GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
GOD: An Autobiography, As Told to a Philosopher - The Podcast
282. How Do You Know the Right Thing? Moral Ambiguity and Finding Your Way- What’s On Our Mind?
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In Episode 282, Jerry L. Martin and Scott Langdon explore moral ambiguity and how we make decisions when the right answer isn’t clear.
What replaces fixed rules in a complex world? The conversation also turns to at-homeness, whether it’s something we seek or something we already are, connecting action, faith, and calling.
Listen to the full episode and explore the question with a community of philosophers and seekers.
Join the Ultimate Questions conversation on calling and divine guidance: https://substack.com/@ultimatequestions
Related Episodes:
281. What's Your Spiritual Story?: Hans on Spiritual but Not Religious & Religious Seeking
280. What Has Your Name on It? Calling, Truth, and Discernment- Radically Personal
279. Can You Ever Do the Right Thing? Moral Ambiguity | Jerry & Abigail: An Intimate Dialogue
278. The Cost of Doing What’s Right: Moral Ambiguity in Real Life- From God to Jerry to You
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.
Stay Connected
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Scott Langdon
[ 00:00:17,229 ]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.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:00:58,239 ]Episode two eighty two. Welcome to God: An Autobiography, The Podcast. I'm Scott Langdon and on this two hundred and eighty second episode, Jerry Martin and I share what's on our mind with each other and with you. Together we delve a little more deeply into two of the topics brought to the front during this last unit of episodes, namely moral ambiguity and at-homeness.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:01:32,319 ]There's an earthly cost to every action, and we can never in this life escape this fundamental truth about being human in the world. At the same time, on a deeper level, we all have a desire to be at home, to feel a sense of at-homeness in our pursuit of purpose, truth, wisdom. Here's What's On Our Mind. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:02:01,799 ]Welcome back everyone to another What's on Our Mind. I'm Scott Langdon with Jerry Martin here and this week we have a lot to talk about. These last few episodes, especially the ones Jerry where you and Abigail talked about moral ambiguity. It's something that seems very timely right now, especially considering the state of affairs in the world, the state of affairs as the United States is concerned for sure, where we live. And um there are a lot of things that are popping up in our modern life.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:02:37,889 ]where this subject of moral ambiguity and what do we do with it? How do we wrestle with it? Uh it comes up a lot in our in our daily lives. It could be very easily expressed as something that we might all say, "Oh, of course." Like, uh do we lie to the Nazis in order to protect the Jews? Anne Frank upstairs, do we hide...
Scott Langdon
[ 00:03:01,759 ]Oh, of course we do. Sure. All right, well let's bring it a little bit more to our modern day. Do we lie to the
Scott Langdon
[ 00:03:07,869 ]ICE agents to protect the most vulnerable among us. Some make the argument we do, some make the argument we don't. Either way, it would be it's an easy way to sort of frame it, but there are many, uh, many more places of nuance within that where moral ambiguity is an issue.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:03:28,719 ]Moral ambiguity has always been an issue, but it depending on the the uh culture at the time, uh it can be noticed or rather not noticed. Uh I think in the era I grew up in with the uh like call it the age of the fifties, um and one of the things we were taught is obey the law.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:03:51,089 ]Mhm.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:03:51,929 ]you know, one of your basic norms. And as a little kid, you're supposed to follow the rules, right? And I've once I know asked my own children when they were young, "Well, what if the rules are wrong?" And they said, "What do you mean?"
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:04:06,079 ]That's like saying, what if the rules of basketball are wrong? The rules of chess are wrong? What?
