Harold A. Bosley - "What Are You Worth?" (November 6, 1960)

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-	Yes, the new Testament has one specialty above others.	0:23
	It is the capacity of throwing open doors on problems	0:29
	that are not only specifically Christian in nature,	0:33
	but universal in their compass.	0:37
	When Paul for example, was writing to the Christians	0:41
	in Ephesus,	0:44
	he urged them to live a life worthy of their calling	0:46
	as disciples of Jesus Christ.	0:50
	And in this advice,	0:54
	he was opening up a door on two problems.	0:55
	One universal and import	0:57
	and the other special significance	1:00
	to those who call themselves Christian.	1:02
	The import or the universal problem	1:06
	has to do with the meaning of worthiness in human life.	1:08
	A problem that escapes no one.	1:13
	Sometime ago, a reporter for one of our great magazines,	1:17
	was given the assignment of doing a story	1:21
	on one of the richest men in the world.	1:24
	He made an appointment to see him	1:28
	and his first question to his subject was,	1:29
	"How much are you worth?"	1:33
	The man for a moment hesitated	1:36
	and then answered quite honestly,	1:39
	"I just don't know".	1:41
	Now in reading this,	1:44
	I was impressed with question and answer.	1:45
	I like I must confess.	1:47
	How anyone could conceivably have so much money	1:49
	he didn't know how much he had,	1:52
	is and must remain a mystery to those of us	1:54
	who need to know and are able to know how much we have	1:57
	down to every fleeting penny.	2:01
	But apparently there are such.	2:03
	But in order to get the question	2:06
	and get it in its right perspective,	2:09
	I'd like to enlarge it a little	2:11
	in order to let it guide us in areas where we all live.	2:14
	Instead of asking how much are we worth,	2:20
	I'd like to ask, how worthy are we?	2:22
	It's still a matter of seeking our worth	2:27
	but in a broader sense.	2:30
	The first question, how much are we worth	2:33
	is a question of material resources.	2:35
	The question, how worthy are we is a question of character.	2:40
	Obviously, a man can be worth a lot of money	2:45
	yet be quite unworthy of it.	2:48
	He can be a Tommy Manville or a Nelson Rockefeller.	2:52
	There may be some question as how much money	2:57
	these men are worth, but reputedly it's a lot.	2:59
	But when you ask of each one of them or anyone else	3:04
	how worthy is he of what he has,	3:06
	the answer must be fashioned out of their life	3:10
	and their works.	3:13
	We can inherit worth if it's limited to money	3:16
	but we cannot inherit worthiness.	3:20
	Someone else may make the money for us	3:23
	and give it to us for us to use	3:25
	but no one can give us the worthiness to use it responsibly.	3:29
	Worthiness is an earned degree,	3:35
	there's nothing honorary about it.	3:38
	That is why any important inquiry and the worth of a person	3:41
	must necessarily reach far beyond his bank role	3:45
	or his lack of it.	3:48
	And must plumb the very depths of his character,	3:50
	his soul if you please,	3:53
	and admittedly and unavoidably painful procedure	3:56
	for a few of us are really worthy of the great gifts	4:01
	we take so for granted and enjoy so casually.	4:06
	Take this business of life or the shared life	4:12
	or the religious appraisal of life	4:15
	as we have it in our various religious traditions.	4:18
	Life is something we all have in varying degrees	4:22
	depending upon what we've done the day before.	4:25
	And what a privilege and a blessing it is	4:29
	to have life and to be able to enjoy the ability to breathe,	4:31
	to see, to hear, to feel, to know,	4:36
	to appreciate the unending panorama of color	4:38
	and sound and silence.	4:41
	The joy of work and play,	4:44
	the strength of life,	4:45
	the challenge of work.	4:47
	Whether we put it in one way or another,	4:49
	life is a great gift and a priceless possession we have.	4:51
	We take it so for granted	4:55
	and we seldom ask, am I really worthy of all this?	4:59
	This life that we have and prize is never a solitary entity,	5:06
	a naked soul,	5:10
	it's a nucleus of relationships with others	5:12
