Faith Archives -

Things that Seem Reckless to You Are Not Reckless

December 4, 2025

I do not want to rush you or make you do something that feels reckless, but I have to push you. Things that seem reckless to you are not reckless. They are safe. What is reckless is wasting your time, wasting your life away. Life is short. You must make the most of it now. It is now time to move on.

Start reading and studying. Start doing some writing. Start talking to people on a careful, gentle basis. Find out who your friends and allies are. Do not hold back. Seek support. Not everyone walks so closely with God. Can’t you tell that I am already blessing you, already keeping My covenant with you?

I have prepared you to be a risk-taker. I have always rewarded you for it. Now I am asking you to take another risk.

Mano-a-mano with Nurse Ratched

August 12, 2025

The procedure went smoothly and I was able to watch the monitor as the surgeon snaked a catheter up from my groin to a major coronary artery. The blocked place was easy to spot, and he inserted a stent to keep it open.

Opening an artery is a very serious matter. If it starts bleeding, it can be life-threatening. The patient has to lie flat on his back and absolutely still for twenty-four hours. Nurses at my first hospital had been wonderful, but here I was attended by a woman who was Nurse Ratched without the charm. She seemed to resent the fact that patients needed her help. Finding it difficult to manage the bedpan flat on my back, I asked for her help. She acted as if it were a dirty-minded request and responded by threatening me, “If you can’t manage the bedpan, we will catheterize you.” Finally, I did manage, and the twenty-four hours were up.

Another patient had told me that closing up the artery can be painful as well as dangerous.

“Who is to perform this delicate operation?”

Nurse Ratched gave me the grim news: young Mr. Sizzorhands, the very technician whose previous efforts to hurt me had been foiled, would now have a really good shot at it. I told her I wanted someone else to do it. She made it a battle of wills. “He is the only technician available.”

“I am not going to let that guy lay another hand on me.”

We went back and forth. Finally I said, “Let me speak to the doctor.”

She said she would see what she could do and, after a time, she returned with a young Asian-American attendant. He had the hands of an angel. I didn’t feel a thing.

Nothing Existed But Me and That Itch

May 15, 2025

I was transferred to another hospital for the surgical procedure. I was met by a technician who said his name and stuck out his hand while looking the other way. Then I asked him to stop standing on my intravenous tube. When it was time to go into the operating room, he snatched away my blanket with so violent a jerk that it would have ripped out the intravenous insertion if I had not by now been on high alert.

Once in the operating room, I was placed on a slab with my arms flat at my side. Medical equipment loomed above, posing an impressive threat. I was not supposed to move. My nose chose that moment to itch. It grew more and more intense. For a time, nothing existed but me and that itch. Then I understood I couldn’t fight it. I just had to live with it until the procedure was over. At that point, the itch disappeared.

“Think in a Different Way”

March 27, 2025

“Lord, I have the feeling that you want me to read and think less, and to listen more and just write down your story.”

Don’t stop thinking, but think in a different way. Don’t work so hard to figure everything out, to make it rational, to make it fit your categories. Just listen and think through the implications of what I tell you.

“But, Lord, some of what I learn from You comes from worrying over what you say.”

Sometimes yes, but often no. Sometimes your questioning just gets in the way. The main point is to open your mind, to try to understand what I am saying on its own terms, and to see ways it might be true or understandable to you.

If something doesn’t make sense to me, how can I supposed to “see ways” to make it understandable? How do you get to that vantage point?

God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher – is the true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin, a lifelong agnostic. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department, is the founding chairman of the Theology Without Walls group at AAR, and editor of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative. Dr. Martin’s work has prepared him to become a serious reporter of God’s narrative, experiences, evolution, and autobiography. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy. He has appeared on “World News Tonight,” and other television news programs.

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Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the 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.

“Can You tell me about Your pain, Lord?”

February 12, 2025

It is not only we who suffer. I sensed that God does too.

“Can You tell me about Your pain, Lord?”

It was as if I heard a deep moan of anguish, loneliness, despair, misery, hopelessness.

“Are those things you feel, Lord?”

Yes.

“Are they caused by humankind?”

Mainly.

“Is it difficult to love us if we cause you such pain, Lord?”

No, not for Me. Even when human beings most disappoint, they are infinitely love-worthy.

