49. The Creative Process And Personal Revelations | Interviews: Jerry Asks Scott [Part 2]

"Embodying a character as an actor can be a deeply ontological experience, and we continue with thoughts on process, personal revelations, and plans for the future."

Join the meaningful discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Dr. Jerry L. Martin. Discover more about the book, history, humankind, spirituality, and God through the first of a continuous series of ambitious interviews with insightful guests. 

Part two of Dr. Jerry L. Martin interviewing the actor, host, and creative director of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, Scott Langdon.

Scott Langdon is an actor, writer, and photographer seen on stages throughout the professional Philadelphia theater community. Scott is also an exceptional vocal talent and, in addition to being Creative Director and host, plays the voice of Jerry L. Martin in GOD: An Autobiography, The Podcast.

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Transcript

Scott Langdon [00:00:17] This is God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. A dramatic adaptation and continuing discussion of the book God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin. He was a lifelong agnostic, but one day he had an occasion to pray. To his vast surprise, God answered- in words. Being a philosopher, he had a lot of questions, and God had a lot to tell him. Episode 49. 

Scott Langdon [00:01:09] Hello and welcome to episode 49 of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm your host, Scott Langdon. In this episode, we bring you part two of Jerry Martin's interview with me, where we talk about what drew me to this project, my faith background, and what happened in my life while making the adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher. We left off at the end of part one in episode 48, talking about how embodying a character as an actor can be a deeply ontological experience. And we continue the interview with thoughts on the process, personal revelations and plans for the future. Here's part two of our discussion. I hope you enjoy.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:02:00] And do you think because you're Scott, because you're enacting Jerry, and Jerry's encounter with God and taking in God's answers, you might say, as Jerry, that that enabled the book to have a greater impact on you? Made you more open, or I don't know the right word, more readily affected by the dialogue with God, that became, in a funny way, Scott's dialogue with God? Would that be an overstatement? 

Scott Langdon [00:02:32] No, no, it wouldn't be an overstatement at all, because what I had to do in the process was take the book and, you know, we adapted the script, first of all. So once, and so we went back and forth with the book and I was really into each section and we would dissect that script. This is what I think we want to do. Okay, boom. And we'd agree. And then from that point, as the actor, I'm breaking, I'm looking at that script, I'm breaking down the beats and I'm looking at the lines and I'm rehearsing and I'm-- and then you would record your side of things and give me that broad track of a couple of different takes. And you would send that to me, and when I would cut that down in preparation for the whole, you know, cut away the parts that didn't work and have a nice, coherent voice of God, I'm also during that process rehearsing in a sense with God. And as I'm doing that, I'm continuing to go over the text and I'm continuing to think about the ideas here, and I don't understand that. So, in the process of the actor with the script and going-- any good actor, if it's based on any kind of source material, are going to do the work on the source material. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:03:45] Right.

Scott Langdon [00:03:46] In whatever project they're doing. Right? So going back to the material, so spending all that time with the material enabled Scott to sort of have this openness to also just be led by it. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:04:02] Yes. In what way were you led? 

Scott Langdon [00:04:05] Well, a couple of things were realized by me, I think, during the course of this project. And the one is when I looked at you, Jerry, and what God asked you to do in preparation to write this book, He asked you to do a lot of reading and that's your wheelhouse, again, as a philosopher. And He asked you to read these things and, and I, I realized that I found myself in preparation for this work and all my other work, but specifically this work in an auditory way. I listened to a lot of podcasts as I run. I listen to a lot of lectures as I run. And what I was being led to listen to were things like, you know, Alan Watts or Ram Dass or and just many others, and it just seemed to always be, as it turned out, preparation for an upcoming episode. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:05:07] Uh huh. 

Scott Langdon [00:05:09] Just seemingly out of nowhere. But listen to this thing about the Tao. Listen to this thing about I Ching. Out of seemingly nowhere. All right. Well, that sounds interesting. I'll do that. And I would take a run and I'd listen to this, and then I'd get the next chapter of the book. And it would be about each of these. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:05:26] Right. Right. That's amazing, isn't it? 