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:04:12,039 ]These are the rules, the rules of the school. You know, the bell rings, you got to be in class. So anyway, there are times where we've lived in terms of fixed norms that seem just kind of clear to us. And but we now live in a period where people go so far as to throw out all norms. They're all questionable. They're all no good. Uh for some reason or other.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:04:36,329 ]And then you lose moral ambiguity the other way because nothing matters if it's all made up. But we live in that in between where there are, you might say, rules. There are, there is right and wrong. And yet they aren't simple set of rules that you can put on your refrigerator with a magnet holding them and one, two, three, four. Every situation you got to figure them out. Just, well, what's right here? And that's, in my view, that's daily life and always has been, but in our period we're more open to noticing the ambiguities, I think.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:05:15,799 ]I was thinking as I was preparing for today and to talk to you about this idea, George and Lenny from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men came to my mind. That Lenny has done something, um,
Scott Langdon
[ 00:05:33,289 ]that he's on the run for And when they catch him, they will surely kill him.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:05:42,769 ]Yeah.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:05:43,899 ]And, you know, the character of Lenny is mentally challenged and he, um, really, he knows what he did but he didn't mean to do it and he, it didn't come from any place of malice or any place of, you know, evil at all. And yet, he will surely be killed when they catch him and George, his friend and companion, um, takes matters into his own hands and and has this moral ambiguity, you know, in the right front and center. Do I take Lenny's life and spare him what will surely be a terrible end?
Scott Langdon
[ 00:06:23,269 ]Um, so that Lenny won't even know, you know, and he's torn with it. I'll be taking a life. And so that's a really sort of right out in front, right in your face situation.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:06:34,229 ]And we can go, oh wow, that's what would I do in that situation? What would I do?
Scott Langdon
[ 00:06:39,729 ]I flashback also to a topic we've talked about a few episodes ago now, uh Abraham and his relationship with God. And when God says to Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son on this altar, and Abraham says, Here I am, Lord. Boy, is that
Scott Langdon
[ 00:06:57,789 ]moral ambiguity at its finest
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:06:59,969 ]God himself Ha! Tell us, Abraham.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:07:04,089 ]the same god voice that led him to move his family out of where he was, war or something, to a land that God will show him. And now, yikes. And I forgotten the backstory. His wife was way, way old and they had not had any kids and they pray or something, and God gives them this very child, you know, as a kind of blessing or reward or something. And now he's supposed to go sacrifice this very child. In which for the larger story means no people of Israel. You know, this would be the story would start and stop with Abraham.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:07:44,759 ]Mhm. Mhm. I I I think that you know, we we talked about a lot of those lessons that come from that story.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:07:53,999 ]trust, faith, what that kind of what those things mean. Um, and always we come back to the idea of being one with God, being in unity with God, um, that and being in tune with God. If we talk about it that way a lot. And in each case of moral ambiguity where we have this this choice, this
Scott Langdon
[ 00:08:23,819 ]decision where we know that the stakes are kind of high, or maybe sometimes we don't even realize how high the stakes might be. But we do know that while we are on earth for sure, every action has a consequence that we will reverberate beyond what we could ever recognize.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:08:46,699 ]And you know, we can get paralyzed in that thought by thinking, oh, everything I do is going to, I don't know if it's going to turn out right or wrong and it we never know how far, yeah. Or we can rest in that and trust that there is a way of God and there is a way against God. I don't like to really, I don't I'm not comfortable with that language, but we do know that when God comes to Earth in these stories, whether it be as
Scott Langdon
[ 00:09:16,929 ]Jesus in Christianity or in the episodes that you uh where you talked about this, um you we talked about Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita and the stories of of of that and how there's always once you've done something, it's with you now. You can't unsee something, for example, you know. Oh I it's in my consciousness now. It seems like once, you know, God comes to Earth, now there is this duality. Now there is actions have consequences.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:09:52,379 ]I'd like your thoughts on that idea of the reality of being a human, the reality of consequences, and how God connects to that.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:10:04,259 ]Ja, ja.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:10:05,479 ]Well, it's it's I I think as you're suggesting, Scott, it's extremely complicated. I was just trying to remember some point. I think the theologian who was much more prominent when I was a kid, I don't hear his name much, Reinhold Niebuhr. Um, at one point was saying something about every action involves faith, hope, and charity.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:10:28,529 ]and what he was saying was, you know, you're never sure if what you're doing is the right thing. You know, even in fairly trivial things, but especially