God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - is the true story of a philosopher’s conversations with God. Dr. Jerry L. Martin, a lifelong agnostic. Dr. Martin served as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Colorado philosophy department, is the founding chairman of the Theology Without Walls group at AAR, and editor of Theology Without Walls: The Transreligious Imperative. Dr. Martin's work has prepared him to become a serious reporter of God's narrative, experiences, evolution, and autobiography. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy. He has appeared on “World News Tonight,” and other television news programs.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast- the 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.

Suffering is the Test of Humanity

August 8, 2024

“All that’s rather abstract, Lord. What exactly does disease do for us?” I thought of Job’s boils.

Suffering is the test of your humanity. There is no greater test than pain—how one copes with it. It is easy to be nice, faithful, and such, when things are great, but very hard under adversity.

“But, Lord, that just seems perverse—or cruel.”

No, that’s not so. Think about your own times of physical suffering—in the hospital, for example—the shots, the clumsy aide, the itch, the nurse about urinating, those were full of growth.

Those examples brought back memories. When I was still single, I had suffered a mild heart attack. I was put in the intensive care unit. They took blood tests, day and night. There are a limited number of places from which blood can be drawn, and the same spot cannot be used again right away. The wrists are ideal, but mine are sensitive and a needle there smarts. One does not have much power as a patient, but safeguarding my wrists became my prime imperative for the next two weeks. One after another blood drawer would come, and I would plead, argue, wheedle, and insist that they find some other place to puncture me. Each resisted at first, then managed to find a spot.

I Am the Point of Interaction Between Man and the World.

April 4, 2024

I read about the great scientific debate of the eighteenth century: is space absolute or relative? Today, the standard view is that science and religion are opposites. But it was his theology that led Newton to regard space, “the sensorium of God,” as absolute; and a different theology that led Leibniz to uphold relativity, two hundred years before Einstein.

“Lord, what does this reading have to do with my assignment?”

The history of science is My story.

“Do you mean the history of the physical world?”

No, the history of man’s efforts to understand the world is the history of man’s relation to Me.

“Then You are the world?”

No, I am the point of interaction between man and the world.

Think in a different way.

January 25, 2024

“Lord, I have the feeling that you want me to read and think less, and to listen more and just write down your story.”

“But, Lord, some of what I learn from You comes from worrying over what you say.”

“I want you to enter My heart”

October 19, 2023

Enter My heart:

It all seemed intolerably bizarre. I thought I should talk it over with the wisest people I knew. One, a distinguished medical ethicist, responded, “First of all, this is not weird.” Nothing he could have said would have been a greater relief to me! Another, a well-known author, said, first, “That’s great—now you know there is a God,” and then added, “You have had a Kierkegaard moment,” recalling that philosopher’s question, “If you encountered Jesus on the streets of Copenhagen, would you follow him?” A prominent lay theologian said he was “touched” by my story and suggested some reading while I waited for my “big” assignment.

While there were also cautionary responses, no one seemed to think I was crazy or a fool to take the voice seriously.

Still, I was not prepared for the next experience.

I want you to enter My heart.

“Enter God’s heart? This is weird, Lord, and scary, like out-of-body travel.”

I will protect you.

For moral support I asked, “Lord, first give me Your love.”

Let Abigail love you. You will feel My love through her.

“Then strengthen me, be with me, for this.”

I will.

He took my hand, as it were, and led me into the “heart of God.” I had expected it to be an overpowering, perhaps terrifying experience. But it was more like the eye of a hurricane. I was at the center of something vast and powerful, but here it was quiet, calm, and peaceful. I surveyed the things I feared—the end of my career, loss of reputation, financial insecurity, and a book that went nowhere. In that calm that is God, each concern disappeared.

________

Listen to this on God: An Autobiography, The Podcast– the 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.

“Let Me Tell You What the Story Is.”

September 7, 2023

In a few days, I asked again about God’s story.

The story begins with creation, the evolution up to life, animals, early man. Then to the very ancient communications that require language and memory.

They (My communications) occurred rather simultaneously, and each communication was tailored to and by the recipients. So the precise sequence for telling My story is more a question of narrative strategy than of accuracy or significance.

“But I will have to tell a story that makes sense.”

That makes sense to whom? Let Me tell you what the story is. I am burgeoning forth, reaching out to matter, plants, animals, activating their interiority, giving them direction.

As I have explained, I grew as a Self in response to the interiority of others, and I wanted to communicate, interact, more fully and at a higher level. This (communication) is somewhat possible with early man, who recognized My presence in nature, in life, and also heard, if somewhat dimly and inchoately, My other promptings such as conscience, (the sense of) right and wrong, fine sensibility, appreciation of nature and beauty, love amongst creatures, and mystical union.