GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
242. What's Your Spiritual Story? Rosemarie Proctor: A Chaplain’s Journey Through Grief, Healing, and Faith
What’s your spiritual story? In this heartfelt episode of God: An Autobiography, The Podcast, Dr. Jerry L. Martin sits down with hospital chaplain Rosemarie Proctor to explore a life of evolving faith, profound loss, and deep spiritual wisdom.
Rosemarie’s journey began in a strict Catholic upbringing, where fear-based teachings about heaven and hell shaped her childhood worldview. After decades of spiritual disconnection, it was the sudden loss of her husband and an unexpected prayer from a local minister that opened the door to healing—and brought her back to faith through the Episcopal Church.
At 85 years old, Rosemarie shares her transition from grieving widow to spiritual comforter, offering insight into how she became a hospital chaplain despite never intending to walk that path. In one of the episode’s most moving moments, she recalls the 9/11 chaplain’s prayer—a guiding force in her ministry: "Lord, take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, help me say what you want me to say, and get me out of the way."
Jerry and Rosemarie also discuss:
- How meditation and gardening helped her rediscover the divine
- Her experience with Reiki and insights into Eastern spirituality
- Why God: An Autobiography affirmed her long-held belief that God sets different paths for different people
- The idea of a personal God who is evolving through relationship with humanity
Whether you're religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, or simply curious about the many ways people find meaning, this episode invites you to reflect on the turning points that shape our spiritual lives.
Other Series:
The podcast began with the Dramatic Adaptation of the book and now has several series:
The Life Wisdom Project – Spiritual insights on living a wiser, more meaningful life.
From God to Jerry to You – Divine messages and breakthroughs for seekers.
Two Philosophers Wrestle With God – A dialogue on God, truth, and reason.
Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue – Love, faith, and divine presence in partnership.
What’s Your Spiritual Story – Real stories of people changed by encounters with God.
What’s On Our Mind – Reflections from Jerry and Scott on recent episodes.
What’s On Your Mind – Listener questions, divine answers, and open dialogue.
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Scott Langdon 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 242.
Scott Langdon 01:10: Hello and welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I’m Scott Langdon your host and today Jerry has a talk with Rosemarie Proctor. Rosemarie has a long sometimes difficult spiritual story, as most of us do. Raised Catholic, then nothing for quite some time, and now worshiping as an Episcopalian, Rosemarie's journey is infused with love all the way. Next week Jerry and I return with What's On Our Mind. Here’s Jerry to introduce Rosemarie. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 02:02: Well, hello, Rosemarie Proctor, it's good to see you. I think when we talked before, I asked you this, but I think I remember the answer, but how was it that you found out about God: An Autobiography?
Rosemarie Proctor 02:20: Like many things that happen in my life,by chance. A friend at church was recommending it to another person at church who handles the book club, and she suggested this book for the church book club and when she started describing it, my ears perked up and I thought I'd like to read that book. Based on what she had to say about the book, I picked it up and, you know, and I read it.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 02:59: Well, it shows you're an open soul, right there. This wasn't the beginning of your spiritual life, obviously, this book. What was going on? Where were you spiritually, religiously, at that point that the book came to your attention?
Rosemarie Proctor 03:13: At that point I was pretty firm in my spiritual religious life. I hadn't been for many years. But at that point I'm an Episcapalian and I feel very comfortable there being an ex-Catholic, mostly because the church I belong to is very open and that appeals to me. I feel very comfortable with being 85 years old now, with the fact that I'm certainly a lot closer to the end than the beginning, and that I feel very comfortable in my spiritual life. That I'm not sure I don't think anybody is aware of what happens after this, but I just feel comfortable knowing that there's probably something. But if there's nothing, well, that's it.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 04:22: Yeah, the first job is to live this life right as best you can. According to God: An Autobiography, there is a next phase.
Rosemarie Proctor 04:31: Right and I basically believe that, but I don't know that I feel 100% sure of that, more like 99%, which is very close.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 04:43: Yeah, that's right. And, according to what I received in prayer, the main action is here is living this life in order for something else to happen. But we're living this life as best we can, and this is where the action is, and then we do go on.
