GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
256. What's On Our Mind- Spiritual Nudges & Synchronicities: Is God Guiding You?
How do we recognize when God is gently guiding us? Is it a voice, a feeling, or a moment of connection we might almost overlook?
Scott shares a simple encounter at a bagel shop that turned into a surprising moment of synchronicity — a reminder that a radically personal God often reaches us through quiet intuition and ordinary experiences.
Jerry reflects on why these subtle encounters matter, how spiritual discernment develops through humility rather than ego, and why integrity is essential to recognizing and responding to divine nudges.
This conversation invites listeners to notice the signs of God’s presence that show up not as grand events but as meaningful interactions, inner clarity, and the feeling that something is simply right.
Whether you identify as spiritual, religious, both, or neither, this episode offers a way to see daily life as full of spiritual possibility — a world where God is closer than we think and is always communicating in a deeply personal way.
Related Episodes:
255. What’s Your Spiritual Story
253. Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue
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 [ 00:00:17,220 ]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 256.
Scott Langdon [ 00:01:12,580 ] Welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm Scott Langdon, your host, and today I join Jerry as the two of us return with our regular series, What's on Our Mind? This week, we talk about being in tune with God and what that might look like in our daily lives. I share a story of an encounter that happened to me two days prior to our recording this session and we delve into the implications of what it can mean to be open to the experiential reality of the divine. The divine that discloses itself to us constantly and consistently. The divine that discloses itself in a radically personal way. Here's what's on our mind. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Scott Langdon [ 00:02:10,120 ] Welcome back, everybody, to another What's On Our Mind. I'm Scott Langdon. I'm here with Jerry Martin. As always, I'm so excited to be here today. I've got some really exciting things to talk about, and I've got some really great questions for you, and I'm super excited to hear what you have to say.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:02:24,020 ] Well, I look forward to it. If you've got questions, then I'm all ears.
Scott Langdon [ 00:02:29,710 ] Well, we've had a really nice unit this time. We started with the From God to Jerry to You, in which you asked the question, why me? I don't seem qualified in terms of ways in which... I think things are qualified. You know, men, tall men with big voices and booming charisma.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:02:49,480 ] I grew up on Charlton Heston. He's called the burning bush and he's the prophet, you know, called to do all this stuff. And I'm just, just me. You might say, a very ordinary person, not even tall.
Scott Langdon [ 00:03:05,070 ] Yeah, the irony of Charlton Heston playing Moses is that Moses himself didn't find himself worthy.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:03:11,610 ] Oh, that's true. He's always described as humble. When I read the literature on spiritual discernment, how do you know if this is a real voice or a fake voice or the devil? The literature says the devil can mimic God and, you know, get you trapped and then lead you off astray. And if you think hearing from God makes you the Lord of the universe and the boss of everybody else. It's probably not God. If you're humble, ah, then it probably is God. So that's one way you check whether you can trust your own self in reporting some divine voice or nudge or intuition, are you taking it in a humble way? It's not a self-aggrandizing way.
Scott Langdon [ 00:04:06,050 ] Nor is it self-depreciating either, I don't think, right? To give yourself the credit for being you and who you are. You know, if God has chosen you for a thing, you know, yay. The not worthy part… I've often missed opportunities, I think, and I've seen students and younger actors, specifically I'm thinking about in my field, that because of feeling, oh, I don't deserve this or I'm not worthy and didn't take the chances, didn't take the risk because they themselves didn't feel worthy. But which is a different kind of way of being than, oh, I'm better than everyone else and I don't have to do anything. You know, it's not self-aggrandizing, nor is it, oh, you know, I can't do this. If I'm being called for it, there must be some reason. So, Lord, what is it?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:04:58,720 ] No, I told God I'm not worthy. One of the early prayers, I said, oh, but I'm not worthy. And God's reply was, I'll decide who's worthy.
