I would pray briefly over breakfast or during my lunch break or at home in the evening. Most prayers concerned whatever events were facing me that week. But, if there was indeed a God, I had some questions. For one thing, Why does God play hide and seek with us? Why doesn’t He just come out into the open. Lord, why are You a hidden God?
You see Me everywhere. Just open your heart, your mind, your eyes.
Everywhere? I looked around and tried to see God there somehow. First, I tried to see things as alive.
No, not as if things were alive.
I tried something else (which, alas, I recorded illegibly).
No …
The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, in his great work I and Thou, spoke of approaching Nature as Thou. I tried that.
_______
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, autobiography and sparks of wisdom. In addition to scholarly publications, Dr. Martin has testified before Congress on educational policy, 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.
That’s closer.
And then,
Look and you will see the face of Being.
I looked, but saying Thou to Nature, which I have sometimes found possible, was about as close as I could come, back then.