Rosemarie Proctor 05:03: Yes, and I feel that through some meditation, I've certainly reached the point in my life where material things aren't important anymore. How I live this life and how I respond to others is probably the most important thing to me.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 05:25: Yeah, and they always were the most important. But before you have so many earlier in life, you have so many things you're trying to get done and goals and hopes and ambitions and challenges, you know. But it's nice that you get to a point where you can, those very important things of personal relationships and service. You do service, I understand as a volunteer kind of chaplain or you're not a cleric, I take it, but like a volunteer spiritual counselor and comforter.
Rosemarie Proctor 05:59: Right, it's more a comforter than counselor.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 06:02: Yes, yes, and so that's very helpful for people in the hospital.
Rosemarie Proctor 06:08: And very helpful to me too.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 06:11: How so? How so? Explain that.
Rosemarie Proctor 06:12: Because every time that I feel that maybe I've helped somebody, it's very comforting to me too.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 06:20: Yes, yes. Now you indicated you feel sort of firm spiritually where you are now, as if you're in the right place spiritually now. Where did your spiritual journey start? I gather it didn't start where it is now.
Rosemarie Proctor 06:40: No, as a child, I went to Catholic schools for nine years and that was, don't forget, in the old days where they were very dogmatic about heaven and hell and that was the most important thing in life. We learned as children to prepare to go to heaven. Follow the rules and you'll go to heaven or you're going downstairs. And that lasted until I was in my 20s, and then at that point, there was nothing. Nothing for many years, because probably when you're a Catholic and you're taught that everything else is wrong, it's hard to explore. Well, that's my excuse for not exploring other things.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 07:30: That's a very common experience. The church that claimed to have all the answers then fields you not to have all the answers, or not the right answers, but your only access to God, for example, your only spiritual life, has been through that particular childhood church. And then people do tend to just become atheists or nothing.
Rosemarie Proctor 07:55: You know just one thing I do remember that they taught us that stays with me is that all people are created equal. You know they gave examples of them. You know the beggar on the street there and so on, and there was a, I think that was very, very… They were very, very strong about that and I found that I think from that I incorporated that into my life, I think without realizing it, but that that's always been very important to me to try to see value in other people's lives and be kind to them.
Rosemarie Proctor 08:39: But anyhow, over the years then I think I spent a lot of time outside in the garden and I didn't know that I was finding God there, but I felt very peaceful and comfortable, doing an awful lot, a lot of gardening. And I lived in England with my husband. My husband was English and when we came back here he went to church regularly. He went to the Episcopal Church, but I would accompany him once in a while more just to please him.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 09:19 Right.
Rosemarie Proctor 09:22: But when he died, he died suddenly. I guess it's now 22 years ago and we were very close and well, it was a shock, and you can imagine, the minister from the church knocked on our door. I was taken to the hospital by a policeman, who answered the 911 call and he asked me what church my husband went to. And I told him and it was a church in town, and he said, well, I'll tell the minister now. I said, well, don't bother him till tomorrow morning. And so when my son, daughter-in-law and I came home from the hospital, and we're just at sixes and sevens absorbing the shock, all of a sudden there was a knock on the door and it was this minister, who must have had an agreement with the police, I mean, how else would he have known? And which, you know, which was very nice. And he came to the door and he sat with us for about an hour and then, before he left, he got us together holding hands and said a prayer.
Rosemarie Proctor 10:40: Now, I can't remember a word of what the prayer was. I can't remember too much of what he said, but I do remember that as we stood in that circle, something came over me. A peace. That didn't mean I was comfortable with all of this, but something else. Maybe that said it's going to be all right. I don't know what it was, but I felt it. It was definitely an experience. And so after that I started attending that church.