	and whatever meaning it has is a shared meaning.	5:14
	Its deepest meanings ought to be found	5:18
	with and among other people.	5:20
	They are never our own alone alone.	5:23
	If we should take friends and loved ones	5:27
	and comrades out of our life,	5:29
	we would be little more than this in kind of spirit	5:32
	spinnings or the empty spaces of meaninglessness.	5:37
	If we should try to put our finger on the deepest drive	5:41
	in our own life,	5:44
	we would not be far wrong if we would phrase it	5:46
	in some such fashion as this.	5:48
	It is the quest for meaning through the deepening	5:51
	of creative relationships.	5:55
	Take the gift of the shared life,	5:59
	which we all enjoy.	6:01
	It's both a present factor	6:03
	and it's an unfolding possibility.	6:04
	We have parents and family.	6:07
	We have comrades in work and play.	6:09
	We have our sick loved ones	6:12
	for homes and families of our own.	6:15
	But do we ask as we stand on the threshold	6:18
	of these experiences,	6:21
	or seek to we evaluate them whether we are worthy?	6:23
	To the extent we are worthy?	6:28
	How we are unworthy of all that they open up to us?	6:30
	We usually have no difficulty asking	6:38
	whether someone else is worthy,	6:40
	but we hesitate to put the question to ourselves.	6:43
	But student can help wondering whether he is worthy	6:49
	of the opportunity to receive	6:51
	a thorough college and university training.	6:53
	How I wish we did not take that so for granted	6:57
	as are just do as something someone else owes us.	7:00
	We've heard it many times that probably,	7:06
	we wouldn't take it so for granted	7:07
	if it came a little harder to us.	7:09
	Last year I asked a high school senior	7:13
	what he was going to do this year.	7:15
	He said quite casually,	7:18
	"Oh, I suppose I'll try to go to college.	7:19
	My old man has his heart set on it."	7:23
	Startled I offered Andrew a seat with his old man	7:26
	and called him off if he didn't wanna go to college.	7:28
	But the boy said, "Oh, I suppose I might as well go.	7:31
	There's nothing else I'd rather do."	7:35
	Now, that's what I would call a slight interest	7:37
	in an education.	7:39
	I found it to be quite different there in Japan	7:43
	when I was visiting there five years ago this very month.	7:45
	Visiting on half a dozen campuses,	7:50
	I found the most intense students imaginable.	7:52
	They knew they were fortunate to be in college	7:56
	by a discipline of study that imperil	8:00
	the health of many of them.	8:02
	They tried to prove worthy of that privilege	8:04
	under the unfolding privilege of responsible leadership	8:06
	in the bedeviled life of their beautiful and beloved land.	8:11
	U faculty and students alike,	8:17
	are in one of the great universities of the world.	8:19
	There's no question about its worthiness	8:25
	but have you ever confronted yourself	8:30
	with a question of your worthiness to be here?	8:32
	Or do you regard it as an oyster to open with the sword	8:38
	of your own desire?	8:44
	Nothing more.	8:47
	We in the United States are in the midst	8:51
	of determining whether we are worthy	8:53
	of the disciplines of democracy.	8:55
	Nearly half of our adults will not take the trouble	8:58
	to vote next Tuesday and God alone knows	9:01
	how many of those who do,	9:03
	will have given very much thought to what they're doing.	9:05
	In fact, the entire political campaign has been	9:09
	and continues to be a kind of descent into a furnace	9:11
	for one who really believes in democracy as a way of life.	9:16
	Not that the image of our two chief candidates	9:21
	has not come through.	9:24
	They seem to be upright enough.	9:25
	Both of them.	9:27
	We have a very confident image of both of them now.	9:29
	Confidence we appreciate.	9:32
	Whether we appreciate the kind of cockiness,	9:34
	it says, "Move over Abraham.	9:36
	I am here now I'll take over."	9:38
	Is another question.	9:41
	I'm not really so worried about the image	9:44
	of the candidate that's coming through	9:46
	as I am concerned about the image of you and me,	9:48
	that I feel coming through their appeal	9:51