Scott Langdon [ 00:05:09,260 ] Yeah, I thought that was great.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:05:11,120 ] Yeah, I'll decide. And I was told in another context, you should not, much like what you were just saying, Scott, you shouldn't deprecate yourself. I guess I was at one point worried, oh, is this pride when I think, oh, I'm good at this? No, if you're good at certain things, you should know that you're good at them. And then there are things you should do. You should act in light of what your capacities are. And it's perfectly okay to think, oh, good, I did a good job on that. and you should always just estimate yourself accurately. It was God's message to me, don't think you're greater than you are, don't think you're less than you are.
Scott Langdon [ 00:05:54,060 ] One of the great things I liked about this unit was being able to hear various folks on our team. So we had Laura just talk about her spiritual story in this past episode that we just had. And from the get-go, we've had Laura on a couple of times when we've had the team on. And Laura has talked before about feeling very confident that this is a direction she should go in, or that's a direction she should go in, that being in tune may not have had the vocabulary to say in tune, you know, but that feeling of, yeah, this feels right. This does not. She was in touch with that very early. And the more I listened and worked with that episode, the more I thought, yeah, that is something we have in common. She and I. I feel like I have had very similar vibes when it comes to how she described the feeling of this, not that. And you and I have talked about this before as well. Whenever I have made a decision that has caused suffering, there has always been, in my looking at it and observing what has happened and going into the past and sort of deconstructing, there's always been a moment where it's been, 'This is not going to go well. This is not the thing you should do.' At the very least, pause. At the very least, take some time. And tapping into that notion that...
Scott Langdon [ 00:07:26,860 ] There is a debate inside of us about things. Taking the time to really consider what that is. Who's the debate with? Like, what are we bouncing off of? And I'm going to bounce this off of myself. You know, I have thought. More along the lines of that is me being in tune with God. It's not a voice from the outside, but it's what a voice from the outside means to get to, which is to my inside. If someone is calling my name, they're wanting to get my attention. And I hear it and my attention is turned there. So whatever it is that compels me to turn my attention toward this thing or that thing is what I'm interested in.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:08:15,600 ] Sure, sure, that's the part meant for you, and I use very theistic language because of my experience of God speaking to me one day, and I, really? You know, and occasionally I've mentioned this, that...
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:08:30,450 ] One morning I jumped. I was just getting dressed, and the voice, God suddenly spoke to me and I jumped. It was that outside-ish, you might say, but that can come outside, inside, who cares? Because on this... The divine geometry or geography of the world isn't the same as those maps of terrestrial and extraterrestrial or natural and supernatural. I don't find those concepts very helpful. The world, all this is, the spiritual is interwoven in the world.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:09:03,939 ] And inside us. And so, however it comes to a given individual, then you just accept it. And I took, as I went through the why me thing, what struck me is I trusted love. And then I said a prayer, and when God spoke, I trusted the voice. I questioned it. You always have to do due diligence in falling in love or hearing a divine voice or anything else, a nudge, an intuition, an insight. You've got to check it out. Fundamentally, you need to be able to trust it and act on it, not always be cowering or hiding or refusing to face up. You know, just kind of think, oh, well, I can't go there. That would be uncomfortable for me. Yeah, it may be uncomfortable. That's fine. Let's trust it first. Explore it. Explore whatever you feel you're guided toward and see how it worked out, always of course checking that we have those complex capacities to live not in a trusting way that isn't nevertheless a naive way.
Scott Langdon [ 00:10:16,040 ] And paying attention and listening is at the core of all of this. Paying attention, and that's the core that drives what I do as an actor. Paying attention, listening, moving in a certain direction toward the... where the story is heading and paying attention along the way. I had a situation happen to me the other day. I want to say it happened to me, but it's more like I was present to it and I was paying attention to it. I know that we make meaning of things in our lives. That's what we do. And sometimes we can perhaps make more out of something than we ought.