Scott Langdon [00:05:28] So I realized that God was speaking to me in a different way then God was speaking to Jerry. Because for a once for a long time, I was like, "Well, God's speaking to Jerry in this voice and I don't hear no voice." In an auditory kind of English language way. But I realized that God speaks to me through art. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:05:50] Yes, yes, yes. I think a lot of ways God speaks. So there are a lot of ways God speaks. And I get people writing me and say, "Oh, I've just prayed and prayed and prayed and wanted God to speak to me. And here you weren't praying at all and God spoke to you," but they're probably missing. And I say, relax and let God come to you however God comes to you. And then, Scott, you realize God comes to me through art, which fits with the childhood you are describing. 

Scott Langdon [00:06:19] Yeah, I think that I was reminded of that eight year old boy and seeing that painting and hearing that music. And I'm realizing that all throughout my life, while I was on this track of dealing with God and Jesus in the Evangelical tradition and trying to wrestle with that and who is God, that a parallel track almost was my career in the arts. And where I go when my soul is in need of salve. It's to music or to, you know, to the baroque music that I remember from my childhood. So I realized throughout this work that God is speaking to me in art, literally watch a movie seemingly out of nowhere, and that story is about a father and a son, let's say. And it's something I needed to hear. Or literally a song comes on and I'm present to it, and the lyrics take me to something I need to think about or work with or. And I just realized that this is the mode. And now, you know, to just listen. And what I realized in working on this book is that the very first thing God says to you is Listen.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:07:34] Listen. 

Scott Langdon [00:07:37] And the very last thing is when we get to the end of it is what I want most, and God says this a couple of times throughout the book, specifically says what I want most is for people to listen to me. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:07:52] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:07:53] And when I was able to just listen to, "All right. You don't, you don't talk to me in English. And I don't hear your voice and I--". 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:07:58] Right. Right. 

Scott Langdon [00:08:00] Listen, just listen. So it's not just other people's art and what they do, which is but my process of doing art and making art and creating. All of that is where God is completely real to me now. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:08:15] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:08:15] Not a theory and something that's out there or just right now, right here. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:08:22] That's a huge step for you. 

Scott Langdon [00:08:25] Very present. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:08:28] That's where one-- I mean, that would be the message of the book, that the book would hope-- that would be exactly the impact I would assume God wants this book to have on someone in whatever, wherever their life is to find the divine presence in that life. Where is God available to them? Because God's available to the guy who's drunk with his face in the gutter. But it may be hard for him to notice that. So the key to life is to start noticing it. And that you've been able to do that in a wonderful way. And that's something that will go on, you'll carry with you from now on. 

Scott Langdon [00:09:11] Yeah, I think so. 

Scott Langdon [00:09:52] The idea when we talk about surrender. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:09:57] Yes.

Scott Langdon [00:09:57] You know, when we talk about surrender in our culture, it's so fraught with military things- MacArthur, the troops surrender. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:08] Yeah, the white surrender. 

Scott Langdon [00:10:09] You know. Yeah. And the idea of I'm giving up my individualness to you or whatever it is. And, yet I know that I have had such a blockage with that. Like, what do you I would say I got to the place where the supernatural theology of a God as a person. When we first met, when I came to interview you for the first time, I just was not having anything about a God that's a person. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:10:43] Yeah. 

Scott Langdon [00:10:43] That was just, I was just I was done with that. And the monarchical way of looking at the structure of religion just done with that. And, I wasn't an-- I would say I was an atheist that believed in Jesus, you know, that I was a follower of Jesus, you know. And I was trying to piece that together, and again, that became the way now. That the non way became the way. And so any time you're pushing against something, you're still in relationship to it, right? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:11:12] Yes, that's a good point. 