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:10:42,409 ]where other people are involved, important human relationships are involved, or you're in an official role, so a whole institutional apparatus is involved. It might be the theater, for example, you know, whatever it is, or the production company, you know, larger entities are involved. And um, and you have to have some kind of faith that well, doing your best will be somehow okay. You know, just do your best and it'll be okay. And the hope is that that the the faith has to do with somehow trusting your judgment, your own best judgment.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:11:23,159 ]The hope is that the consequences, which can be often the opposite of what you intended, you know, that's very common, especially in public policy, the principle of unintended consequences. And the principle is that the unintended consequences are always greater than the intended consequences of an action. And I'm aware of this in medical things. You get kind of all they give you a medication for one purpose. Well, the medication doesn't know the purpose. And it affects your whole body. You're giving more sodium for one function, but it affects your whole body.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:12:00,719 ]and and uh and the ramifications of human action are like that. So you he was saying you have to have some hope that these side effects, which can be beneficial, they're not always negative, but whatever they are, that they're okay, you know. And uh and I guess the charity probably means uh giving yourself and others some degree of kindness and latitude and not, you know, hitting people over the head if they seem to violate something. And uh and letting uh
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:12:36,849 ]you might say not exaggerating small wrongs and making them pretty, you know, as if they were great wrongs, but anyway, those are some some of the aspects that one has to take into account in this, what I always call this complex messy world, the world that has uneven terrain. So you can't just glide straight across, but there are hills and valleys. And that means that a rule like tell the truth, well, that's fine in a flat in a flat world, you might say, but doesn't work at all where there are hills and valleys and many things you shouldn't be disclosing.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:13:14,589 ]uh, you don't, somebody asks you a yes or no answer where you're holding a secret, something you vowed to a friend not to tell anybody, well, you can't answer the yes or no question or you've got to answer it wrongly because you say, I don't, I can't answer that, that sort of does answer it.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:13:33,169 ]even when you're trying to protect a secret. So anyway, all of life is full of those ambiguities that we have to navigate. And something like we talk a lot about spiritual discernment, this is a lot like a kind of moral discernment. Aristotle calls it practical wisdom. You know, it's the wisdom of judgment in situations. And uh, and it involves uh, not just a reasoning about the situation, but also the reasoned discernment seems right, some ability to see what's the what's important about this situation, keeping the secret or telling the truth.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:14:12,079 ]you know, and it probably varies from one case to another. Depends on what the nature of the secret. Uh did they commit a crime? No
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:14:21,599 ]uh and uh your priest you heard it in confession and they're they're going to do it more, you know, from the confession. The the Boston Strangler confesses, you know, the Boston Strangler is going to strangle more. And maybe you violate the confidentiality of confession in such a case. Well, life is just full of these borderline decisions that uh in the rough terrain of reality.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:15:16,429 ]Last week's episode, you spoke with Hans Legrand, and I just can't wait to read his book. First of all, because it sounds incredibly fascinating, something right up my alley, I think. And I really enjoyed working with that episode. One of the things that was interesting to me, his, I mean his whole life is really interesting. He's a scientist who also did his Master of Divinity at the same time, which is amazing.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:15:43,799 ]either one of those two would knock you down and uh any normal person.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:15:47,559 ]a very smart guy, but this almost did him in.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:15:50,969 ]C
Scott Langdon
[ 00:15:52,039 ]and uh he he talked to you about you know going into the sciences which he really enjoyed and really but there was still another pull another calling we've talked about having a calling what is that like I know on your Substack the the question I think the first question is you know do you have a calling do you know what it feels like to have a calling that idea of it and he felt like looking for his calling toward God was getting this Masters of of Divinity