Rosemarie Proctor 11:21: And that was an Episcopal church, not the same one that I'm a member of now, but I did start attending that church. People there were very comforting to me under the circumstances and since then I have started to delve a little more into religion. I'll tell you one thing: I always was interested in religion, as a child, it always appealed to me. I went to a Catholic school for the first nine years and the ninth grade I was in a class on religion and I always loved that class, until one day the nun said to us two of you children are going to be nuns, two of the girls in this class. And then, please, God, not me! And I have to say, as a 13 or 14-year-old, that turned me off
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 12:16: That turned you off! It was like you're going to be drafted into a service and that wouldn't be, you'd want to get out of the place that's going to do that to you. The minister's prayer later, when your husband was in his last
Rosemarie Proctor 12:54: He had been pronounced dead.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 12:56: Yeah, that did bring some kind of halo of peace around your life? Rosemarie Proctor 13:06: It did. Enough to bring me to attending that church, to attending those church services. Then, soon after that, about a year and a half later, I became a chaplain.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 13:26: Oh really, how did that come about? Because you're not a minister and it's really not a ministerial role.
Rosemarie Proctor 13:31: This is the way God talks to me. Soon after my husband died, I was having, my father had died the year before, and I still had my mother and she was showing signs of dementia and my husband had been very helpful in dealing with her. But when I was alone it was difficult and she lived about an hour and a half away and I had to keep driving back and forth and finally realized that I couldn't have her come live with me because I couldn't leave her alone, and so I was arranging for her to go into assisted living. And she was not helpful, and so I had a lot of that pressure.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 14:24: Yeah.
Rosemarie Proctor 14:24: And so between it being you know the time that I was grieving and that happening, I went on a retreat with that church and during that time I remember a number of us sitting in a circle and we were all speaking about whatever the subject was, and every time it came down to my turn I said I pass, I couldn't speak. What's going on?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 14:51: You can usually talk right.
Rosemarie Proctor 14:53: Yeah, when I had to. And then the third time it happened, I just got up and ran away and started crying and I didn't realize that my mother I think I had just gotten her into care, and that's when I broke down, and of course a couple of the women came over and comforted me. One of them was a much younger woman and she said, " I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to…” And then she was a little bit too strong about trying to take care of me to a point. But she said to me at one stage is I'm going to the hospital to sign up for being a chaplain? You should come too. I don't want to be a chaplain. I don't even know what a chaplain does. And she hounded me at a time that it was easier to do what she had asked me to do that hear her hound me some more. So I did go and it was strange that one of the women who was helping the chaplain in charge was a friend of a friend of mine who gave me a great recommendation. And so from there I started and, it's interesting, I talked to some of the new chaplains who come along oh, I always wanted to do this, you know. You know something I always wanted to do, and almost all of them say that that wasn't me at all. That's what you had always wanted to do no, actually for me it was hard going. It was very hard for me to walk in cold to patients' rooms.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 16:34: Someone you don know, and they've just been through an operation of some kind...
Rosemarie Proctor 16:41: Right. So I've evolved. Now it doesn't bother me anymore because I've done it so many times. To start a conversation, I can usually do that just from evolving, from experience.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 16:56: Yeah, you've learned how to do it. And what seems helpful to them, I suppose, and what doesn't. You've kind of learned what kinds of things you can say that do seem relevant and welcome.
Rosemarie Proctor 17:11: I think after a while, before I start my job that day, I always say the chaplain's prayer. You know there's a chaplain who helped at 9-11, and they found in his pocket the prayer. “Lord, take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, help me to say what you want me to say, and then get me out of the way.”
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 17:40: Wonderful prayer.
Rosemarie Proctor 17:42: It's a wonderful prayer. And that last sentence is so important. That it's not about what you think, it's just letting them have their say and not interjecting any advice from you, or anything like that. So we always say that prayer, and so therefore, I feel like when I'm a chaplain, and sometimes when it's a difficult situation, I say God, please help me out fast. And I would say God usually does. That's why it's a wonderful experience for me.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 18:25: So God helps you out by maybe the right words just coming to you or the right attitude. You know how to face into this situation, how to feel about it?
Rosemarie Proctor 18:40: Yes, I don't feel it's me, I feel like I'm an operator.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 18:44: You're handing yourself over as a kind of divine instrument, if you put it that strong language, but letting God make the best use of you for the purposes and the situation.