Scott Langdon [ 00:10:59,220 ] But even that idea of looking into how we're making meaning of things is important because we want to, you know, what things do hold weight, what things don't, you know. And these little things along the way that happened to me on Wednesday, so we're recording this on a Friday, two days ago seemed to lead to an encounter that had really a wonderful, it was a wonderful moment. So here's what happened.
Scott Langdon [ 00:11:32,530 ] In the morning, I got up and I was getting ready for the day and I picked out my clothes like I normally do. I don't have a wide array of things. I basically wear the same stuff all the time. I have a pair of pants and I like a good t-shirt. And if you follow me on social media or if you see me in a video, usually I'm wearing some kind of t-shirt that's got a saying on it.
Scott Langdon [ 00:11:53,140 ] And that goes back to a couple of years ago, I wanted to support a small business that I found on Instagram. And it was a t-shirt printing business. And this person printed sayings on plain black t-shirts in white lettering. And they said things that were lovely. 'Love is an action word' was one of them. I think that was the first one I bought. And I thought, 'Oh, this is really cool.' And I also thought, 'Listen, if you wear this shirt.'
Scott Langdon [ 00:12:20,789 ] Then people are going to see it and they're going to see that first, which is what I like about a good T-shirt. I like to see what it says, you know, for a stranger, you know. So you know, strangers are going to see this shirt and they're going to see it says 'love is an action word.'
Scott Langdon [ 00:12:37,610 ] If you're being a jerk, that's not going to go well with your shirt. So you have to pay attention to how you behave. And so I thought that's a good exercise and it's a nice thing to do. Well, one shirt that I bought several shirts from this business and they're wonderful. One of them says it has four words on it, one on top of the other. And they're in. White, capital, bold letters.
Scott Langdon [ 00:13:00,680 ] Heal, H-E-A-L. So heal. Underneath that, grow. Underneath that says manifest. And under that says flow with a period after that. So heal, grow, manifest, flow. I like what it says, but it also fits me well and I'm comfortable in it. So on Wednesday, I had that T-shirt on. I have my pants, socks, put my shoes on. I'm going to go out and get something for breakfast. Do I need a shirt, a sweatshirt? Oh, yeah, it's been cold. But, you know, right now, particularly.
Scott Langdon [ 00:13:36,440 ] I don't think I want to wear a sweatshirt. So I'm thinking, what t-shirt do I want to wear? I want to wear this one. I had a bunch of them, but not this particular one. I don't want to wear a sweatshirt. So I'm going to go out in this shirt. Where am I going? I want to get a chocolate chip bagel with some peanut butter.
Scott Langdon [ 00:13:55,750 ] I have a craving for it. There's a place that I went. It's about a 10-minute drive outside of town on the way to the dog park. And I've been in there before. And they have a system in the morning at rush hour that's really great. If you call in, it's usually ready. People come in, and they have a line and a bunch of people working, and you're in and you're out.
Scott Langdon [ 00:14:18,550 ] But at the time of day that I like to go, around 10 o'clock, which is what it was on Wednesday, they are super duper slow. I know they're slow. I mean, it's going to take a while. And it's probably not going to be very good service. I've been there a couple of times before. I just know this is going to happen.
Scott Langdon [ 00:14:37,750 ] And I think, yeah, but you kind of want this bagel and you want it this way. And this is the place you know you can get it. And I think it's probably not even going to be that good.
Scott Langdon [ 00:14:48,740 ] But let's go anyway. It's kind of like a test. How are you going to be? So I get there. There's nobody in the place. Maybe a couple. I think there's a couple in the corner at a table. And I walk in and there's nobody at the counters. And I'm just standing there. But there's music playing overhead. It's a group called Sticks from the 1980s. And they're playing 'Come Sail Away.' And I'm just like, okay, this is a great vibe. This is fine. Finally, a kid comes out, takes my order, says, 'Okay, that'll be a few minutes.' He goes back in the kitchen. It's me and no one. I'm just standing there. I'm like, this is going to be a while. Now, the old me would have been huffing and puffing, and why can't they have good service? And it doesn't matter that I'm after rush hour— they're open. They should... but I instead i just kind of stand there and I'm just smiling and I'm listening to the song. In comes a woman. She's kind of looking around. She walks up to the counter. She had called in. Her order was ready. Oh, we'll get it in just a second.
