Listen for the Sound of the Genuine

“Sing your own songs, said the river. Sing. Sing your own song.”

~Howard Thurman

In his historical sermon, The Sound of the Genuine, Black theologian and mystic Howard Thurman emphasizes that the most crucial quest of life is self-discovery. The following excerpt is particularly relevant to my interpretation of self-discovery, bodily autonomy, and individuality in the context of healing religious trauma among queer individuals who have grappled with the question: Am I enough?

Whatever you may think about the story of your journey, this is a very simple practical thing. I’m not trying to preach of grace or anything of that sort. You—and please don’t be bored by my repeating of this over and over—you are the only one that has ever lived. Your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all the existences….There’s something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings somebody else pulls.”

~The Sound of the Genuine (Thurman, 1980).

As a mystic of African descent, Thurman likely understood the interconnectedness of spirit and substance in African spirituality. Both “spirit” and “substance” are sacred grounds for reclaiming self-identity. The interior life provides spiritual guidance to the outer life, and the external life reflects the inner state.

“Simple story. There is something in every one of you that waits, listen for the sound of the genuine in yourself.”

~Thurman

For Thurman, the inward journey is the spiritual wisdom of the soul, a journey that holds the answers to the questions we often grapple with. It is a journey where the soul sings its own song, unadulterated by external influences. Thurman articulates the relationship between the soul’s journey inward and healing from religious trauma:

“If thy soul is a stranger to thee, the whole world is unhomely.”

~Thurman

It is time to reclaim who we were before the world (of religious homophobia) told us who we should be. Religious systems that do not affirm our humanity cannot survive if we realize that the divine resides within us. If divinity is internal, indoctrination becomes impossible. This is not understanding; it is innerstanding.