of his 22 books until chapter 7 when he gives an all-too-brief summary of the factors leading him to publish and of the nature of some of his books. Thurman will probably be most remembered as an author, and I found it interesting that he apparently slighted his written work. The eighth chapter of the autobiography consists of short sections discussing various people and events in Thurman's life, including the two dogs he owned during his adult life, his meeting with Indian tribal leaders in 1962 in Canada, and his pursuits of interests in painting and music. These little sketches enhanced my appreciation of Thurman. The final section of the book, "The Binding Commitment" is the most revealing and personal as Thurman describes his search for God, his attempts through life to help other people become closer to God, and his mysticism. I also found revealing and valuable Thurman's extended discussion in the last few pages of his autobiography of his relationship to Judaism.
Thurman's relationship to Martin Luther King, Jr. does not get a great deal of attention in the autobiography. Thurman was asked to prepare a brief statement upon King's death, and the text of the statement is included in the book. Thurman was in Nigeria at the time of the death of President Kennedy. The American Ambassador to Nigeria asked Thurman to prepare a statement for use at the embassy. Thurman did so, and the text is included in the autobiography.
This book taught me a great deal about Thurman's life and about what Thurman considered important. It is an inspiring valuable work for readers interested in Thurman, biography, spirituality, or the African American experience.
Robin Friedman
I became interested in Howard Thurman (1899 -- 1981) through studying Martin Luther King, Jr; and, in particular, from reading about Thurman in Gary Dorrien's 2018 book, "Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Social Gospel." Dorrien's discussion of Thurman made me want to learn more about him, and I began with Thurman's most famous book, "Jesus and the Disinherited". This brief quotation attributed to Thurman fascinated me.
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Written in 1979, Thurman's autobiography "With Head and Heart" helped me understand how Thurman had taken his own advice; he found what made him "come alive" and went ahead to "do it". Thurman was an African American minister, civil rights activist, academic, and much more. "With Head and Heart" chronicles his career and the varied outward events of his life. Throughout the book, Thurman offers hints that his career and accomplishments, impressive as they are, do not capture what mattered and what Thurman found his life was about. Thurman comes closest to discussing what he found vital in his life in the concluding pages of his book: he discusses a lifelong and inward search for God and for an experiential knowledge of God. A philosophical and religious mystic, Thurman sought to understand in face of the many disappointments and instances of hatred in the common life "the secret door which leads into the central place where the Creator of life and the God of the human heart are one and the same. ....It is here that the meaning of the hunger of the heart is unified. The Head and the Heart at last inseparable; they are lost in wonder in the One."
The thread of the book runs through the detailed descriptions of Thurman's life, beginning from his childhood experiences in the highly segregated community of Daytona, Florida. From his youngest years, Thurman tells the reader how he felt a sense of the unity of all things through nature, observing the Atlantic Ocean, and sitting under his favorite oak tree. Thurman's great intellectual gifts were recognized early on, and he takes the reader through his educational journey through high school, Morehouse College, and the Rochester Theological Union. Thurman was married twice. When his first wife, Alice, died young after an illness, Thurman married Sue Bailey in a union that lasted for 49 years.
During his career, Thurman served as the first Dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University and later as the Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University. The position Thurman held between these two, however is the most intriguing. He left a tenured, secure position at Howard to become the co-founder and minister of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, the first interracial, intercultural, interdenominational house of worship in the United States. I was fascinated to learn of this church and of Thurman's long role in it. Other important events of Thurman's life discussed in this book include his independent study with the Quaker philosopher and mystic Rufus Jones, his trip to India, Ceylon and Burma with his wife in 1935, and his work, after his retirement from Boston University teaching religious philosophy in Nigeria. In the trip to India, Thurman experienced religious illumination and also had what became a famous meeting with Gandhi.
Throughout the book, Thurman combines the story of the outward events of his life with allusions to his deepening sense of understanding of what the events meant and of what his life was about.
