"Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,
The onward surge
Let me not be frozen
Either by the past or the present.
Grant me, O patient Father, Thy sense of the future
Without which all life would sicken and die."
— Howard Thurman in Addicted to Hurry by Kirk Byron Jones

"How good it is to center down!
To sit quietly and see one's self pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.
With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;
A direction, a strong sure purpose that will structure our confusion and bring meaning in our chaos.
We look at ourselves in this waiting moment — the kinds of people we are.
The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives? — what are the motives that order our days?
What is the end of our doings? Where are we trying to go?
Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused?
For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?
What do I hate most in life and to what am I true?
Over and over the questions beat in upon the waiting moment.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind —
A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.
It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are answered,
Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily round
With the peace of the Eternal in our step.
How good it is to center down!"
— Howard Thurman in Meditations of the Heart

"The peace of God,
which passeth all understanding,
shall guard my heart and thoughts.
There is the peace that comes
when lowering clouds burst
and the whole landscape is drenched in rain,
refreshing and cool.
There is the peace that comes
when hours of sleeplessness
are swallowed up in sleep,
deeply relaxing and calm.
There is a peace that comes
when what has lurked so long
in the shadow of my mind
stands out in the light.
I face it, call it by its name,
for better or for worse.
There is a peace that comes
when sorrow is not relieved,
when pain is not required,
when tragedy remains tragedy,
stark and literal,
when failure continues through all the days
to be failure.
Is all this the peace of God?
Or is it the intimation of the peace of God?
The Peace of God
shall guard my heart and thoughts.
There are feelings, untamed and unmanageable
in my heart:
The bitterness of a great hatred, not yet absorbed;
The moving light of love, unrequited or
unfulfilled,
casting its shafts down all corridors of my days,
the unnamed anxiety brought on by nothing
in particular,
some strange foreboding of coming disaster
that does not yet appear;
The overwhelming hunger of God that
underscores all the ambitions, dreams and
restlessness of my churning spirit.
Hold them, O peace of God, until Thy perfect
work is in them fulfilled.
The Peace of God, which passes all understanding,
shall guard my heart and my thoughts.
Into God's keeping do I yield my heart and
thoughts, yea, my life –
with its strength and weakness
its failure and success,
its shame and its purity.
O Peace of God, settle over me and within me
so that I cannot tell mine from thine
and thine from mine."
— Howard Thurman in Sermons on the Parables