Scott Langdon [ 00:15:50,430 ] Kid disappears back in to get her order. And I'm standing there. She gets her order. She pays. She walks past me. She looks at me. I look at her. I say hi. She goes past me. She opens the door to go out. She turns around. I could kind of feel her. I turn around. She had turned around. She said, 'That shirt, that's really neat. What it says on your shirt.' 'Heal, grow, manifest, flow.' And I was smiling. She just...
Scott Langdon [ 00:16:23,640 ] had this look on her face. And she said, 'I feel like I needed to see that shirt today. I think there is some reason that I was supposed to see that. And I said, 'I know there is.' And she said, 'Have a great day.' And I blew her a little kiss and she left, and we smiled. And then I got my bagel, which wasn't very good. And it was mushy. And, you know.
Scott Langdon [ 00:16:51,510 ] But I left there thinking this experience could have gone so many different ways. And I kind of knew how it was going to turn out. But I went there anyway. Like, why? I don't know. I was open to it. And this happened, and this woman had this experience that she wouldn't have had if I hadn't just gone with the flow. This was no career move, no major destiny, big thing. I kept thinking about the little gnat in your ear that you talk about early in the book. And it's nothing, but God says, listen to me even when I whisper. And if it's like, I got this craving for this bagel, and I don't have anything to do today, really, in the morning, why not?
Scott Langdon [ 00:17:37,960 ] And it just so happened that because I was like, oh, this song's fine, and I know what this is going to be about, and here we are, she was able to get that energy or whatever it was from me. And so that made me feel good.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:17:50,140 ] That's a wonderful story and a wonderful event. And with this, you know, preternatural outcome. That this t-shirt meant a lot to her. And that was not a goal for you to communicate this to some particular person or anything. How would you have thought, oh, this is going to be meaningful to some random person walking in. But you felt somehow.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:18:17,240 ] You can't quite say guided because it didn't come with that halo around it. You just felt like going to that place, wearing this t-shirt that does say things that you sort of believe in, and so why not? That's all that it required was, okay, I feel this is the thing I want to do today, and why not? And then it turns out you have this rather remarkable interaction.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:18:47,680 ] Which people are capable of at the drop of a hat? Sometimes just being nice to somebody and that they kind of light up, you know, because they're kind of having a hard day and just that you smile or say, hi, how are you?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:19:04,050 ] Or can I help you with that if they're having some problem? Things like that can make a person's day. And who knows, make their life. In some sense, maybe they were going to become suicidal or get a divorce or something. And just a moment that's meaningful to two people. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Scott Langdon [ 00:19:26,860 ] Yeah, thinking about it afterwards when I was driving home, I was thinking about what things would be, I could testify to in a court of law and what things I can't really point to in that circumstance, right? So if I'm telling you the story.
Scott Langdon [ 00:19:46,860 ] Well, there was a woman. There were some other people there who saw me there at that time. The video cameras, if they pulled the videotape, could see the interaction that we're talking about. And I could quote unquote prove that it occurred. Right.
Scott Langdon [ 00:20:01,280 ] What I can't point to is the nudge I had in the morning to wear that shirt instead of three others that I had in mind, two of which had the Witherspoon Boxing and Fitness logo that I wear when I'm coaching or whatever, and often wear outside. But this particular one was just like, 'Yeah.'
Scott Langdon [ 00:20:24,780 ] And if you were to stop me right there, okay, freeze frame. Okay, why did you pick it? I couldn't say because I knew there was going to be an outcome where this shirt would. There's nothing like that, right? I couldn't prove that in court. But I do know that that shirt, I chose it over this one. Now, do I have to go through all of the rings and jump through everything to connect that moment to this woman? No. But here is what I picked up from it.