The first six chapters of the book tell the events of Thurman's life in a largely chronological sequence. The final three chapters take a more thematic approach. Thurman does not discuss any of his 22 books until chapter 7 when he gives an all-too-brief summary of the factors leading him to publish and of the nature of some of his books. Thurman will probably be most remembered as an author, and I found it interesting that he apparently slighted his written work. The eighth chapter of the autobiography consists of short sections discussing various people and events in Thurman's life, including the two dogs he owned during his adult life, his meeting with Indian tribal leaders in 1962 in Canada, and his pursuits of interests in painting and music. These little sketches enhanced my appreciation of Thurman. The final section of the book, "The Binding Commitment" is the most revealing and personal as Thurman describes his search for God, his attempts through life to help other people become closer to God, and his mysticism. I also found revealing and valuable Thurman's extended discussion in the last few pages of his autobiography of his relationship to Judaism.
Thurman's relationship to Martin Luther King, Jr. does not get a great deal of attention in the autobiography. Thurman was asked to prepare a brief statement upon King's death, and the text of the statement is included in the book. Thurman was in Nigeria at the time of the death of President Kennedy. The American Ambassador to Nigeria asked Thurman to prepare a statement for use at the embassy. Thurman did so, and the text is included in the autobiography.
This book taught me a great deal about Thurman's life and about what Thurman considered important. It is an inspiring valuable work for readers interested in Thurman, biography, spirituality, or the African American experience.
Robin Friedman
February 26, 2022
4/5 stars
"The library was small by any present standard. Many of the books had been given to the college by retired northern white ministers. Jim Nabrit and I undertook to read every book in the library. He started at the top shelves and I at the bottom, and we worked our way across. We did in fact read every one."
A friend gifted me this book, and admittedly I hadn't really heard of Howard Thurman before. But reading this autobiography gave me a very vivid picture of him! In this book, Thurman talks about his childhood in Florida in the early 1900s, his experiences at Morehouse College, his life as a minister and educator, and even a trip to India where he met Gandhi. I also liked hearing about Thurman's time as a minister at Boston University's Marsh Chapel, since I went to grad school in Boston and often passed by Marsh Chapel on the T as I went downtown.
Though Thurman and I have some differing theological views (him being a Protestant and myself a Catholic), it was interesting to hear his experiences. His work with the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco was particularly fascinating. Though his work there began in the 1940s, what he described sounded very contemporary. I also appreciated reading his thoughts on race and Christianity. It definitely gave me a lot to think about.
"The library was small by any present standard. Many of the books had been given to the college by retired northern white ministers. Jim Nabrit and I undertook to read every book in the library. He started at the top shelves and I at the bottom, and we worked our way across. We did in fact read every one."
A friend gifted me this book, and admittedly I hadn't really heard of Howard Thurman before. But reading this autobiography gave me a very vivid picture of him! In this book, Thurman talks about his childhood in Florida in the early 1900s, his experiences at Morehouse College, his life as a minister and educator, and even a trip to India where he met Gandhi. I also liked hearing about Thurman's time as a minister at Boston University's Marsh Chapel, since I went to grad school in Boston and often passed by Marsh Chapel on the T as I went downtown.
Though Thurman and I have some differing theological views (him being a Protestant and myself a Catholic), it was interesting to hear his experiences. His work with the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco was particularly fascinating. Though his work there began in the 1940s, what he described sounded very contemporary. I also appreciated reading his thoughts on race and Christianity. It definitely gave me a lot to think about.
September 16, 2019
I am not regularly a reader of biographies or autobiographies, but a few months ago I read Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited and I found it compelling enough to search out his own story. Rev. Thurman tells that story with humor and care, but seemingly always looking towards how his personal experiences shaped his understanding of faith and love for all of humanity.
If you are already familiar with Rev. Thurman's writings, this will provide insight into the mind that wrote them. If you are not familiar with his writings and are coming to this as a biography of an influential African American religious leader, I can't imagine that it won't send you searching for his other work.
If you are already familiar with Rev. Thurman's writings, this will provide insight into the mind that wrote them. If you are not familiar with his writings and are coming to this as a biography of an influential African American religious leader, I can't imagine that it won't send you searching for his other work.
November 3, 2013
I wish I had known him...
