Thurman personally mentored and inspired many social and political activists, among them Pauli Murray, James Farmer, Bayard Rustin, James Lawson, Dr. In him I found support for my desire for intimacy with God and hunger for spiritual community, and I began to consider him a mentor. My awkwardness as the only African American on a silent retreat or at a spiritual conference dissipated. Once I started reading and listening to Thurman, I stopped feeling strange for seeking silence, stillness, and solitude. Like Landrum Bolling writes, many of us feel like Thurman speaks directly to us - “vividly, intensely, personally.” Each time I play a recording of Thurman reciting one of his many meditations, I smile. It has an almost incantatory quality, a cadence both warm and mysterious. His voice is filled with gravity, but it is not without a sense of joy. The melodious voice of Howard Thurman bellows through the room: “How good it is to center down,” he says.
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