Walking On The Edge of Life – Rev. Darrell Jones
This recording features the Sunday Talk portion of the service. For the full service watch here.
DESCRIPTION
Still waiting for life to finally feel right? What if the edge you’re avoiding is where life actually begins? Most of us are waiting for life to finally get “there.” More settled. More meaningful. More whole. But what if this—right here—is the edge where life actually grows? This Sunday, we explore what it means to stop waiting and start walking on the edge of life—where uncertainty meets courage and the Divine is already present.
SUMMARY
Rev. Darrell Jones explores the spiritual practice of living on the edge of life, where uncertainty meets courage and divine presence. Rather than waiting for perfect conditions, Jones argues that readiness is a choice, not a feeling, and that individuals are constantly changing the world whether they realize it or not. The talk draws heavily on the teachings of Howard Thurman, an African American mystic and prolific author born in 1899 who lived through Jim Crow segregation yet published 22 books beginning in 1944. Central to Jones’s message is the concept that spiritual practitioners must maintain daily commitment to recognizing the divine in all circumstances—in both comfort and discomfort. Thurman’s philosophy emphasizes that human experience contains an inherent restlessness; no single achievement, word, or goal can fully contain all that we seek. Jones contends that growth occurs not through passivity but through engaging with life’s pressures and discomfort with eyes and heart wide open. The practice requires commitment to beliefs that counter dominant cultural narratives—specifically, that there is enough for everyone, that life works for us rather than against us, and that love and divinity, not evil, are fundamental forces. Ultimately, Jones calls listeners to maintain their spiritual resolve, to increase their capacity to stand at the edge of uncertainty, and to recognize that their individual choices and actions contribute to collective transformation and healing.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Darrell Jones:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Morning. Does everybody know that song? Yes. Depending upon how long you’ve been on this planet, that song’s been around for a hot minute. And I was brought to some tears for a minute at the end for whatever reason. And one of the things that I love about music, it’s I think one of the reasons why I first studied music was that it has this visceral impact upon our consciousness, but upon ourselves. So the reason that I asked Paige and the band to do that song was my prayer right now is that something is open within you. And in that opening, as awesome as that song is, I want to change the lyrics. There’s no if, if I could change the world. Most of us walk around going, “Yeah, if I could change the world, if I had a million dollars, if I could do this.
” There’s no if. You’re changing the world, period, whether you realize it or not, but what if you could consciously change the world? That’s what we’re going to get into today. You ready? Yeah. All right, here we go. I’m setting the timer. The talk title today, kicking off this month, I’m so excited, so excited, so excited. And I’ll try to contain it a little bit because we could be here for a long time and there’s games to watch and food to eat if you’re in that realm of the world. The talk title is walking on the edge of life, living where the ground feels unsteady. Is anyone’s ground feeling a little like there’s walking on mushy, kind of like swampy ground. There’s walking on gravel. It’s a little unsteady. Then there’s standing on concrete that feels really secure. Anyone not on the concrete that feels like … You think the world’s walking on a little bit of unsteady?
Yes. Walk in the clouds, right?
My question is, are you still waiting for life to finally feel right? What if the edge that we’re kind of avoiding? It’s like, it doesn’t quite feel right, so I’m not going to do this. It doesn’t quite feel right, so I’m not going to start that. It doesn’t quite feel right, so I’m not going to say this. It doesn’t quite feel right, so I’m not … What if the thing that we’re saying not quite to is the actual edge of our becoming? That thing that we step back from and go, “Oh, we’ll see.” Most of us are waiting for life to finally get there, wherever there is, more settled, more secure, more meaningful, more whole. But what if this is it? Because it is all that there is. This is it. This is the day. This is the edge where life actually grows. So today we’re going to explore what it means to stop waiting and start walking on the edge of life where uncertainty meets courage and the divine is already present.
I don’t feel ready. Have you ever said that before? I don’t feel ready. I’ve been playing with this idea that readiness is not a feeling. You’re never going to feel ready. Readiness is a choice. You just choose it. To walk on the edge of life is a choice. There isn’t anything to figure out. There isn’t anything to understand a little bit better. There isn’t anything to become. As we are right here today, we are either choosing to consciously walk on the edge or to passively meander back from the edge. My hope is that today you will consciously walk towards that edge.
Greetings and salutations to those of you out in the virtual digital space. I hope that you are singularly focused. We’re going to get into the power of being committed to the moment where we are. I invite you to be committed to where you are in this either Facebook or YouTube verse, those of you in the room, greetings and salutations as well. Those of you watching this at another time, hello. Most of us walk around thinking something is wrong with us, or we walk around thinking something is wrong with the world. Agreed? We got lots of opinions about who we are and what the world is.