This book was hard to put down and thoroughly enjoyable. Howard Thurman was a remarkable man. I am surprised that I just recently learned of him. His, is a life worth examining and his example is worthy of following. The minute I finished this book, I got back on Amazon and ordered two of his other books.
His vision and work should be continued.
This book was hard to put down and thoroughly enjoyable. Howard Thurman was a remarkable man. I am surprised that I just recently learned of him. His, is a life worth examining and his example is worthy of following. The minute I finished this book, I got back on Amazon and ordered two of his other books.
His vision and work should be continued.
December 10, 2022
Thurman presents all the facts of his life—growing up in Florida, his time at Howard, his church in San Francisco, his tenure at Boston University, his trips to India and Africa—but little of the substance of what made him so interesting and significant. The focus is on the exterior of his life, even though he was a pioneering mystic who explored the interior of the human soul.
January 20, 2016
A most remarkable and honest human being presents his life warts and all. His discovery of his own racial prejudice while roomed with a white man in his college days is one of the book's highlights. A book that doesn't ignore the past but still offers hope for the future.
October 5, 2021
Autobiography that challenges and inspires
Reading Howard Thurman’s autobiography is like walking with a sage as he takes you through his life and comments in hindsight hoping that you will let those insights truly engage your head and heart in such a way that the dualism that one normally operates within would be overwhelmed by a sense of oneness. A moving read.
Reading Howard Thurman’s autobiography is like walking with a sage as he takes you through his life and comments in hindsight hoping that you will let those insights truly engage your head and heart in such a way that the dualism that one normally operates within would be overwhelmed by a sense of oneness. A moving read.
August 3, 2021
Inspirational. Pillar of strength.
February 15, 2023
So valuable to read about the life of this important man.
May 8, 2020
Summary: Fascinating autobiography of a pathbreaking and important man.
I came to know about Howard Thurman, like many do, through hearing about him in relation to Martin Luther King (Jr and Sr). He was a classmate with MLK Sr at Morehouse College. And then, during Thurman's first year as Dean of the Boston College Chapel, Thurman overlapped with MLK Jr as he was finishing up his Ph.D. It is said that MLK Jr carried a copy of Jesus and the Disinherited with him during his Civil Rights years. Their relationship is probably not as formative to King as I had thought earlier, but there are many letters between them.
Regardless of his relationship with King, Howard Thurman is a path-breaking man. His father died young, and as the story at the beginning of the book says, "I said, 'One thing is sure. When I grow up and become a man, I will never have anything to do with the church.'" His father died when he was seven, and because his father was not a member of the church, the pastor initially refused to allow a funeral at the church. After being pressured to permit the burial, the pastor refused to participate. A traveling evangelist agreed to do the funeral but turned it into a spectacle for evangelism instead of a memorial.
Despite the early negative relationship to the church, Thurman had an early mystical experience calling him to be a minster. Throughout his life, he was a mystic in orientation. I am not going to cover his whole career; you can read his for a summary, or the memoir for more detail. After becoming a pastor, teaching, and serving as chaplain at Morehouse and Spelman, serving as a Dean at Howard University Chapel and a faculty member, he left the academic world in 1944 to co-pastor an intentionally interracial church in San Francisco. It is one of the earliest intentionally interracial congregations with Howard Thurman as co-pastor, but the only paid pastor and primary lead for most of the time. After nine years, Thurman became the Dean of Boston College Chapel, the first Black man to have a similar position at a predominately White University. He remained there 12 years until 1965 when he officially retired and led the Howard Thurman Educational Trust until he died in 1981.
In addition to his work breaking down racial lines, preparing others for ministry and being writer, speaker, preacher, and mentor, he was important to interreligious dialogue, the international peace movement, and sociology of religion. He and his equally formidable wife, Sue Bailey Thurman and two others, spent nearly a year touring India in the 1930s to learn about the non-violent protests, share about the state of Black oppression in the US, and eventually meeting with Gandhi. That trip to India impacted the rest of his ministry, not just because of how it influenced his orientation toward non-violence, but also in how he thought about and interacted with non-Christians, especially as a Black man in Jim Crow-era United States.
and this recounting of a conversation with Gandhi
The mysticism of Thurman did not come out in this autobiography as much as the I listened to last year. But it was here. This quote from the end of the book, I think is a good summary of the type of mystical discussion that there is here.