	to us and to our votes.	9:54
	What kind of an image of this country do you get	9:57
	as you look at the picture that comes through now?	10:01
	Well, some of the basic lineaments in that picture	10:07
	will be fear,	10:10
	hate,	10:12
	pride,	10:14
	anxiety,	10:16
	security,	10:19
	a perambulating pocket book,	10:22
	well stuffed.	10:27
	That's us.	10:29
	That's what we want.	10:31
	Apparently, spell it out a little more carefully.	10:34
	We are in fond at the things that will move us to vote	10:40
	one way rather than another are one,	10:42
	self-interest.	10:46
	My job.	10:47
	My income.	10:49
	My security.	10:50
	My future.	10:51
	Or two, group interest.	10:53
	Labor,	10:56
	management,	10:57
	religion,	10:59
	sectionalism,	11:00
	minority status of whatever kind	11:02
	or three, a casual glance at the world round about us	11:04
	in order that the world may be informed	11:11
	that we're number one.	11:13
	We're boss.	11:16
	We're the most powerful.	11:19
	We are the most righteous.	11:20
	We're gonna run things.	11:22
	I find myself wondering whether we are not trying	11:31
	to decide between one of two images	11:34
	of the leadership of this country.	11:39
	One,	11:45
	the great white father who will do all things for all people	11:46
	and who knows exactly how to go about it,	11:50
	will be able to do it if we just place our trust in him.	11:53
	Or the other image is the new Messiah.	11:58
	A Gallant Knight from the far east or the far west,	12:01
	who has been in doubt supernaturally	12:05
	with the necessary wisdom to bring into being full answers	12:07
	to the most complicated and perplexing problems	12:11
	that mankind has ever been called on to face.	12:14
	In any event,	12:20
	regardless of which image we're in time toward,	12:21
	we get the distinct impression	12:23
	that if we're just willing to vote for the right man,	12:26
	everything will be all right.	12:28
	Backing away from this incredible experience	12:32
	of a political campaign,	12:34
	I find myself wondering whether we are worthy	12:36
	of democracy and freedom,	12:39
	if we persuade ourselves to cast our vote	12:42
	in the light of such appeals in such interests.	12:44
	We take freedom and democracy as our do.	12:48
	We assume we know what they are.	12:51
	We assume we understand them to the very depths	12:55
	of their nature.	12:57
	Is there any of the agonizing	12:59
	it went into the Federalist papers?	13:01
	Are we being treated to the kind of discussion	13:05
	that went abroad from one end of the colonies to the other,	13:08
	as we were trying to bring into existence	13:11
	this land that we love and the essential nature	13:13
	of our laws and our life?	13:15
	Not the offendi of any of our candidates can help	13:17
	and we're not being treated to it.	13:19
	We've got the answers.	13:24
	Why should we work?	13:26
	And if we don't have it,	13:28
	someone right over here who does have.	13:29
	Just vote for him and he'll do the rest of it.	13:32
	How worthy are we?	13:38
	Obvious great minority adventure	13:42
	known as the Democratic Enterprise,	13:46
	the latest arrival on the scene of human relationships.	13:52
	The one most widely discussed from one end of the world	13:58
	to the other by people who are unwilling to measure up	14:02
	to it's discipline.	14:04
	How worthy are we proving ourselves of it in this day?	14:06
	I'm sure we feel the same sense of unworthiness	14:16
	as we do in turn to our religious heritage.	14:19
	It's so easy to pass snap judgements off on that.	14:24
	I'm making common confession for all freshmen.	14:29
	I know when I say I never knew as much	14:33
	about my religious inheritance as I did	14:35
	when I was a freshman.	14:38
	I had more answers about it then than I've ever had since.	14:41
	The longer I've worked at it	14:46
	and the harder I've dug into it,	14:48
	the more complicated in some ways,	14:50
	the more simple in others,	14:53
	the more exacting in every way	14:55
	(indistinct)	14:57
	When I hear someone with a flip,	14:59
	way passing off the whole of the Christian heritage,	15:02
	the whole of the heritage of Hebrewism,	15:05