Scott Langdon
[ 00:16:25,569 ]and in in each sort of step along the way of his spiritual story, what fascinated me the most is that he kept moving toward what was most open.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:16:37,679 ]So he meets a girlfriend and she's Catholic and so he he goes to Catholicism and is sort of introduced to it and really enjoys it, really sees like, okay, there's really some good stuff in here, and yet he did not feel at home. He felt like he was just not quite there and then eventually found the Unitarian tradition and and felt, oh, there's openness here, I feel more at home here. And the term that popped out, I think you may have coined it, was at-homeness.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:17:07,539 ]Yes.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:17:08,689 ]And I love that idea of feeling, you know, having this sense of at-homeness.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:17:13,229 ]Ja, ja.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:17:15,309 ]Then notice this basic thing of human nature. We're social animals. You know, man starts, man is a political animal. This is the opening statement of uh Aristotle's Politics and it's means man is a creature meant to to live in the city. That's what it really meant. To live amongst other in a civilized setting with other other people. And there's this yearning which Hans describes as having seen with this Catholic family. It was not just Catholicism's oppressive faith and religion and so forth. It's visiting his girl, this Catholic girlfriend.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:17:52,559 ]This was a whole ethos, a kind of homely setting and people need not just to float around in the world. He's he's he's very much after freedom. And you can be free just as an individual floating around in in empty space. But we're that's not the whole of us. That's one one human need is freedom.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:18:16,249 ]to discover and to find and to appropriate what's to find what fits us and what we can believe in and live by. But one also likes some kind of environment that supports your your your spiritual quest and supports the rest of your life. And so Hans is constantly looking for that, finding it bits in different places. He's often finds himself not at home. And um with the effort that the God Book led to, Theology Without Walls, when we started that organization, he found that was he was at home there also.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:18:55,349 ]But we need some kind of, and the at-homeness isn't just a home in the sense of a a social niche, but that at-homeness expresses something deeper, you know, in our existential makeup that we want to not just have a niche, but we want a kind of deep sense of at-homeness where, ah, this is, I guess, where life makes sense for me. It's where I can relax and be myself.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:19:26,499 ]self, I can exhale and and still be comfortable, you know. In other situations where you're not at home, you've got to kind of watch it. You can't just exhale and flop on the couch, you might say, your mental couch. You've got to pay attention to what are the norms here and and how you behave, but it's wonderful to find a place where uh uh it's almost like Aristotle thought his theory of gravity based on what the knowledge of his day was, each object seeks its natural home.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:20:03,179 ]And so, when you let go of the lead ball, its natural home is Earth. So it heads right down. When it reaches Earth, uh, it stops, it's at home. Anyway, we have to kind of in a way find, well, where where is our natural home? And you could generalize for human beings, but it's a many ways an individual quest because we're each so very different. So you have to figure out, well, where where can you be at home?
Scott Langdon
[ 00:20:36,579 ]Yeah, it seems like there are three layers maybe to this. I'll I'll use the term layers as I was thinking of this. And the one would be, and we'll start from the outside in. So the outside would be the social spectrum. Do I have a job where my coworkers are in line with my vision and and um we get along and we um support each other and it it feels good to go to work and do my my work. I feel that way.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:21:09,579 ]And then maybe the first layer in, so we'll call it the middle layer might be, do I feel in this job like I'm doing my calling? My my work in the world. So I'm doing my work in the world with these other folks who are supportive and have a very similar viewpoint. But then the most inner one might be that
Scott Langdon
[ 00:21:36,549 ]I'm at home anywhere.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:21:41,329 ]that wherever I am, it's God and me and I'm I'm at home in that sense where I'm not I don't need anyone else to feel this sense of at-homeness and I can start here. And that sort of has happened to me in my career in that I feel when I act that I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:22:10,859 ]E
Scott Langdon
[ 00:22:11,979 ]And it doesn't mean that while I'm also maybe driving for Lyft in between jobs or if I'm speaking at a seminar somewhere or if I'm working in retail that I'm away from home at the time, right? It's just that I feel most at home, like, "ah, this is it," when I'm doing when I'm acting. And doing these other things like driving for Lyft or these other things...