Scott Langdon [ 00:20:52,290 ] The important thing is aligning everything with God's purpose, so being in tune. So, for example, the shirt that says 'Heal, Grow, Manifest, Flow,’ if, again, I'm being a jerk, or if I'm treating the kid behind the counter rudely—doesn't match up with my shirt that I say I believe in, right? If I'm asking God, what do you want me to do today? And then I start thinking about things that I want.
Scott Langdon [ 00:21:24,650 ] I'm not likely to line up with what God wants. Do you see what I mean? So it seems like sort of miracle things, but maybe these little miracles are what lining up and being in tune with God look like consistently.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:21:43,130 ] Yeah, I think that's a good insight, Scott. And one thing as you describe it is people wonder, well, how do I know what God's purpose is? I'm just going down to get a bagel. How do I know God's purpose? And we always imagine, I always think of that fiddler on the roof. He's always trying to figure out, oh, is there some vast eternal plan? You know, well.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:22:07,700 ] Hearing your story, Scott. You didn't stop to pray. That would have been an okay thing to do, but you weren't in that mode. You were, what shirt do I like? I like this shirt. It's meaningful. I'm not going to cover it up, even though it's a little cold. And then you have that remarkable interaction, wonderful small interaction.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:22:27,870 ] But a lot of what happened is, you might say, how do you know God's purpose? Well, check your own personal integrity. And now, integrity— by integrity, what we really mean, that's almost the root meaning of integrity, is a kind of oneness with oneself where you don't have parts flying off, but there's a kind of coherent, settled, truthful Scott.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:22:54,300 ] You're acting with that Scott. You know, there are many Scotts. We know there are different moods and so forth. But there's a kind of Scott that is the inner pillar or something. You know, one gropes for metaphors in these things. And often one feels it, though, very definitely inside. Whether you're kind of floundering or off balance in something you're doing and thinking, well, I'm not really comfortable with this or something's wrong here, but you keep pointing out the consistency with what that t-shirt says, and everything in your story fits with what that t-shirt says, and what that t-shirt says fits with Scott's commitments in life, Scott's inner being. And also, that points right up to the divine. That's the divine in Scott. You know, where does Scott get these capacities, after all? That's God cooperating. That's a divine presence and divine empowerment.
Scott Langdon [ 00:24:37,610 ] The new series that we introduced in this unit, Radically Personal, based on your book, Radically Personal: God and Ourselves in the New Axial Age, was an episode that I really enjoyed working on, particularly because of the word radically.
Scott Langdon [ 00:24:54,050 ] And I know that might sound strange, but somehow that word popped in and I just have been meditating on that word now for a while. I looked it up and the definition, the first definition they give you is in a thorough or fundamental way; completely.
Scott Langdon [ 00:25:12,670 ] So when we talk about a personal God, and first of all, you know, kind of rewind a little bit. When I talk about a personal God in my history. I think about the eight-year-old boy in the Lutheran Church singing in the choir, singing the solos on Easter, and having a particular relationship with God in a way that I didn't really think about. It just was what it was. And then when we moved... into the more evangelical wing of the Church of Christ when I was 13, that...
Scott Langdon [ 00:25:50,450 ] It was coincidental in the sense that I was of age where a lot of those questionings take place. 13 is a big year for a boy in many traditions. And so it's a time when you start to have those questions anyway. But this idea of a personal God led to what I understood to be, I don't know if the term was coined by him, but Dr. Margus Borg uses the term supernatural theism. So, you know, a God out there in heaven, and here we are down here. So this idea of a separate God.
Scott Langdon [ 00:26:28,180 ] And I lost steam with that really quickly because it didn't make sense. And also, I didn't like the idea of it. Like, I just wasn't interested in that idea. A king giving me orders and I was born into these rules that I never signed up for. All of that just didn't make sense.