I came to know about Howard Thurman, like many do, through hearing about him in relation to Martin Luther King (Jr and Sr). He was a classmate with MLK Sr at Morehouse College. And then, during Thurman's first year as Dean of the Boston College Chapel, Thurman overlapped with MLK Jr as he was finishing up his Ph.D. It is said that MLK Jr carried a copy of Jesus and the Disinherited with him during his Civil Rights years. Their relationship is probably not as formative to King as I had thought earlier, but there are many letters between them.
Regardless of his relationship with King, Howard Thurman is a path-breaking man. His father died young, and as the story at the beginning of the book says, "I said, 'One thing is sure. When I grow up and become a man, I will never have anything to do with the church.'" His father died when he was seven, and because his father was not a member of the church, the pastor initially refused to allow a funeral at the church. After being pressured to permit the burial, the pastor refused to participate. A traveling evangelist agreed to do the funeral but turned it into a spectacle for evangelism instead of a memorial.
Despite the early negative relationship to the church, Thurman had an early mystical experience calling him to be a minster. Throughout his life, he was a mystic in orientation. I am not going to cover his whole career; you can read his for a summary, or the memoir for more detail. After becoming a pastor, teaching, and serving as chaplain at Morehouse and Spelman, serving as a Dean at Howard University Chapel and a faculty member, he left the academic world in 1944 to co-pastor an intentionally interracial church in San Francisco. It is one of the earliest intentionally interracial congregations with Howard Thurman as co-pastor, but the only paid pastor and primary lead for most of the time. After nine years, Thurman became the Dean of Boston College Chapel, the first Black man to have a similar position at a predominately White University. He remained there 12 years until 1965 when he officially retired and led the Howard Thurman Educational Trust until he died in 1981.
In addition to his work breaking down racial lines, preparing others for ministry and being writer, speaker, preacher, and mentor, he was important to interreligious dialogue, the international peace movement, and sociology of religion. He and his equally formidable wife, Sue Bailey Thurman and two others, spent nearly a year touring India in the 1930s to learn about the non-violent protests, share about the state of Black oppression in the US, and eventually meeting with Gandhi. That trip to India impacted the rest of his ministry, not just because of how it influenced his orientation toward non-violence, but also in how he thought about and interacted with non-Christians, especially as a Black man in Jim Crow-era United States.
I felt the heat in the question “If Christianity is not powerless, why is it not changing life in your country and the rest of the world? If it is powerless, why are you here representing it to us?” Hearing this, our party went from campus to campus, city to city, town to town, talking and lecturing and sharing. This question also presented a definite problem to the missionary, particularly the American missionary.
and this recounting of a conversation with Gandhi
At the final leavetaking, I said, “Will you now, ending, answer just one question? What do you think is the greatest handicap to Jesus Christ in India?” It was apropos of something lie had said to me about Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. I wanted to know his real thought about the chief obstacle in his own country which prevented the spread of Christianity. He answered, “Christianity as it is practiced, as it has been identified with Western culture, with Western civilization and colonialism. This is the greatest enemy that Jesus Christ has in my country—not Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any of the indigenous religions—but Christianity itself.”
The mysticism of Thurman did not come out in this autobiography as much as the I listened to last year. But it was here. This quote from the end of the book, I think is a good summary of the type of mystical discussion that there is here.
It is important in this accounting that at bottom all of this was a part of my meaning of God in the common life. God was everywhere and utterly identified with every single thing, incident, or person. The phrases “the God of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob,” or again, “the God of Jesus” were continuously luminous to me in my journey. I prayed to God, I talked to Jesus. He was a companion. There was no felt need in my spirit to explain this companionship. There never has been. God was a reality. Jesus was a fact. From my earliest memories, Jesus was religious subject rather than religious object. It was Jesus with whom I talked as I sat under my oak tree fingering the bruises and scars of my childhood. Such was the pretheological ground for me when both life and time spread out before me. The older I have grown, the more it is clear that what I needed to hold me to my path was the sure knowledge that I was committed to a single journey with but a single goal—a way toward life. In formal and religious terms this meant for me the disclosure of the Will of God. And from this flowed an inescapable necessity: to be totally involved. What I did with my life had to be secure in the inclusive sense that only the word “total” can signify. The ground of many of the boyhood experiences I have described stands out clearly as part of this single fabric.
