Episode 242 (Transcript): Are You There, God? It's Us, Susan and Cynthia | Part 2

Episode Transcript

Many thanks to listener Rebecca Graham for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:

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SH: So once you let God be a weeping God, then it’s sort of pandemonium, actually, if you think about it. Like, what are you gonna tell me next? That God thinks love is the most important thing? But again, to me, here’s the brilliance of Jesus as the example, because in Jesus we see, you know, we actually see

CW: Right,

SH: Several different places in the scriptures, a God weeping. And so I don’t really know how it could be made more plain than that. And yet, I do feel like, and latter-day saints are not exempt from this, I do feel like human beings have a natural aversion to that. We want God to be somehow more omnipotent, more powerful.

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SH: Hello, I’m Susan Hinkley.

CW: And I’m Cynthia Winward.

SH: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is, “Are You There, God? It’s Us, Susan and Cynthia, Part Two.”

CW: Woo-hoo!

SH: Yay.

[laughter]

CW: I love this topic so much. I’m so glad we’re revisiting it.

SH: Me too. Yep. I mean, we were just laughing before we signed on that we have 10 pages of notes

CW: Uh-huh.

SH: And it’s because we love this topic so much.

CW: I know.

SH: I can’t wait.

CW: Yeah. Well, what we really love is what other people have said about God, because we might have more quotes from smart thinkers in our show notes today than any other. I don’t know, but that’s okay.

SH: [laughing] Well, where else are we gonna get these great ideas? From ourselves? I don’t think so.

CW: Right? Right! And that leads us right into, I think, why I wanted to have this conversation again with you, Susan. My favorite conversation buddy, because, like you, I collect God quotes. I put them on my phone. I don’t know if you write them on sticky notes or whatever, or mark them in books, but if I am listening to a podcast, if I’m watching a sermon, I’m reading a book, and someone says something about their experience with God that just touches me. I think, wait I gotta write that down!

SH: Yeah.

CW: Because it’s just, it’s, you know, the oasis in the desert. It’s like, ooh, ooh, I see something ahead. I see some fresh water. So I have a lot of ideas I want to share today. So this is really a purely selfish episode, but when I told you, you were like, woo, let’s do it.

SH: [laughing]

CW: So maybe it’s selfish for both of us.

SH: I think it is.

CW: Yeah. So like we said, we’ve had an episode on this before. We probably should have had the number ready, but people can look it up. Which is, you know, the part two we have in our title, but also, we had a chapter in our book by the same title.

Fun fact, Susan, It’s the longest chapter in our book that we co-wrote.

SH: Really?

CW: So yeah, today’s no different. So clearly we always have so much we can say about the topic of God, but I really feel like we could have had this episode probably every two years for the life of this podcast, maybe every six months kind of a thing. But then also, our episode last week with Kathryn Knight Sonntag about mysticism…

SH: Yes.

CW: …Has really kind of left me on this spiritual high, so to speak. Like I haven’t stopped thinking about our conversation with her because mysticism is all about connection. It’s all about, to use LDS words, kind of erasing any kind of veil between us and God? So I feel like today is just, is just gonna be the dessert.

Kathryn was the meal, she provided the meat.

SH: Exactly.

CW: The meat, potatoes, and vegetables. And today we’re just gonna have a little dessert about it.

SH: Love it. Love it so much. I couldn’t agree more about our conversation with Kathryn and so I’m thrilled that it worked out that we had that one first as kind of a setup for this one.

CW: Mhmm.

SH: And now we can go into this one. If it’s okay, I wanna preface our conversation today by saying one thing, and that is something that I once heard Barbara Brown Taylor talk about when she was talking about God. And that is that, you know, even the word “god” might present a disconnect for some people.