The following meditation, “Every Man Must Decide,” is from Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart.
The ability to know what is the right thing to do in a given circumstance is a sheer gift of God. The element of gift is inherent in the process of decision. Perhaps gift is the wrong word; it is a quality of genius or immediate inspiration. The process is very simple and perhaps elemental. First, we weigh all the possible alternatives. We examine them carefully, weighing this and weighing that. There is always an abundance of advice available – some of it technical, some of it out of the full-orbed generosity of those who love us and wish us well. Each bit of it has to be weighed and measured in the light of the end sought. This means that the crucial consideration is to know what is the desirable end. What is it that I most want to see happen if the conditions were ideal or if my desire were completely fulfilled? Once this end is clearly visualized, then it is possible to have a sense of direction with reference to the decision that must be made.
If it becomes clear that the ideal end cannot be realized, it follows that such a pursuit has to be relinquished. This relinquishment is always difficult because the mind, the spirit, the body desires are all focused upon the ideal end. Every person thinks that it is his peculiar destiny to have the ideal come true for him. The result is that, with one’s mind, the ideal possibility is abandoned but emotionally it is difficult to give it up. Thus the conflict. The resources of one’s personality cannot be marshaled. A man finds that he cannot work wholeheartedly for the achievable or possible end because he cannot give up the inner demand for the ideal end.
Oftentimes precious months or years pass with no solution in evidence because there is ever the hope that the ideal end may, in some miraculous manner, come to pass. Then the time for action does come at last. There comes a moment when something has to be done; one can no longer postpone the decision – the definite act resolves an otherwise intolerable situation. Once the decision is made, the die is cast. Is my decision right or wrong, wise or foolish? At the moment, I may be unable to answer the question. For what is right in the light of the present set of facts may not be able to stand up under the scrutiny of unfolding days. I may not have appraised the facts properly. My decision may have been largely influenced by my desires which were at work at the very center of my conscious processes. In the face of all the uncertainties that surround any decision, the wise man acts in the light of his best judgment illumined by the integrity of his profoundest spiritual insights. Then the rest is in the hands of the future and in the mind of God. The possibility of error, of profound and terrible error, is at once the height and the depth of man’s freedom.
For this, God be praised!