	as though he'd plumbed it to it's steps.	15:07
	Weighed it.	15:11
	Measured it.	15:12
	Founded wanting.	15:13
	I hardly know what to say.	15:16
	That it is open to criticism.	15:19
	Any reasonable person knows.	15:21
	But that it is on trial.	15:24
	Is another matter.	15:29
	Whether we have the courage to place it on trial,	15:31
	are worthy of the effort to understand it,	15:35
	is still another matter.	15:39
	Even those of us who are willing to grant that,	15:43
	the need for worthiness is a very real need in our life,	15:46
	have a right to ask whether there is a way	15:50
	in which we can grow from our present state	15:52
	of partial unworthiness or real unworthiness,	15:54
	into a state of greater worthiness.	15:59
	The facts are quite reassuring	16:02
	if a person is willing to travel a high and a hard road,	16:03
	the cultivation of worthiness,	16:08
	maybe more an art than a science.	16:11
	In the exact sense I know of no one	16:13
	who can diagram and exact pattern which if adhered to,	16:15
	will guarantee a increase in worthiness.	16:19
	But, every artist, every scientist,	16:21
	every thinker, and every responsible person	16:24
	knows that we can grow in this area.	16:26
	Zona Gale, a novelist,	16:31
	was wanting to ask for her social creed.	16:32
	She replied, "I have determined do increase	16:35
	the area of my awareness as long as I live".	16:39
	Look at that for a moment	16:44
	and you may feel as I do about it,	16:45
	that this is the creed of a creative life.	16:47
	It reminds me of what Henry James once said	16:51
	when he was asked how to pursue the art of writing.	16:53
	He answered,	16:57
	"Try to be one of those persons on whom nothing is lost."	16:57
	That's hard advice.	17:02
	Harder than we'll ever know until we try to become	17:04
	the open kind of person on whom nothing is lost	17:07
	in whom there is a sensitivity and a conscientiousness	17:11
	in our relationships with other people	17:15
	that actually receives them openly and deeply	17:17
	on their own term as human beings.	17:21
	Only one who is aware of and is prepared to pay the price	17:28
	of ever grading awareness of other people	17:31
	will understand the agony that goes into it.	17:36
	It's so much simpler,	17:40
	so much less painful,	17:41
	so much more peaceful,	17:42
	to operate within the well-defined categories	17:45
	of what I like and what I want,	17:48
	and what I fear and I hate and what I believe.	17:49
	Just stay within the wall.	17:53
	I say it's simpler,	17:56
	for the same reason,	17:58
	it is simpler to try to sail a boat inside	18:00
	a well sheltered harbor than to take it out on the ocean.	18:04
	If we are proud of our prejudices,	18:08
	if we want to make a virtue of blindness,	18:10
	we will not carry to explore the meaning	18:13
	of greater sensitivity and awareness	18:16
	in our relationships with other people	18:18
	and we will close out permanently,	18:21
	the meaning of greater worth for our own life.	18:24
	One of the first and possibly the hardest battles	18:28
	that we have to fight,	18:31
	if we are to increase our own worthiness,	18:33
	is an internal one,	18:35
	mainly with our inherited	18:38
	and our deeply beloved prejudices.	18:41
	We all have them differing only in degree.	18:44
	Prejudice is to race or religion or culture,	18:49
	build walls around us,	18:53
	put blinders on us.	18:55
	They permit us to see only what they want us to see.	18:57
	They block out all else leaving us conscious	19:00
	of the things that nourish them.	19:03
	And they will admit nothing yet repudiates them.	19:08
	In time of crisis whether in war or depression	19:11
	or a period of great uncertainty,	19:14
	fear and hate apply for the job as dormant of our spirit.	19:17
	And if we hire them,	19:21
	they will admit only those things that nurture	19:23
	our fears and our hates.	19:26
	You see this in every war man has fought.	19:28
	In World War II, we called and permitted ourselves to call	19:32
	the Japanese little yellow monkeys	19:37
	but never referred to as the children of God.	19:39
	We knew we were wrong as we did it.	19:43
	We knew we were defaming our great people,	19:45