Scott Langdon
[ 00:22:33,769 ]it's important to be there in that moment and do those things, but it also feels like, ah, this doesn't quite feel like home. So you have to have things that don't quite feel like home in order to go, ah, no, this is home.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:22:46,329 ]I suppose, yeah.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:22:48,019 ]So you have to have the both. So when I'm on stage, I think, ah, this is where I'm at home. Now it doesn't mean everything's perfect. I know I can still quote-unquote mess up, drop my lines or or whatever. And also there's going to be this middle area of um doing something that's important in the world, I think, you know, telling stories is important. And then that outer layer of a cast and producers and people in the crew and all of us sort of having that same desire for the story that we're telling or the mission that we have, right?
Scott Langdon
[ 00:23:25,779 ]Um, so this at-homeness starts for me in that inner level.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:23:35,479 ]phrases when I think about that that come up in my trad- have come up in my tradition might be something like, give your troubles to God. I'm going to give it to God.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:23:47,199 ]Mhm
Scott Langdon
[ 00:23:47,899 ]or, you know, release this to the world or whatever. But when I think of, I'm going to give it to God, I understand the sentiment and the idea of it. But the more I think that through, the more I think, well, where else would I give it? I mean, who has it? You know what I mean?
Scott Langdon
[ 00:24:04,999 ]What does release it mean? And I think it just starts with that faith part. That as, you know, the as as the writer of Hebrews would say, and we many think it's Saint Paul, many think it's not, but in Hebrews the author says it's faith is evidence of things unseen.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:24:26,179 ]So it's this this place where we know God and I are in a sense one when we talk about being, you know, in union with God or in tune with God.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:24:38,089 ]And where does that lead you? I I kind of lost the thread perhaps. You it sounded as if at home-ness was going to be first of all, you have to be at at home with yourself. That sounded like one implication, Scott.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:24:57,989 ]I don't think that they're linear, that you have one and then the other, but I think when I think of being at home, and I I had a wonderful home life growing up. And when I was at home with my parents and my two younger brothers, a number of those things happened. The outer outer layer of, you know, here we all are together as a as a family, share the same name, share the same, you know, my parents are raising us the same way, essentially. And then there's this also this place where I felt comfortable being able to go after the things that felt important. My parents supported me. My brothers supported me. So when I became an actor, it wasn't like, oh, you shouldn't go into that, you should be a doctor instead. I had a family, so that middle layer.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:25:38,449 ]And ultimately, I guess those two things, uh, facilitated a, um, the most inner work, which was I have the freedom from these external circumstances. They have showed me I have this freedom all along to be able to pursue God's will, God's work, anywhere, anytime. I don't need to do anything in order to be worthy. I just I am because God created me.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:26:07,509 ]But I realized that because I was at home and and a lot of people don't have that at home-ness. They maybe they were raised in a family that restricted them in ways or whatever and they felt they they couldn't um be free. Hans, you said he uses that term a lot. That the it's not a place that you get to of freedom. I think it's a place that you already are and these other things get released from you.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:26:37,989 ]They're piled on you, the pressures of the world or or what have you. And they you realize that once those are released, what's left is you and God, free.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:26:48,909 ]Yeah Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, I come at it so differently 'cause I have so different a life. Uh, as a child, I ran away from home all the time.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:26:58,879 ]Home
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:26:59,519 ]I was so glad I liked school so much because you got to go out of home. You got to leave home. My home life was a place that was problematic even though my parents were perfectly nice people, but it can be problematic in deeper ways.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:27:15,069 ]My younger brother died when I was a child. After that, my mother was not available to be a mother anymore. She was absorbed in her own grief on for the rest of her life, I'd say. Every time she'd see like a Gerber's baby commercial when I was in high school, she would tear up and start crying from this lost, I think, thirteen-week-old, just just a little baby. Uh, I'm not sure. I was a child at the time of the incident. And then my father was father to my mother after that. She was the one who he was taking care of.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:27:55,149 ]So I was just on my own, and my mother also happened to lack empathy and to be hypercritical.