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.
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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
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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.
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.
Roxana Kay September 22, 2013
I just “happened” across you on Face Book and I feel I was meant to, because I am suffering emotionally and physically and didn’t know where to turn. I had lost my Faith with a terrible incident and also, higher education.
I knew many scientists ended up believing later in their life but it didn’t work for me.
I became “turned away” from hard core Bible thumpers and a lot of the hypocrisy that came with some of them. Especially when it came to the poor.
I do not “hear” God, but sometimes, if I am open, get the “thought”, but rarely from questions. I wish I could. I am going to try and “listen” better. Anxiety is “throwing me around” a bit.
I could not get chapters 5 or 6 (maybe it was 6 &7???), but found I could continue with the following chapters, which I am grateful for.
Thank You. So far so good. I am hesitantly hopeful.
Jerry L Martin October 3, 2013
You are not alone, Roxana. Crises of the spirit happen to everyone, believers and doubters alike. It is difficult, even in non-crisis times, to get in touch with God, and anxiety creates static that even the best receivers have trouble penetrating. But you may have a better connection than you realize. Divine messages arrive in surprising packages. It might just be an inner feeling, or a pang of conscience, or a vision of beauty, or something someone says to you that really hits home, or a task that has been put in your path, or even thoughts that seem like your own. Just let yourself be led as best as you can, without distraction, resistance, or prejudgment, and you will find yourself in synch with God.
ray wheaton January 10, 2013
I don’t see GOD but I know GOD is in every corner of every room.
Jerry L Martin January 14, 2013
Ray, well put. It is as if God gave us some kind of sixth sense to help us know He is there, even when we can’t see him. The challenge is to trust that sixth sense.
Jerry L Martin January 7, 2013
Jenny, it is a real blessing that God has led you to see His overflowing through all of nature. It is so easy to regard the splendor of nature as merely our delight in “the sublime and the beautiful,” just a human emotional response, not a manifestation of the divine. But, in a wonderful way, God has shown you His presence there.
Jenny December 4, 2012
That phrase, Look, and you will see the face of Being, is beautiful and moving; I think He has been teaching me something quite similar.
Perhaps a month or so after I began to feel God present and speaking, I heard Him inviting me to go outside for a walk with Him. I’d been hearing this invitation for some time, to be honest, but I kept brushing it off.
That particular morning, however, I accepted.
Once I reached the nearby park, I was astonished at how beautiful everything was. It was autumn, and He pointed out how everything He created has a natural rhythm of rest and then renewal, myself included. He assured me that He would teach me how to find His presence in every moment and in every changing stage of my life.
I have walked there countless times since then, and often I find my spirit caught in up worship and in those moments, I know that everything around me is worshiping Him as well, each in their own voice, with their own life, and that they all reflect a part of who He is.
Often as I walk, I am listening to Handel’s Messiah, and when I hear the soloist singing, “Behold, your God!”, my spirit just melts in adoration and wonder. I know that His life is pouring through all the living things around me. I feel myself one small part of this incredibly beautiful, varied song of Him, through Him and by Him.