Scott Langdon [ 00:26:48,860 ] But so personal God. But a radically personal God is a newer concept. Coming to your work and seeing this radically personal, it takes it a step deeper and maybe even takes me back to that eight-year-old boy. The thorough or fundamental, complete way in which God is radically personal.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:27:14,270 ] Yes, I think the word 'radical' — I don't remember praying about this, I don't even know quite how I came up with it, but every time I thought about... writing this book. The title was radically personal. It just was there before me. And the word 'radical', as I understand it, and you looked it up — I think it's consistent with what you found — is it means 'root'. It means from the roots up. I think it's related etymologically to 'radish', which is a little root in the ground, in effect. But it's where everything starts and what is then defining of everything else, because it's at the fundament. And what I started out in that book with was not yet a conception of God, but you're...
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:28:12,000 ] You're an agent in the world. People kind of grow up in a church, and the church gives them a bunch of beliefs, or whatever else they grow up in. Maybe an atheist family gives them a bunch of beliefs, and they often express, well, we believe such and such. But wait a minute. We don't believe anything. I mean, that's a church doctrine or a family creed, you decide what to believe. And if you decide, well, I'm going to believe whatever the Pope says, okay, that's your choice. You made the choice to believe whatever the Pope says, and that's fine. You just need to take responsibility for your choice, that's all, and make sure this, and what is your responsibility? Well, to be truthful, of course. But what you're trying to do, if you're genuinely spiritual, genuinely religious, is you're trying to connect with the divine reality. You're not trying to connect with an organization, a congregation, or a community.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:29:13,490 ] I mean, there are those aspects of religion that are fine, but the ultimate point is that religion should be a conduit to the divine. And the individual's responsibility is to find— where am I supposed to be? And you answer that by, where is my best access to the divine? And that might be in a tradition you're born into. It might be something you're converted to. It might be something you read about later. You know, you see somebody on YouTube, and this really speaks to you, and you speak to it, you might say. And this opens doors, spiritual doors for you. And then it does end up by the end of… given what I believe and what I've been told in my conversations with God, that God cares about us in a quite personal way.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:30:11,080 ] And not just in a distant way. God so loved the world, okay, but does God love Scott and Jerry? Yes! That's part of what's remarkable. And moreover, does God just watch us when we suffer? No, God suffers too. And if we do bad things, God suffers even more because we're making ourselves worse.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:30:37,080 ] And if we do good things or if we're happy, we're flourishing, God is flourishing. So that's a radically personal sense of God, and it's the sense I get from all of my interactions. that God is right there in this with us, and you can think of that as supernaturalistic, theistic, or however you want— however you want to conceptualize the divine reality. It's right here with you and waxing, its fortunes are waxing and waning with your fortunes.
Scott Langdon [ 00:31:10,430 ] That entire notion, I feel, is predicated on your really early claim in this book, which is that the divine reality discloses itself. One of the things that I never really felt like atheism did anything for me. I mean, I've really looked into it, into some of these thinkers.
Scott Langdon [ 00:31:36,550 ] And I just, nihilism just isn't interesting to me. Skepticism doesn't make a lot of sense really to me when you really dig into it and get the wheels turning.
Scott Langdon [ 00:31:49,750 ] But the idea that experience doesn't seem to count for much in the minds and ideas of those who want proof. You have to prove it. Can you prove it? I can prove it in the sense that I'm telling you what happened. You know, I mean, you don't have any trouble buying the story that I just told you about this woman who saw my t-shirt and said, oh, that t-shirt was really interesting and it made my day or, you know, kind of thing. We go, oh, that seems reasonable. But the idea that... getting the nudge to put that shirt on to begin with, because I'm wanting to be in line with how God could use me in any way.
