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Religion & Spirituality

What do I believe about God, and what does that belief ask of me when loving someone costs me something?

Updated November 1, 2026

What I think a life is for

I believe the experience of being here is the point. I get a finite stretch of time, a body that lets me feel what happens, and other people who experience the same day differently than I do. The way I understand God is that each of us is part of something larger and that God gets to experience life through us. That’s the belief I was trying to put into words the morning I recorded episode 449.

I had Jesus tattooed on my shoulder at eighteen. What that image means to me now has a lot to do with the cost of loving somebody. It’s easy for me to say I believe in love. The question gets more interesting when listening to someone costs me my certainty, or helping them takes time I had planned to spend on something else.

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What does moving toward love ask of me?

I can only live this moment from where I stand. Somebody across the table is living the same moment from somewhere else. If I believe both lives matter, I have a reason to stay curious when everything in me wants to win the argument.

Conversations with God gave me the language of love and fear. I recognize fear most easily when I’m busy protecting my pride. In that moment, moving toward love might mean letting the other person finish, asking what hurt, and sitting with an answer I didn’t want. That is a choice I can practice today.

Listen to my journal in episode 449 · Read my noble aim

What if I had to live the other side of my decision?

Andy Weir’s short story The Egg asks the reader to imagine living every human life. It’s a thought experiment I’d put beside my episode about God. Imagine having to live tomorrow as the person on the receiving end of a decision you make today. Which part of the decision would you want to understand better before you made it?

Alan Watts approaches the feeling of being a separate self in The Book. I like putting a story, a spiritual question and a conversation alongside each other here. You can come to a different belief about God and still have a good conversation with me about what we owe the person across the table.

Read The Egg on Andy Weir’s site · Watch Alan Watts ask what reality is

What do you hear differently today?

Think of a religious story you first heard when you were young. Which part stayed with you then? Has raising a child, losing someone, or becoming responsible for other people changed the way you hear it? That’s a conversation I’d like to have, especially with someone who came to a different belief than mine.

Why I want an aim worth the sacrifice

When Kim asked me what I believe in episode 500, I kept coming back to the people an act can help and how long the good from it can last. That’s what I mean by a noble aim. It gives me a reason to do something hard today, and I get to feel the meaning in doing it today. I don’t have to wait until I know how it all turns out.

There’s a detail at the beginning of episode 449 that I love. I’m trying to explain God, money and the meaning of life, and my girls are waiting to go skiing. I can care about getting the words right and still put the journal down. If I really believe the point of life is the experience of it, eventually I want to get my boots on and go be their dad.

Hear the opening of episode 449 · Hear my conversation with Kim

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