Things are never quite there, or things seem so far from getting there. It seems elusive. It seems distant and unattainable. And sometimes we get frustrated. We just kind of go, whatever. Take our foot off the gas and we’re like, “Yeah, that’s just the way it’s going to be. I’m here to live a life of mediocrity and bad luck. My life sucks. So I’m just going to do what I got to do to get through this day.” Sometimes we have those days, but I want to challenge you. I’m assuming the fact that you’re listening to this talk, the fact that you’re in this room is that you would be considered spiritually hearty.
Yeah? Yeah. The practice of the spiritually hardy is to walk this very edge of life. In good times or in bad, in feast or in famine, we stay at the edge. We look and we listen in the midst of whatever is there and declare somewhere in the midst of this is the divine. And we trust that declaration. That’s where our faith comes from. And in that declaration is where the revelation begins. When we say right here in the midst of what I don’t understand, right here in the midst of what I don’t even like, the divine is present. That’s the edge.
Anyone going, “All right, Darrell, great. This is a bit much.” No? All right. Well, my prayer and intention today is that by listening to the words and the meditations of my heart and also of Howard Thurman that I want to share with you, that you will be inspired and motivated to stay at the edge. And I think I mentioned it to Linda, I was talking to my wife, Carrie, about it last night. I’m so excited that Howard Thurman is the focus for this month. Not only that it’s Black History Month and he was an African American man, but his life and his writings, they have been impacting me from a very, very early age, even before I knew who he was. It was something that my father held close. It was something that he gave me to read. And I was like, “Wow, this is kind of cool.
This guy thinks way out of the box.” And I had no clue who he was. Let’s come back to our reading for today to ground us a little bit. And I just want, with this quote and some of the other quotes, “My man was born in 1899. He started writing in 1944.” So his language is 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s language. It’s not the inclusiveness that we kind of fall into today. I’m not changing his words because all of it is, there’s lots of he’s and hymns and God is this personified man, but he’s so eloquent. He’s so poetic, and I hope that it stirs your heart today. He said, “There is something strange and awesome about the quality of mind that keeps it from coming to rest with any single idea or any single experience.” So there’s a restlessness. There’s this edge that is always calling us.
No need or no deed which we have experienced, however good and wonderful it may be, can quite contain all that we meant by the thing we have done. No word that we have ever uttered can express fully and adequately what we’re trying to say. No goal that we have ever set before us and achieved is ever capable of containing all that we’re seeking. There always remains a residue that does not ever get itself contained by any vessel we may use, whether it be a thought, an idea, a deed, a goal, a dream, even a whole life. The something more cries out for expression and the expression does not ever quite come off. Now, this could seem like, oh, it’s daunting. It’s like, oh, we never get there. But I love this quote, partially because he was a mystic, but he stayed in the human experience and realized what we would call pain and suffering, the yearning for completion, the yearning for something more.
This is what the Buddhists would call the impermanence of life. Things are constantly changing and the inspiration that I receive from that, and then I hope that you do, is the fact that things are always changing and nothing is staying constant. If everything is changing, that means anything is possible. So in the faces, we stand on the edge of life and we go, “Man, how am I going to stay here? Just stay there knowing that something else is coming along. It’s not going to be this way forever, boo.” It’s okay.
All right. Howard Thurman, 1899 passed in 1981. If you are not familiar with this man, look him up. Check it out. He was born … So just think about historically what’s going on here. He was born in 1899. So this is in Florida, Jim Crow South. For 66 of the 81 years that he was on the planet, he lived in a legal separation and division of people by law saying, “You need to be over there because of the way you look.” Nothing else. And yet in the face of that, in 1944, so just think about that. World War is happening. All sorts of heaviness is happening, kind of like it is right now. In 1944, he began writing prolifically 22 books he published, 22.
And then after that, he had so many essays and poems and recordings. He’s got so many things posthumously produced after his passing in 81. It’s mind boggling. The book that we’re focusing on for the inward journey is beautiful. Read it. And I couldn’t help myself. I started opening up some of his other books. So I’m bringing a quote from one called Meditations of the Hearts. Take a deep breath in. Hear these words. “The movement of the spirit of God in the hearts of men often calls them to act against the spirit of their times and causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication, they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires.