Scott Langdon [ 00:32:40,410 ] That seems to be preposterous. And yet, that's the experience I had. We've talked about this a little bit before. As a runner, when I was running marathons, I ran much more per week than I do now, more miles per week than I do now. But at one point in the heart of my early training, I was on about mile seven or something, and I got what they call runner's high, where I felt like I was, the idea, it came to my mind was that I was being taken in a carriage. It was like a carriage ride, a real smooth carriage ride, that I was moving and I could see the flowers and the bushes pass and the trees. And I was just cruising, but my feet were going because I was running, but I kind of lost that, right? So somebody in the medical profession would say, well, what's actually happening is your brain is doing this and you're not getting the oxygen there. Thank you for telling me how the equipment's working, but why is it that experience?
Scott Langdon [ 00:33:36,590 ] The experience is euphoria. The experience is, ah, this is beautiful. The experience is a high. So this experience of God, whether it's a voice from the outside or whether it's, ooh wear this t-shirt, that's an experiential reality.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:33:53,430 ] Yeah, something I was just, before we came on, I was just listening again to a random snippet in my dialogue with Abigail.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:34:05,500 ] Because other things have been on my mind. I was trying to get my mind on what we were about to be talking about. But something she was mentioning was the experience of falling in love. And something she said seems to be really, really true. You know, that she tried to sort of set it aside, bracket it, as they say, in phenomenology. You put brackets around it so you don't affirm that it's the real thing, so that you can study it. And she found that impossible. She was immersed inside it. And actually, I think this is the very end of God: An Autobiography because people, trained as philosophers, as I am, think, well, we have experience here.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:34:56,049 ] The world is out there, and then you end up with these problems. Well, that's how you get skepticism. Oh, gee, how can I just experience being in here, running in my mind or my brain, relate to what is out there? And you end up thinking, well, no, we can't know anything, but that's a complete... I talk a lot about experience in the book Radically Personal, really working against my own tradition. Maybe other readers won't need it, but the depth, breadth, and height of experience— experience has many dimensions— and a crucial part of it is we are immersed in the world.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:35:33,350 ] We encounter a world. We encounter reality. My feet are on the ground. It's not just I have in my mind something up here about feet and ground. No, my feet are actually on the ground. If I misstep, I fall. And bang! And so, you know, I'm in the world. And when you encounter, and Abigail is making the point that I think is quite right.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:35:56,130 ] that with these more subtle realities like love, well, you're in it. It's not just you have a palpitating heart and think, oh, I'm going to infer that I'm in love or something like that. No, you're immersed in the love. When you have a divine encounter, you're immersed in the divine encounter. Reality is showing itself to you. That's mainly how you know reality. The world around you is visible. It shows itself to you. You don't have to infer it. from something, it shows itself to you. And moreover, this participatory aspect, which I think I finally come to like the last page or two, working again out of my own tradition. Is, well, gee, the knowledge of God isn't like the knowledge of Paris across the ocean, you know, the kind of example philosophers would give, where I have evidence that there's a Paris, France. But no, you're immersed in this reality, and you're immersed in it. Here I have a voice, but you're immersed in it all around.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:36:59,730 ] And in these nudges of the sort you were talking about a bit ago. In all of these moments, you're immersed, and you're not always giving it focal attention because there's a lot to do in life, and sometimes you're enjoying eating your bagel, after all, maybe God is enjoying it with you. For all I know, one day God said, let's have lunch together. And so it was as if I was sharing my sandwich with God. That's fine too. But the crucial fact is that God...
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:37:31,730 ] The divine reality shows itself. You have to pay attention. And I think in this last version of Why Me, the thing was I trusted love. I trusted the divine voice. And if you don't, then you're not going to be a very good messenger of something God wants to share with people. But I did that, and that was my only virtue.
Scott Langdon [ 00:37:56,600 ] Thanks so much, Jerry. I really enjoyed being with you every time.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin [ 00:38:00,440 ] Okay, thank you, Scott.
Scott Langdon [ 00:38:18,690 ] 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 1 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.