April 3, 2019
A wonderful auto-biography of one of our great heroes of the faith. It is especially moving in its exploration of a primary theme of his life... Why Christianity given its great compromise in the Western world with slavery and racism? The chapter on his travels to India was especially revealing.
January 15, 2019
Howard Thurman played many roles in his life: minister, chaplain, educator, and writer. I read a quote by him at Church of the Restoration as the "affirmation" portion of the service last December:
When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the king and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the brothers,
to make music in the heart.
Thurman tells about his meeting Gandhi, Dr. M. L. King, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and his travels to Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Many parts of this autobiography are quotes from speeches Thurman made on various occasions. I learned what a refectory is. Adding to the book is a section with photos, including Thurman's senior class picture of 1923.
Thurman was a talented writer. He writes of people "caught up in the ceaseless rhythm of living and dying, with no final immunity against a common fate that finds and holds all living things."
One shortcoming of the text is the prevalence of uncorrected copying mistakes. The text was scanned but not proofread well. For example, "placed her hand 011 my head" should have been "placed her hand on my head." The word "fertilized" appears as "fertili?ed" at one point. A proofreader could have caught and corrected these scanning mistakes.
When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the king and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the brothers,
to make music in the heart.
Thurman tells about his meeting Gandhi, Dr. M. L. King, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and his travels to Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Many parts of this autobiography are quotes from speeches Thurman made on various occasions. I learned what a refectory is. Adding to the book is a section with photos, including Thurman's senior class picture of 1923.
Thurman was a talented writer. He writes of people "caught up in the ceaseless rhythm of living and dying, with no final immunity against a common fate that finds and holds all living things."
One shortcoming of the text is the prevalence of uncorrected copying mistakes. The text was scanned but not proofread well. For example, "placed her hand 011 my head" should have been "placed her hand on my head." The word "fertilized" appears as "fertili?ed" at one point. A proofreader could have caught and corrected these scanning mistakes.
May 7, 2025
I loved reading about the life and perspectives of Howard Thurman. Each chapter was interesting, illuminating, and important. The book chronicles the significant events in his life that shaped him, including a “friendship tour” to South Asia when he met Mahatma Ghandi and his tenure as dean of chapel at Howard and Bosten Universities and his founding of the Fellowship Church of all nations in San Francisco. I was struck by the constant tension between his introversion and rich thought life verses his desire to connect with people and his ministry of speaking, writing, and ministering to people. His love for people and his sensitivity to different cultures and perspectives in his ministry was admirable and moving.
January 13, 2021
Good read, as is anything by Thurman. He is a peerless communicator and this is a fascinating peek at his life.
As is often the case with an autobiography, much of the story is told from memory. The gems, however, are the primary source notes - the sermons and addresses, that really covey what he was feeling in the moment rather than at a later time. I wish there were a few more of these included.
Maybe the most profound thought: “I think the religion of Jesus in its true genius offers me a promising way to work through the conflicts of a disordered world. I make a careful distinction between Christianity and the religion of Jesus.”
As is often the case with an autobiography, much of the story is told from memory. The gems, however, are the primary source notes - the sermons and addresses, that really covey what he was feeling in the moment rather than at a later time. I wish there were a few more of these included.
Maybe the most profound thought: “I think the religion of Jesus in its true genius offers me a promising way to work through the conflicts of a disordered world. I make a careful distinction between Christianity and the religion of Jesus.”
April 21, 2021
Howard Thurman is a fascinating, brilliant man. This memoir was a fun one to read. I felt so many connections to his journey of trying to find his path in ministry & academia.
So much of what he wrote gave me the language to explain feelings I have had before. For example, the love/pressure of professors and wanting to make them proud: “They placed over our heads a crown that for the rest of our lives we would be trying to grow tall enough to wear.”