“So he’s saying,” When we are really at the edge of life, when we are at the edge of the divine, when we are really, really leaning into this call upon our heart, whatever it may be, that’s living at the edge. It’s intense. It’s going against the grain of understanding, not to be contrarian, but rather to intentionally explore new territory and possibility in life or as homes likes to say, we are chemists in the laboratory of consciousness. What shall we produce? “We are here to throw some stuff up against the wall and see what happens. What Thurman summed up in these few sentences is the idea that the movement of the spirit of God activates within the heart of all life on some level, a move to extremism. God is constantly calling us to the edge of who we are.
I was sharing with Danny,” Is it warm enough for you? “Or cold enough for you, whatever it is. It’s warm and cold enough for me. The question that I keep asking the divine is like, ” Give me an opportunity today to understand you greater than I ever have. “That’s an invitation to stand on the edge of life. It’s not comfortable. It’s not easy. It calls us to the very edge of our experience and being. So if you really want to know the divine and experience it like never before, stay in the discomfort, lean into the uncertainty, stay where the ground is unsteady. Now, this is not a call to recklessness. This is not an invitation to put ourself in harm’s way and be dangerous, but it does not preclude the fact that we may endure some discomfort, that we may even have a bump or a bruise, that we may experience some pain.
To successfully live on the edge, Thurman invites us into a discussion first on commitment. We must remain committed to this work, not in one moment, but as a daily practice. We commit and we recommit ourselves over and over and over again, for without commitment, we get distracted and lost. What are we committing to? In this specific conversation, directly as spiritual practitioners, we commit to knowing God as our lives, period.
Your life, your life. If I was over, we’d be like, ” Your life is God. Your life is God and your life is God. “Period. There’s no exceptions like, ” Oh, well, they’re living the godly life. “Nope, you are. We all are. And to remind ourselves and recommit that that’s what’s happening, we are living the life of spirit and spirit is living its life as us. This is living on the edge. If the words of God and spirit charge you, let’s try this one. Maybe it’s living in the commitment to that life is for us and not against us. That could work. Or we commit to knowing and receiving all that we need when we need it, affirming that there is enough for everyone to go around. But this is not easy to do. This is actually hard work. It takes effort. You have to stand at the edge and push to stay in that space because it goes against the grain of the dominant collective belief.
That belief is always saying that there actually is never, ever going to be enough. Trust no one and not all human life is created equal. Whether we agree with it or not, that is the world consciousness. Would you agree? So to say, no, this is what I know is true. This is the light that I bring out to change the world, that there actually is no evil. The other day someone asked me, they’re like, ” Do you believe in evil? “And I was like, ” No, not at all. I believe in mistakes. I believe in misunderstanding, but there is no force. “And we can have an argument on this on another time, but I choose to believe that there is no dark force trying to destroy life like that’s its soul mission. Really? Take a look at our planet. If that was true, the universe would have imploded by now.
It’s been going on for millennia. There isn’t a dark force trying to shut things down. We just get confused. We tell ourselves some stories. So to say,” Nope, love, divinity, wholeness, that’s it. That’s radical.
Radical. This is living on the edge and to commit to that, it’s something else. So let’s come back to Thurman for a minute. I’ve used this quote so many times, but I was so glad to read it in the fuller context of this book for the inward journey. And one of the reasons why I love, whether it’s Rumi, whether it is Howard Thurman, to me, a true mystic is someone who is struggling. They spend so much time in, but they’re struggling because they’re trying to figure out how to bring that wisdom out. They’re trying to balance the spiritual and the human experience. And this little short essay here that’s from a section called Growing Under Pressure. And for any of those who love nature the way that I do, Thurman is all about looking at nature and seeds and trees and how things grow. So think about growing under pressure.
That’s what happens in nature. We’re a part of nature, right? So the edge is we need to be in the pressure of our lives. So growing under pressure, the essay is moments of high resolve. And he wrote,” Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve. Despite the dullness and bareness of the days that pass, if I search with due diligence, I can find a deposit left by some former radians, but I had forgotten.
At the time, it was full orbed, glorious and resplendent. I was sure that I would never forget. In the moment of its fullness, I was sure that it would illumine my path for all the rest of my journey. I’d forgotten how easy it is to forget. “Let’s pause for a minute. It’s February 8th. How many of you had a New Year’s resolution or vision or goals for this year? Have you forgotten a little bit about it? Have you gotten sucked back into the “normalcy of life” or distracted by whatever’s happening on social media? There was no intent to betray what seemed so sure at the time. My response was whole, clean, authentic, but little by little, they’re crept into my life, the dust and the grit of the journey. Details, lower level demands, all kinds of crosscurrents. Nothing momentous, nothing overwhelming, nothing flagrant, just wear and tear.