	but that's why we were out to do.	19:48
	We weren't out to do justice to it	19:50
	we were out to get ourselves in a frame of mind	19:53
	where we can carry on a war to victory against him.	19:55
	Just how deeply we sinned against him I didn't know,	19:59
	until I was in their homes and schools,	20:03
	and churches for an extended period of time recently.	20:06
	Well, anyone deny that wars grow out of such situations.	20:11
	Situations in which people like ourselves,	20:16
	either blind themselves or permit themselves	20:19
	to be progressively blinded,	20:23
	to the realities of the life of other people.	20:26
	The problem of awareness is the first step	20:31
	toward worthiness comes very close home	20:33
	when we asked how large our awareness is	20:36
	of other religions and other races and other nations.	20:38
	Are we willing to become one of those	20:42
	on whom nothing is lost as we approach a Jew	20:44
	or a Negro or a Catholic or a Muslim or a Buddhist	20:48
	or an alien or anyone other than ourselves?	20:52
	Are we alive to them as persons, as human beings,	20:56
	as children of the living God,	20:59
	or do we have a lot of ready-made categories	21:02
	dug deep by our prejudices into which we dump	21:05
	and dump them all?	21:08
	Are we alert on each of the things about them,	21:11
	the characteristics in them that offend us	21:13
	and therefore nourish our hate and suspicion	21:17
	or are we open enough to admit the things	21:20
	that contradict these impressions?	21:23
	No law I know of can make us do this	21:27
	and I doubt whether even God himself can force us	21:30
	to attempt it or keep us at the effort	21:33
	unless we are willing to try it.	21:36
	But unless the entire witness of our faith is wrong,	21:40
	we must move in the direction of increasing	21:43
	and deepening our awareness of other people,	21:45
	other religions, other races, and other ways of life.	21:48
	If we are to cultivate the growth of worthiness	21:53
	necessary to live in this world teetering as it is	21:55
	on the edge of annihilation.	21:59
	Blindness is not a virtue	22:02
	even when practiced by good people	22:05
	and blindness is evil	22:09
	when it is practiced by those who confess to believe	22:12
	in one God, who is the creator,	22:17
	the sustainer and the Redeemer of all men.	22:21
	But until then, unless we can win	22:26
	this profoundly personal battle,	22:27
	we haven't a ghost of a chance to win victory	22:30
	for the world community.	22:32
	Some years ago,	22:36
	one of our playwrights put this line in a play.	22:37
	We live in a time when the truest voices	22:41
	are struck down by the loudest.	22:44
	I can't forget it.	22:47
	Each time I try to forget it,	22:50
	there arises new documentation of its authenticity.	22:52
	But let us remember this,	22:56
	the loud voices of hatred, anger, fear and prejudice	22:59
	are first lifted not in the marketplace	23:02
	or on the radio or television,	23:05
	but within the sanctuary of our own soul.	23:08
	Once lifted there,	23:12
	they move swiftly to the microphone,	23:13
	the classroom, the pulpit in the church council.	23:15
	And once they move in anywhere	23:18
	they dominate everything else.	23:20
	They narrow our field of awareness,	23:22
	letting us see only the things they want us to see,	23:25
	hear only what they want us to hear	23:29
	and feel only what they want us to feel.	23:31
	I'm all for the laws and the policies and the institutions	23:34
	that lead toward the control of prejudice, bigotry	23:39
	and discrimination in every form,	23:43
	but let us never deceive ourselves	23:46
	as to where the first and all important battle	23:48
	against these things must be fought	23:50
	namely within our own personal selves	23:53
	in the depths of our own souls.	23:57
	And if we can't win it there,	23:59
	we won't win it anywhere else	24:01
	with any degree of significance.	24:04
	As we struggle along the road toward worthwhileness,	24:08
	we shall need to cultivate the art of being quite humble	24:12
	and honest about ourselves,	24:15
	of engaging in candid criticism of motif and D	24:17
	instead of talking about abstractions	24:23