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:28:02,979 ]and so I needed to get away from that hypercriticism. I went to school and if you got the answers right, you got a hundred percent and so forth. There was no hypercriticism. Somehow with my mother, you never got it right. There was always one, she would always find the flaw or one way to criticize any anything you said or did. Uh, well, that's a rough environment. And uh, I certainly have the notion of at home-ness. And I think a lot of my life is happy now, uh, being married to Abigail. You know, just I'm completely at home with her.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:28:41,809 ]And I'm also a deep introvert. An introvert is rather at home with his own thoughts and feelings. And so I have, you know, when I was writing Radically Personal, that was intensely enjoyable because I'm, you know, the way you're called to act, you know, you're doing the right thing when you're acting, and that's the fulfillment of Scott in a way is being in that role. And this is the fulfillment of Jerry is thinking, well, what's on Jerry's mind? And then what follows from that and how does that relate to something else Jerry cares about and so on. That's very deep at-homeness.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:29:21,549 ]and I think you're right to bring it in and Hans brings it in in this connection is the notion of a calling. You're doing what you're meant to do, however one wants to interpret that. And doing the God book, that's a calling. It does not involve at-homeness for me.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:29:38,659 ]Right.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:29:39,609 ]It's wonderful having God's company, but I'm called upon as a deep introvert to do things like this very program that are very extrovert oriented. To start the whole project, to go to the American Academy of Religion where I know nobody and it's not my field. Everyone in the room knows more about religion than I do, and yet I've got divine guidance to start a theological project called Theology Without Walls. And so I just start this deep introvert introducing myself to people, getting to know them so that I can then pull together a group and get the thing started, and it's it's it's gone very well.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:30:18,689 ]has flourished, I would say.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:30:20,029 ]it's kind of somewhat making, I've been told, making theological history. In part, I think, because even if I hadn't come up with it, someone else would, God would have tapped someone else on the shoulder to get it going. It's it's the project natural to our times where we're so aware of the multiplicity of religions and sources of spiritual insight that you can't just stay hammering out Lutheran doctrine or something like that. Uh, so anyway, this is going to mean something different for each person.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:30:52,199 ]and, uh, if they stay in tune with God, I mean, that's a kind of at-homeness, just in tune with God because that's your ultimate reality in your life. It's the essential reality, the stuff inner stuffing of yourself, you know, your deepest soul is that is completely in harmony with God and you've got to try to actualize that in your daily life. And then there's a kind of deep at-homeness there. You're doing the right thing. And so I certainly, I have that.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:31:24,289 ]And I think anyone who has probably a deeply spiritual life has that kind of, uh, well, inner peace. They often talk about it as a kind of peace and at-homeness is very much like where do you find peace. Home is the place of peace. And, uh, so for each, you know, your story is different, my story is my own story. It's not the same for everybody. Uh, and yet for each person there's some version of that story where they find at-homeness, where they find peace, where they can relate best to the divine.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:32:02,739 ]and a lot of our life journey is where to find our own best access to the divine.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:32:11,619 ]And there are all different kinds of answers. It can be high on the Himalaya mountains, or it can be down in the inner city, or anywhere in between. It can be Harvard Yard, you know, where we find it, where a given individual finds it. And that's a lot of the task of life is to find out, you might say, what not just what is your calling, but where do you belong.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:32:34,559 ]God talks to you a time or two about places where God is more present than other places. That that kind of a feeling is actually a real thing. So for perhaps it might be on a mountaintop, perhaps it might be the birth of a baby or the death of a loved one. In those moments we feel God's presence more. Well, that's a thing, yeah.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:32:59,589 ]And at the same time, I got caught up and sometimes still struggle with the idea that I will
Scott Langdon