Rosemarie Proctor 18:58: My only problem is that that happens once a week. I wish that I could be you know so much to be that same person who could let go as much the rest of the week.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 19:53: You said about gardening, which sounds like maybe in retrospect you can see that there is a kind of divine presence there. Can you say more about that? Or is that about all one can say about this experience?
Rosemarie Proctor 19:57: Well, I think that I love so much about gardening. I used to have these big compost heap and I loved of course I had a greenhouse and starting plants was just such a beautiful thing. But the compost heap was like life, because you could put twigs and all kinds of garden refuse in there. And turn it once in a while and forget about it and then, all of a sudden, there were worms in there. Eating away and changing the substance.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 20:38: Yes.
Rosemarie Proctor 20:44: And the next year we kind of break away the edges and there would be this beautiful, beautiful compost. Yes, and it just, it just was the whole cycle. You feel that whole cycle of life and decaying and then bringing new life, and so you know it wasn't only planting, it was, you know, cleaning up in the in the fall and taking everything and putting in the compost heap, and that was just as beautiful as seeing a beautiful geranium.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 21:21: Yes, yes, yes, new life. When you did read God: An Autobiography, what struck you about it such that you took an interest in it in the book?
Rosemarie Proctor 21:33: Well, one of the things I would say it confirmed a feeling I've always had. That God set different paths for different people. I never believe, as they taught us in the Catholic schools, if a baby doesn't get baptized within three years, he goes to limbo or whatever they used to tell, and that just didn't, that never set right, even as a child.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 22:03: Right.
Rosemarie Proctor 22:05: Never set right. And I remember I was friends with a Jewish girl across the way, across the road, and she was so nice and how could she be going to hell? And so those things always sat in the back of my mind that this isn't fair. You know what you're telling me isn't fair, and so, anyhow, reading about the other religions which I had read about before, but now, having God confirmed this, confirmed my inner thoughts. And the thing that sort of scared me at first when I read the book was that when God said He was evolving- He or She.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 22:51: That's a shocking thought. It was to me. It wasn't shocking by the end of the book, but it was the first time. And why did that sort of shock you? It just contradicted all I'd ever heard about the meaning of the term God.
Rosemarie Proctor 23:07: Yes, I mean, this was this idea that God was something indestructible. Knows everything, knows everything you're doing, and then, all of a sudden, that God can change, and that was a difficult concept, but then it got okay. I don't know why.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 23:33: Yes, yes yes, yes. Well, some have pointed out that if God is too unchanging, then God can't even answer prayer, because prayer would be doing something in response to a human being, you know, not just a kind of self-sufficient, contemplating His, you know, contemplating God's self and doing nothing else but responding to human beings. And also the God of God: An Autobiography is a very personal God. It's not God as a metaphor. Some high theology often, you know, makes God kind of a metaphor, makes God's love kind of a metaphor. But no, this is God with a strong… God has many dimensions, but one is personal, and so God loves Rosemarie and cares about Rosemarie and cares to give, to help you have the right words in a difficult situation. So we're living our lives in partnership, and so it's not surprising that such a God, just as we develop an interaction with each other, that God would, you might say, discover different sides of God's self by relating different people, different cultures and so on, and that there's a kind of some kind of development that I guess you'd call a movement upward. You know that God is moving forward, we're moving forward, the world's moving forward, and we're doing that together, God needs our partnership in doing that. So you know, your work, Rosemarie, with you know, as a chaplain with those people in great need. This is a very difficult point in their lives when they're hospitalized.
Rosemarie Proctor 25:17: They're very vulnerable.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 25:19: Yeah, and so you're working with God in that situation, either covertly or often God is just kind of a silent partner, but is nevertheless a partner.