	like a member of another race,	24:26
	whether it be Jew or Negro	24:29
	or Oriento,	24:32
	we need to talk in terms of someone we know	24:35
	who belongs to that group.	24:38
	The law of association can help mightily	24:42
	if we give it a chance in this regard.	24:44
	When we hear the word Jews spoken,	24:47
	of whom do we think someone who may have rubbed us	24:50
	the wrong way or of those like Jesus Christ or Paul,	24:52
	or many of our dearest and sincerest friends	24:57
	in home and community.	25:00
	What image do we conjure up with over at Roman Catholic,	25:03
	those of us who are Protestant?	25:05
	Do we think of some ecclesiastic	25:08
	who's needle this the wrong way	25:10
	tried to dominate the life of our community?	25:11
	Or do we think of St. Francis of Assisi	25:15
	who has rendered a kind of richness to us all	25:18
	that we can never repay no matter how hard we might try?	25:21
	Here is everywhere else,	25:26
	we need to be humble and honest	25:27
	about how best to live in this world of which we are a part.	25:28
	This suggests that we need to extend the lines	25:34
	of our own personal relationships	25:37
	until there isn't a single chasm in the human family	25:39
	that we haven't thrown a personal bridge across.	25:43
	I need to know and be deeply open to	25:47
	and appreciative of members of other groups.	25:50
	I need to know...	25:58
	be grateful for knowing men like Martin Luther king.	26:00
	You know a man like that he's to know beyond all arguments.	26:05
	Get anything that separates him and what he stands for	26:10
	from status on the plane of equality	26:16
	and life in the spirit of fraternity here and everywhere	26:19
	he is evil and it has been evil from the beginning	26:22
	of the world.	26:24
	Personal bridges like these,	26:29
	are the only bridges that are strong enough	26:33
	to bear the weight of what must be born	26:35
	if we are to build a kind of a world	26:40
	that is waiting to be built.	26:43
	I should like to suggest as the culmination	26:46
	of our thrust toward worthiness,	26:48
	that we engage in the serious and sustained practice	26:51
	of worship of the one God who made us all.	26:57
	When we try to build one world,	27:01
	we're not tugging at our bootstraps.	27:03
	We're trying to bring into actuality and reality.	27:07
	Something is planted deep within us	27:11
	by a wheel out there and greater than our own.	27:13
	And we're offering to be servants of that wheel.	27:17
	We need to learn how to worship	27:22
	as individuals in the privacy of our own rooms.	27:25
	Here in a great company like this,	27:30
	where we confront ourselves with the fact of God	27:34
	and spiritually prostrate ourselves	27:39
	before the one in whom we live	27:41
	and move and have our being.	27:43
	It's a hard thing to take our cherish prejudices	27:46
	to an alter like this and ask God to bless them.	27:51
	It takes a good deal, more self-righteousness	27:57
	and most of us have.	27:59
	We need to share in services like this steadily	28:03
	with peoples of all groups	28:08
	in order that we may know who we are.	28:12
	We are the sons of God.	28:17
	God help us.	28:19
	And we are by his wheel brothers one of another,	28:21
	and may he truly help us.	28:27

Item Info

Title:

Harold A. Bosley - "What Are You Worth?" (November 6, 1960)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4348mh7z

Date:

November 6, 1960

Speaker:

Bosley, Harold A.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0123
ref5447_sm9
uachapelsermaud
duke:628306
dcrau002143
ark:/87924/r4348mh7z
167c005d-4287-4cf2-b453-1b3396014304

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

See below

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Harold A. Bosley - "What Are You Worth?" (November 6, 1960)

Transcript

Item Info

1. Harold A. Bosley - "What Are You Worth?" (November 6, 1960)

Duke University Archives

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Harold A. Bosley - "What Are You Worth?" (November 6, 1960)

Transcript

Item Info

Related Item

Duke University Archives

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