I’m discovering that memoirs are quite fun to read! You learn how other people talk about their lives and it gives you a way to think and talk about your own. I really enjoy learning about other people, reflecting on the connections we have, and what I could learn from their life.
So much of what he wrote gave me the language to explain feelings I have had before. For example, the love/pressure of professors and wanting to make them proud: “They placed over our heads a crown that for the rest of our lives we would be trying to grow tall enough to wear.”
I’m discovering that memoirs are quite fun to read! You learn how other people talk about their lives and it gives you a way to think and talk about your own. I really enjoy learning about other people, reflecting on the connections we have, and what I could learn from their life.
August 2, 2024
I really enjoyed this book. Part of my enjoyment definitely stemmed from his own reflection upon his life and how it resonated with where I am at in my own journey. He wrote from a clear and plain perspective of acceptance and passion. He is well integrated with his reality while maintaining a firm footing in the spiritual realm.
"Through all of this I was on my own scent. The sacred and the secular were aspects of a single reality, a single meaning. At no point could a line of separation be drawn. At long last it seems to me that the customary distinction between religion and life is a specious one."
"Through all of this I was on my own scent. The sacred and the secular were aspects of a single reality, a single meaning. At no point could a line of separation be drawn. At long last it seems to me that the customary distinction between religion and life is a specious one."
January 2, 2021
With Thurman, you feel as though he's an old friend, telling you stories. I loved not only learning about his life, his strengths and foibles, which he is frank about, but the worlds he inhabited - turn of the century Daytona Beach, Morehouse College in the twenties, Howard University in the thirties, his complicated feelings about life on academic campuses, his great love for San Francisco, and his constant and amazing travels. His visit to India and meeting Gandhi in 1935 is especially interesting.
January 20, 2019
Tremendous book, marred down one star by a good bit of scattershot meandering toward the end, when it loses a narrative thread and just becomes a collection of thoughts (although one of those thoughts is the longest section on MLK in the whole book). I’ll need to return to Jesus and the Disinherited then make my way to some of his other writings now.
June 25, 2020
I read this autobiography with the hopes of understanding how Reverend Thurman managed to become who he was - a humanitarian who could see beyond race and religion and could recognize all persons dignity and spirituality. While this work didn't give me 'answers' it did take me on his journey. Much of the book contains wisp of insights and experiences of nature that are poetic.
August 14, 2020
A remarkable and inspiring life. In Thurman’s own words, “May we all remember that the time and the place of a [person’s] life on the earth are the time and place of his body, but the meaning of his life is as vast, as creative, and as redemptive as his gifts, his times, and the passionate commitment of all his powers can make it.”
August 3, 2022
As part of the living school for action and contemplation, I was assigned this book. What I didn’t expect, was how much I would enjoy it and how it touched my heart. This is a book of revelations, and a book of transformation. Thurman is a modern day Mystic and needs to be read by anyone who is seeking spiritual formation and enlightenment.
January 29, 2021
I should probably give this five stars since it made me cry and since I suspect it will cause me to continue encountering Thurman throughout the rest of my life, but I am anticipating loving his collections of prayers and meditations even more than this.
December 2, 2021
Fascinating story of a major influence on spirituality and civil rights who I had never known of. His humble presentation of himself in the events of his life doesn't capture the power of his work and words. Someone worth exploring.
December 26, 2022
Fascinating - Rev Thurman gives us his life over time. The title "With Head and Heart" perfectly describes the wisdom and understanding of his life - lived well. His summary is particularly relevant - as he summarizes "my testimony is that life is against all dualism. Life is One."
February 7, 2019
So glad I found out about this amazing human!
June 24, 2019
I'm now motivated to read more of Thurman's books.
November 27, 2019
It was marvelous to be in the presence of this great man.
September 19, 2020
An incredible book, with hints of the eternal throughout its pages.
October 25, 2020
An essential book in understanding Thurman’s career, as an author, minister, theologian and mystic.
January 20, 2021
A moving life
This book tells of the many great and impactful deeds of Dr. Thurman. I will say that there are some sections better than others but overall good read
This book tells of the many great and impactful deeds of Dr. Thurman. I will say that there are some sections better than others but overall good read
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