Episode #17 is a conversation with John Bunce, a spiritually motivated Roman Catholic, who has experienced what he calls intimacy with God.

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That kind of close encounter with God can seem both scary and profoundly satisfying, and it certainly never leaves us where it found us.

We discussed two basic ways of finding that kind of intimacy with God. One is through love, and the other is from listening, which is of course a form of listening. We both recognize the way some people tend to balk at this type of spiritual experience, so we talk about why we don’t believe these objections are necessary. John’s experience with the writings of St. Theresa of Avila and of Thomas Merton, and my experience with the writings of Mary Baker Eddy give us rich background for the mutual exploration of our subject.

Our stories cover John’s 4-day experience at the monastery at Gethsemane, in Kentucky and one of my aha! moments that lead to physical healing. These types of experience may be relatively brief, but they are fundamentally transforming, Interestingly, we both found that our private, intimate experience with God always ends up enlarging our heart for humanity. Rather than indulging selfishness with privileges from God, we concur that intimacy with God is the foundation for more commitment to comforting and helping others.

Here are links to some of the subjects and events we talked about.

• Study on friendship decline in the United States
  
• The real mission – be close to God
• St. Theresa of Avila
• Abbey of Gethsemani of Trappist, Kentucky