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About the Series

What’s Your Spiritual Story

What happens when the divine meets an honest question? Not all revelations come to prophets. Sometimes, they come to people like us, at a breaking point, in a quiet moment, or in the middle of doubt.

In this deeply personal series, Jerry L. Martin, author of God: An Autobiography, As Told To A Philosopher, speaks with guests who’ve lived through their own transformation. Some have deconstructed old beliefs. Others are learning how to live in spiritual tension. All are discovering new ways of understanding God—and themselves.

Whether rooted in a tradition or finding meaning beyond one, these stories are living examples of how faith evolves. And they just might help you reflect on your own.

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SPECIAL GUEST | AMANDA H

Amanda (“Mandi”) handles the writing and publishing details that make God: An Autobiography, The Podcast easy to follow across platforms—episode descriptions, timestamps, corresponding links, and the day-to-day content that helps listeners actually find the conversation.

In this Spiritual Story episode, Amanda shares how her search for meaning moved through psychology, philosophy, Stoicism, and Eastern texts (including the Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, and the Yoga Sutras) before finding a deep point of recognition in God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher—especially the idea of a God who does not stand apart from suffering, but suffers with us.

Amanda reflects on how love became her earliest trustworthy reality, how her relationship to prayer changed over time, and why she now understands spirituality as “life-seeking understanding”—not a narrow doctrine, but the whole of life, honestly faced, and met with compassion.

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SPECIAL GUEST | DR RICHARD OXENBERG

Richard Oxenberg teaches in the School of Social Sciences, Communications, and Humanities at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. His research focuses on Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, with particular attention to how philosophical inquiry and religious tradition illuminate one another.

He is the author of On the Meaning of Human Being: Heidegger and the Bible in Dialogue (Political Animal Press, 2018), which brings continental philosophy and biblical thought into sustained conversation.

After reading Jerry L. Martin’s God: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher, Richard entered into an extended philosophical exchange with Martin that became Two Philosophers Wrestle with God: A Dialogue. In this work, two philosophers reflect on revelation, suffering, faith, and the limits of human understanding—drawing on major figures in philosophy and theology to explore what can responsibly be said about God.

Richard’s work reflects a lifelong engagement with Judaism, Christianity, and Eastern religious traditions, and aligns closely with the spirit of Theology Without Walls—an approach to faith that resists reduction, honors lived experience, and remains open to truth wherever it appears.

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SPECIAL GUEST | LAURA BUCK

Laura Buck’s spiritual life has unfolded quietly, shaped less by doctrine than by attention—by learning to listen to the inner voice that has guided her through grief, fear, and transition.

Raised without a single religious home, Laura moved through Catholic family expectations, born-again Christianity, and later a Catholic college environment without ever feeling fully claimed by an institution. Yet throughout her life, she carried a steady sense of presence: Someone there, listening, accompanying, offering guidance not through rules but through intuition.

Over time, Laura began to recognize a recurring “gut knowing”—a bodily awareness that would warn her away from certain paths or draw her toward the right ones. What once felt like instinct, she now understands as one of the ways God communicates: through the body, through timing, and through moments of unexpected clarity.

In her conversation with Jerry L. Martin, Laura reflects on signs of comfort in grief, including a profound sense of calm during a season of fear and loss, and a moment following the death of her beloved Uncle Bob that felt like reassurance rather than absence. She also speaks tenderly about her dog, Fizzy—an “old soul” whose constant presence has become a daily reminder of love, spirit, and companionship.

Now entering a new season of life, Laura feels drawn toward meditation and Buddhist practices—not as a departure from God, but as a way of cultivating peace, presence, and deeper listening. Her story is one of spiritual maturity: trust formed slowly, through experience rather than certainty, and faith expressed as attention, openness, and grace.

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SPECIAL GUEST | JOEL WEINER

Joel Weiner was raised in a culturally Jewish home and spent years keeping religion at a distance—until later in life, when serious study, responsibility in synagogue life, and a renewed willingness to wrestle with the tradition brought him back with new eyes.

Joel’s approach is thoughtful and intellectually honest: faith as lived practice, as questioning, and as a long conversation rather than a fixed conclusion. In his work and his spiritual life, he’s especially drawn to the meeting-point of reason and reverence—and to what it means to partner with God in repairing and caring for the world. Reading God: An Autobiography became part of that widening lens, reinforcing for him that spiritual truth is encountered across traditions, even while one stays rooted.

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SPECIAL GUEST | ROSEMARIE PROCTOR

Rosemarie Proctor has lived a life shaped by deep love, sudden loss, spiritual silence, and surprising callings. Raised in Catholic schools during an era of rigid dogma, she later spent decades disconnected from institutional religion—until a quiet moment of grace changed everything. After her husband's death, a minister’s unexpected prayer brought peace she could not explain. That experience, along with encouragement from others in her community, eventually led her to become a hospital chaplain.

In her eighties, Rosemarie served as a spiritual comforter for the sick and dying. Through prayer, meditation, and compassionate presence, she offers others what was once offered to her: peace in the unknown. Her story is one of transformation late in life, of letting go of materialism, and of learning to partner with the divine—one hospital room at a time.

Rosemarie discovered God: An Autobiography through a book club at church, unaware that her reading would eventually lead to a year-long dialogue group known as The Confidantes, hosted by Jerry L. Martin. Her second reading of the book, coupled with her ongoing service work, deepened her evolving view of a personal and responsive God.

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SPECIAL GUEST | RAY SILVERMAN

SPECIAL GUEST | MARK GROLEAU

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