[ 00:33:10,649 ]get to a place where I'm one with God. But until I I have to work things out, I have to get my prayer life straight, I have to do enough this, that, or the other, and then I'll be one with God again, and then I'll be ready to live life. And I there's you're never going to get there. You're never going to find peace. It's not going to be just around that corner or as soon as I do this act of service or as soon as I fast for this long, I will find peace.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:33:39,169 ]However, I do find that in certain practices, I feel more aligned with this is a god direction and this isn't. So maybe, I don't know, certain thoughts that are are negative thoughts about somebody else or, you know, looking at something on the internet that might be inappropriate or something. All of those things are aligned with a feeling that's just this isn't, this is off for me.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:34:13,269 ]Whereas spending my time focusing on other things that are aligned with what feels like God's purpose, those two feelings are distinct. Those two paths seem really, um, even though there's subtlety in there, they do seem different.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:34:30,269 ]God's way, not God's way. I was going to say my way, but ultimately, God's way and my way are the same way. I mean, God says that at bottom, everything is God's way, right? So just when I when I think about that and coming from my perspective and my story, when I think about this idea of at-homeness, I always resist the notion that you're going to get it someday.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:34:59,509 ]Hmm
Scott Langdon
[ 00:35:00,909 ]You already are at home.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:35:04,089 ]as soon as you just take that in, I am at home, 'cause I God and I are already in unity. We already are in tune. And I understand that we deviate and we come back, but when when that go when I say when I let go of those thoughts, I let go of the judgment on myself. Oh, you were you didn't do this right, you need to do it this way. When I let go of that and just sit with where I am, I realize, hmm, okay.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:35:34,659 ]There's nothing you can do for salvation. There's nothing you can do to get it right in this ultimate way. And yet, the more I contemplate that and think about that, the more I feel like I'm being led to do it right. The next the next right thing feels like the next right thing.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:35:54,079 ]It's not a big choice. Ooh, do I steal from this person or do I say hello to them and wish them good luck? You know, that seems like an easy choice. Well, all of the things in a way almost seem like an easy choice.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:36:09,559 ]difficult for sure. Then that's the struggle, isn't it? I may not want to do this one thing because I have desires after all. We're beings with desires, yeah.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:36:19,049 ]Yeah, life is full of temptations and uh, you know, a lot of what you're describing, Scott, sounds to me like, you know, you're at one with God. There's this funny sense in which God is sort of everything. There's no nothing that you might say that where God, there's no part of reality that God is absent from. And God and and it's not just God is hanging around there, God sort of in some sense is each of these things.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:36:49,839 ]you look at uh a little turtle going across. That turtle also is has is divine, you know, has God, is part of the divine reality that encompasses everything, that includes everything. And yet there is this other sense, uh, I call one the ubiquitous sense of the divine where the divine is everywhere. And the other a kind of differential sense of God because God also actualizes God's self in a in a more personal and distinctive form. Uh, and can be more present one place than another.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:37:27,839 ]And that would apply to inside each of us. Some certain aspects of yourself are, you might say, more godly, more divine than other aspects of oneself. And a lot of that, when you, a lot of those quotations from God in Autobiography where we and God are at one, it's really our soul and God are at one. And it's not that easy for human beings to get to the soul level. It's not, the soul level has no desire to steal from someone or even look at dirty pictures, you know.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:38:05,289 ]at the soul level, these are trivial and of no interest. And uh, if at the soul level, uh, you and they talk about at-homeness, you and God are just, uh, you know, sitting by the fireplace together, you might say. You couldn't be more, I think the uh Jews say heimish, the Germans say heimlich, but more home-like than that. Uh, and uh, and so a lot of life is to keep in touch with that soul level.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:38:39,609 ]And that doesn't require, it can be aided by prayer, meditation, uh walks in the woods, good music, uh and many other things. It can be aided and of course, uh, uh, good life partner or good friends, these can all help you be more in touch with your most fundamental real level of reality. And uh, and so, so you cling to those things, you make the most of them in your life.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:39:10,079 ]and you make the least possible of the other things, you know, the the the greed and lust and and jealousy and envy and all of those things are also part of the human very much part of the human the mix of human nature that makes it all kind of interesting that drives the plot of life. Uh, our lives are very dramatic. But uh, and the life of the soul is not quite as dramatic and yet, you know, you've got to make sure it doesn't get lost in the froth on the surface of life.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:39:43,239 ]I'm so glad we can talk together, Jerry. This is always such a treat for me.
Dr. Jerry L. Martin
[ 00:39:47,659 ]Okay Well, good to talk with you, Scott. And be well.
Scott Langdon
[ 00:40:05,999 ] 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.