Scott Langdon [00:11:14] Through the course of this work, the idea of just completely surrendering to what's next. What's, okay, you know? And that happened when I met you because I thought this guy is a retired philosophy professor and also is the director of humanities National Endowment for the Humanities, and I taught a humanities course for several years that I really loved, and I just thought, what a great thing. And I read Abigail's book, and I thought that was just beautiful. And I thought, well, I'm going to have a time to just soak up all this time with philosophers at their feet. That would be great. I would love that. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:11:54] Okay. 

Scott Langdon [00:11:54] And then it came to well, I heard the voice of God and I thought, okay, well, there's one or two ways you can go. You can either just take the job and take the money. And then especially when the pandemic went down. Oh yeah, any job, I thought, Well, I'll just have to take the money, and that's okay. But then something happened, over the course of just a couple of days, maybe a week or so into all right, let's do this now. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:12:22] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:12:24] I  started to say. "Okay. You can't do this for the money. So if you can't do this, you need to quit. But there's another way that you might be able to go." I was saying to myself and I said, "Here's the other thing. Here's the possibility and here's the challenge you like as an actor, if what if what if Jerry's what he says? What if it's true? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:12:47] It could be true after all. Right. 

Scott Langdon [00:12:50] If we're going to be philosophizing about. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:12:52] Yeah. It could be true. 

Scott Langdon [00:12:53] It could be just a bunch of baloney, or it could be true. So what if it could be true? And then I said, "All right, well, let's go down that road and see what happens." And once I started to do that, that's I see now, that that was a point of a beginning point of surrender. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:13:08] Oh, yes. Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:13:09] And as soon as I said. "All right let's see what happens. Let's just see what happens."

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:13:14] Yeah. 

Scott Langdon [00:13:14] And then things started to occur to me. And then I realized that I was listening to something in preparation for something that started to occur to me. And then I thought, all right, well, let's see what happens now. Let's see what happens now. And then I got to a point of being like in a sense of Moses and you kind of talked about this in your journey to where I was like, I don't think I can do this anymore. And I panicked and I just I can't. And we had to go through some time and talking. Talk me down, you know. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:13:43] Oh, right, right, right. Now, there are scary moments in the spiritual life that's part of the nature of the spiritual life. 

Scott Langdon [00:13:51] And then, like, I procrastinate and then don't procrastinate. And then I write, you know, so it's this wrestling with the work. And it just became this process. And as season two and season three, the work of that unfolded, everything about how to do the work and then things about my life and relationships and. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:14:14] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:14:15] What's interesting down this way and what's going on? And I could see my part of my photography, how that was guided by God, how I was so confused about things and God to just look at this little frame. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:14:30] Yeah. 

Scott Langdon [00:14:30] At one frame at a time. One frame at a time and, so just He's speaking to me through art in that way. And then I realized God speaking to me through art. Holy moly. And then now I'm just in-tuned and it's just every day it gets to be more and more and more of this. What's next? What's next? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:14:50] What do you feel is next? 

Scott Langdon [00:14:53] Joy.

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:14:54] You know, to conclude on, you know what is tomorrow, you might say. 

Scott Langdon [00:15:00]  I think about, what I've been thinking about specifically recently is my white privilege. 52 year old, white, male, middle class, grow up, all of that. And I recognize the feeling, especially in my business, of being a white male. And, you know, a lot of things have come relatively easy and that kind of thing. And what I've been realizing is I don't want to live in a world where I don't feel that way anymore because it's a good feeling to have to feel that feeling of privilege. But what I want to do is create a world where everyone can feel that feeling. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:15:40] Yes, exactly. 

Scott Langdon [00:15:41] Where everyone can feel like there is nothing in my way. To create whatever God has in store for me today. That everybody can go, oh, I have to sift through this burden and that burden and that burden to get back to level. And then I can see my life. I want everybody to be able to go, "Oh, God, what's next?". 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:16:02] Yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:16:04] What's next? To have that freedom to do it. So that's why I want to practically try to create a world where everyone can feel that feeling of freedom. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:16:12] Well, that's wonderful. And God is the great egalitarian because it's part, God is available to everybody. But that doesn't mean they're always equally able to locate God or access Him, but one wants to bring it to everybody. And that's something you've also been a teacher, and that's something you did as a teacher, right to best for every student. You know, try to empower them, release their creativity, give them skills so they can do something with whatever creativity they have. You know, they can enact that. 