Rosemarie Proctor 25:33: I'm amazed how many times people will say thank you so much. And I think to myself okay, you know, something happened to you, it's not my business even that's between them and God and, so it does make me feel good.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 25:46: Indeed. There's some worry about people who start thinking about the many religions and if there's some divine presence in multiple religions around the world and across the historical time, that that's going to undermine their belief in their own religion, which is, after all, for most of us, our best, you might say, connection with God. Some of it's just internal and private, but also it's fostered, crucially, by identification with a church, a community, a religious tradition with its riches you know, the music, the hymns, the prayers, the whole thing. And there's a worry that if you say, well, the Hindus may have something too, and the Buddhists may have something, and the nice Jewish girl you knew may have also something divine flowing through them. That that's going to undermine being an Episcapalian. And do you have any of that worry, or does it just seem like more truth or something like that?
Rosemarie Proctor 27:03: No, I have absolutely no worry with that, and there was something in the book about God with the Eastern peoples.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 27:13: Yes.
Rosemarie Proctor 27:14: And that He spoke to them in a different way. They could feel things and immediately it brought to my mind the Reiki, and the ways that Reiki healing. I've had a little bit of knowledge, which is probably a dangerous thing in those areas, but I have studied a little bit of that.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 27:32: I know people have done Reiki healing. It could be effective, at least with certain things, and that was your experience.
Rosemarie Proctor 27:53: Yes, and I learned it myself. And I learned another process and did it just for friends, you know, for a while.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 28:02: Yeah.
Rosemarie Proctor 28:04: And so I could at least understand it from a feeling point of view. When He said that you know, oh yeah.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 28:14: The Eastern was more the internal way of relating to the divine. God didn't give the Hindus a covenant, for example. You think of the people of Israel. It's kind of God's partner in history unfolding over time and so forth. With the Hindus, it's very internal and Reiki may come out of that tradition. I don't know the history of Reiki.
Rosemarie Proctor 28:40: I think it was Japan, okay, but I'm not sure of that. But it was that, you know, certainly in the East rather than the West.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 28:50: Eastern type and both types of avenues to, I mean, there are multiple avenues to divine and this deeply internal one is one of them and some people practice more than one, you know, as you do in the healing mode with Reiki. Where would you like to see your spiritual life going now?
Rosemarie Proctor 29:19: You know what I would like to say for me, that I could be the same person the other six days of the week that I am when you know when I'm working at the hospital.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 29:33: Wonderful. Because you're at your best in the mode of service, I guess. And you don't have energy to run around doing this every day, I assume.
Rosemarie Proctor 29:51: And they wouldn't need. I mean they have, our president chaplain in charge has trained a lot of people, so you'd be amazed at how many people want to do this.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 30:03: Oh good, good for them, yeah. I know someone who is very unhappy and it seems almost chemical or something. Even when life is sort of going well, there's a kind of heavy cloud over him and I was saying, well, I mean, I don't know how he can become happy. I've known people like this, but I said that you can still have a meaningful life, and it might be through service or something. So you may always have this cloud, but that doesn't stop you from doing valuable and important things and enriching your life and the lives of others, and that's what you're doing in the chaplain's role. Don't you think the attitudes and skills that you exercise that one day a week carry over into your other interactions with friends? Doesn't it lead you to be supportive, comforting and caring and loving with them? Or is it everybody's running around busy?
Rosemarie Proctor 31:12: It just isn't the same, it isn't the same. I certainly try.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 31:15: One is very intense.
Rosemarie Proctor 31:20: But it isn't the same. It's totally a different situation. You know there are different situations.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 31:33: And you really want to live a life following that prayer?
Rosemarie Proctor 31:43: Yeah.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 31:33: Well, would you mind, I guess we actually ran over maybe a little bit here, but I think it would be wonderful if you would, just if we could just end on your repeating the prayer, and this was the prayer from..
Rosemarie Proctor 31:56: From the chaplain to the fireman. He died. The chaplain died. I think he got there after the first building went down and he was being a chaplain to the fireman and then the second building went down and it killed him along with everybody else, but I guess he didn't burn because they found this prayer in his pocket, and it was: Lord take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, help me to say what you want me to say, and then take me out of the way.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin 32:35: That's wonderful, that's wonderful. That's a good note to end on. Thank you very much Rosemarie.
Rosemarie Proctor: You’re welcome, thank you.
Scott Langdon 32:49: 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.