An Interview with Paul Maurice Martin
Where did you find the original impulse to write Original Faith?
When I was twenty-three, I had a spontaneous experience of the kind that people often seek through meditation or contemplative prayer. This happened after about a decade of increasing pessimism and despair. It changed my life literally overnight, setting me on a new course.How does Original Faith differ from other books about spirituality and religion?
Two major differences come to mind right away. First, it's a book about spiritual growth that's based on experience, not belief. It isn't anti-belief; it just doesn't address that topic. The book draws on my own Christian heritage up to a point, but only for its powers of inclusion, not exclusion. Second, because it provides clear spiritual insights based on experiences that we share as human beings, it offers an interfaith platform with the potential to include secular as well as religious progressives. For those interested in seeing the interfaith movement gain momentum, Original Faith helps turn the corner on making greater interfaith communication and unity a reality and not just an abstract goal.Can you tell us a bit about your writing process and how Original Faith evolved?
After that experience at age twenty-three, I started doing a lot of personal reflection. If I had a thought or phrase I wanted to remember, I'd jot it down on a scrap of paper. After a few months of this, I basically had scraps of paper all over the place! So I started filing them. Eventually, I noticed that my notes were falling into categories that might make for chapters in a book.Enough material was coming my way that I developed a writing routine early on. I say "coming my way" — or maybe "coming at me" would be better-because that's how it felt. My best thoughts and words would strike unexpectedly — while jogging, while working on some other part of the book or maybe when I'd gotten up for a break to sip coffee looking out the window. The way I came to think of it was that if it was any good, I always seemed to spot if from out of the corner of my eye, not by looking at it directly.
I understand you are also a poet and that your poems play a role in Original Faith. Can you tell us something about your writing style?
I can write clear, expository prose, but I have a more literary style too. For example, a poem begins each chapter and there are sections of Original Faith that read like prose poems.The book integrates these two styles. The more literary passages are to help evoke experiences in readers. Then I ask readers to give some thought to what they've experienced. It's important to connect experience to meaning if it's going to provide guidance for our lives.
Did you have a specific readership in mind as you were writing Original Faith?
I've often heard how important it is to identify your "niche" and not try to write a book that's "for everybody." But the categories of people I have in mind are pretty broad: believers and nonbelievers! Believers, because here's a book that can only enrich their experience of faith while it helps provide a language for communicating with people from other traditions; nonbelievers, because Original Faith offers a fresh approach to spiritual truth that doesn't ask them to embrace any belief system they may find unacceptable.I expect that what readers of the book will finally have in common are two things: first, a real passion for life beyond ego; second, a capacity for critical thought that makes easy answers unacceptable but appreciates the simplicity of sound thinking that's well-grounded in lived experience.
What writings and authors have most inspired you?
By far, my greatest sources of inspiration have been nature, meditation and working with children. The books that influenced me most were the Bible, especially the New Testament, along with certain readings that I did in Buddhism, including some of Thich Nhat Hanh's work.I understand that you suffer from a serious disability. Can you tell us a bit about how that has affected your life and writing?
I'm in my fifteenth year of a rare progressive illness. For nearly a decade I had to postpone work on Original Faith due to full-time employment combined with medical research, travel and health insurance problems. I was only able to get back to the manuscript when I became too disabled to continue with my counseling career. At this point, I'm housebound and mostly bedridden.Intractable pain and severe limits on my ability to function have taken away most of my capacity for joy and even the ability to be physically comfortable — and in many ways, cancelled out my usefulness to others. At the same time, these difficulties have taught me psychological resilience and spiritual strength beyond anything I would have imagined possible. The depths of peace are equal to the heights of joy.
As to my writing, most of the creative work on Original Faith was done when I was healthy. However, the disease certainly deepened my understanding of suffering, and my experience with healthcare as practiced in America today provided me with first-hand experience of social injustice. I found that these threads wove themselves into Original Faith as I completed the work.