Scott Langdon [00:16:46] God says in one of the last chapter of the book and of the podcast that I think it was a response, I think, that you gave to a young lady in a question and answer session, actually. What's next? Where do we worship? And God said, "You worship where God finds you." 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:17:05] Where God find you. Yes.

Scott Langdon [00:17:06] Right. And I love, I mean, I love the way of talking about that in the sense that God is always seeking- like the shepherd and the lost sheep metaphor. And at the same time, what I've come to realize is that there is no sort of place where God is ever absent. So God is never-- 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:17:26] Right. 

Scott Langdon [00:17:27] Out there or away or in-- where I find God, we try to--I have got caught in thinking about where do I look out here for God? But actually, and it was through a lot of the Middle Eastern traditions that I was forced to study because of this work. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:17:46] Yeah. 

Scott Langdon [00:17:47] What I mean is I wouldn't have done so otherwise. I don't think I would have been led to the things that I've listened to, read and studied with you back and forth. But when I got to those traditions and learning about the Atman and learning about all of that, it's new knowledge for Scott. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:18:03] Yeah. 

Scott Langdon [00:18:03] And at the end, at the same time, it was almost like a remembrance of it. And so when we get to the conclusion kind of the book where God is saying, like this framework of knowing each other's religions now and drawing from it and all of that. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:18:19] Yes, yes. 

Scott Langdon [00:18:19] That's something that I also always knew. I didn't think. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:18:24] You didn't question that. 

Scott Langdon [00:18:25] Well, it was just, you know, I never thought about it. But then when I got into a later tradition and heard the teaching again, that's just how I took it in that there were times when you could be separate from God. That kind of language just did a real number on me, but working with this project helped me to realize that inward is where I had to turn to not to find God or have God find me, or however you want to talk about it. It's to realize that I am this manifestation of God. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:18:58] Right. 

Scott Langdon [00:18:59] And you are. It's like-- and I started looking at it in terms of the theater, in terms of the play. That the character in the play is looking at the other characters, they're all characters in the play, but they're all from the author's mind in a sense. Right. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:12] Yes. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:12] So, in that sense, like, I am, I am separate. And you are separate. And yet at the same time, I'm looking at God as Jerry. If I see through this you are present in there. And then that changed everything. I'm no longer looking out here. When I look out here, I'm just looking at where's God here? 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:34] Right, right, right. 

Scott Langdon [00:19:35] Oh, the Wawa clerk. Oh, there's God there. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:40] Yeah, I found that in a little diner when I was praying one day. 

Scott Langdon [00:19:44] Yeah. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:19:44] I just started looking at it in this way and, you know, so there is a kind of divine presence here. It's almost like shimmering on the surface of things. But the divine is everywhere and nobody is alone in that sense. Well, thank you, Scott Langdon. And we wish you well and we'll keep this project going with the podcast we'll continue and we'll be talking about that more as we go along. 

Scott Langdon [00:20:16] No. Thanks for this conversation, Jerry. It was great, and I can't wait to continue to do more stuff. 

Dr. Jerry L. Martin [00:20:20] Okay. Thank you. Bye bye. 

Scott Langdon [00:20:37] Thank you for listening. To God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. Subscribe for free today wherever you listen to your podcasts and hear a new episode every week. You can hear the complete dramatic adaptation of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher by Jerry L. Martin, by beginning with episode one of our podcast and listening through its conclusion with Episode 44. You can read the original true story in the book from which this podcast is adapted. God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher, available now at Amazon.com, and always at godanautobiography.com. Pick up your own copy today. If you have any questions about this or any other episode, please email us at questions@godanautobiography.com and experience the world from God's perspective as it was told to a philosopher. This is Scott Langdon. I'll see you next time.