If there had been some direct challenge, a clear cut issue, I would have fought it to the end and beyond. And then he says, “In the quietness of this place, surrounded by the all pervading presence of God, my heart whispers, keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve that in fair weather or in foul and good times are tempest, in the days when the darkness and the foe are nameless or familiar, I may not forget that to which my life is committed. Keep fresh before me, the moments of my high resolve.
Regardless of the conditions and the circumstances of our life, may we be and remain committed to seeing and being the divine in relationship to everything and realize this is not something that anyone has or will do perfectly. So please let yourself off of the perfect hook. I know that I have not been perfect and I never will be perfect, but I recommit every single day. Y’all, it’s 20 minutes in. I’m on page three. I cut this down from 10 pages to five. Good Lord. Let me bring it to this. Here are these words. Give me the strength to be free, not to be irresponsible with no care, but the capacity to be and feel free in the circumstances that we currently live in, whether we like it or not. You are free, my friends. Whether you think you are or not, you are free to choose.
You are free to practice.
This is … I think whatever’s crumbling right now in the world, whatever’s crumbling in your personal life, what is going to be powerful are the individuals and the collective spaces where there is regular, consistent practice to increase capacity to sit at the edge of life. I have yet to experience a moment of growth where I was on the couch eating potato chips. That is not when insight comes. That is not when I am strengthened. That is not when I am challenged. It’s when I’m in the discomfort and I’m sweating a little bit. It’s when things aren’t quite right, but I’m able to stay there, eyes wide open, heart wide open, to increase your capacity, your capacity. That’s it. Just to handle this bullshit known as our world.
I’m not telling you to come up with all of the answers, but we need people that can stand at the edge of discomfort, that can stand at the edge of what someone may say is right or wrong and say, yes, my beloved, I see you. God is right here. The spirit of living is right here, and I see you. I appreciate you. To raise your capacity, this is why I think Howard Thurman spent so much time in the inward journey. He was not someone who was out marching, which I believe marching is important, but he was the one that Martin Luther King called for a little consolation. He was holding the space. He was on the vigil watch, if you will. We need everyone to do their part to help us all stay at the edge so we can bring about a world that truly works for everyone.
Are you ready? Yes. Let’s stay at the edge. One of my favorite practices is prayer.
I want to offer a prayer, a treatment for us right now that blesses, that shifts, just like that song changed the world, maybe did something to our cellular … Our cellular self, it opened us up. It softened us a little bit, made these words do something to soften us, to actually make us vulnerable, vulnerable to the power of the Holy Spirit, because we do a lot to protect ourselves from everything. And when we shut ourselves off from anything, we shut ourselves off from everything, including the divine. You ready to get naked? All right. Take a nice deep breath and bring your hands to your heart.
What I recognize is that right here, right now, we stand on ground that may be unsteady, but God is here. What I recognize right here, right now, that in your personal life, I do not know the details, but I would imagine there’s a little bit of discomfort. There’s a little bit of uncertainty. And right here, right now, we as conscious spiritual practitioners of truth say, “Somewhere in this is the divine.” And what I affirm is that that somewhere is right where you are in your body, in your mind, in your spirit. Nothing else needs to change. You don’t need to become anything else. You are enough in this moment, in the next moment, in the moment after that, to bring into this world what is needed for sufficiency, for health, for wholeness, for connection, for vitality, for healing, for trust. May we be agents of change.
May we be agents of love.
May we be agents of peace. Whatever is on your schedule this week, don’t change it. May everything that you do be an opportunity to stand at the edge convicted that what is happening is the activity of the living spirit. And if we can stay there for one more second, breathe a little bit more, calm our nervous system down and remind ourselves that we’re okay. We can handle this. May there be something that just eeks out. May God reveal itself. May the living spirit, may the sufficiency, may whatever it is that we are seeking, actually come right into the center of our sight and our experience and bless our living. This is the edge that I know we all can and do live on every day. And may it not only be a blessing for us individually, but a blessing to this planet, to this city, to our community, to our state, to our country, to the entire universe.
For we are all one and interconnected. And what you do matters. What you say impacts, how you behave, what you don’t say, what you don’t do. All of it is important. I’m so grateful for your importance and for the fulfillment of light, of love, of sufficiency of everything as your life. And so now we let it go. We let it be and practice that trust that all is well. And so it is. And so it shall be.
Peace and blessings to you all.