About the Author
Paul Maurice Martin
At a time when religion is often a source of division and conflict, progressives seek interfaith dialog with new urgency — and yet it remains more of a goal than a reality. How do we speak to each other across sectarian lines, including secularism, when people's core beliefs are so diverse?
Paul Maurice Martin is a truly creative writer in a field where this is rare: religion and spirituality. His unique approach to spiritual life, growth and action is based exclusively on experience and not belief. Original Faith: What Your Life Is Trying to Tell You powerfully articulates core human experiences that offer the possibility of a widely shared dialog and a basis for united action on issues that matter to religious and secular progressives alike.
Paul has an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School and an M.Ed. in Counseling from the University of New Hampshire. However, his approach did not come by way of study. As Paul comments:
Paul started down his path two years prior to matriculating from Chicago. At age twenty-three, in the early predawn hours of a night in June, he had a spontaneous experience of the kind sought in traditions of meditation and contemplative prayer throughout the world. It stood in direct contrast to the hopeless and despairing world view that he had begun to develop in his early teens and that in recent years had brought about depression and recurring thoughts of suicide.
His religious experience soon led Paul to Saint Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, MA, to learn meditation from the late Fr. Basil Pennington. From there it was on to Chicago. He later earned his counseling degree as part of a twenty-three year career working in the public elementary schools, first as an English as a Second Language teacher and then as a school counselor.
The manuscript for Original Faith took shape as a series of experiences and insights that arose spontaneously over a period of fifteen years. Instead of the proverbial 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration, the figures for Paul may have been about 50 percent each. Although he had to work hard to organize his material and articulate it clearly, his experiences, concepts and even his best language would arrive unexpectedly. Paul learned to keep a notepad in his car and by his bed. Much of the text was composed and committed to memory literally on the run, while jogging. Often he would be inspired by the words or actions of children and quickly jot down a few notes for reference the next morning — early morning. Paul rose at 2 or 3 AM to write before heading for work, having found that after work was not a creative time of day for him.
By 1994 Original Faith was nearly finished — and so was Paul's good health. The sudden onset of an unknown autoimmune disease initiated an unsuccessful struggle to obtain a diagnosis and treatment that lasted over a decade. During this period Paul continued working as an elementary school counselor but had to put his manuscript aside to make time for medical travel, research, ongoing treatment attempts, and ongoing problems posed by his health insurance.
After becoming too disabled to continue his career, Paul resumed work on Original Faith, completing the manuscript in December, 2004. Since then, he has completed two additional manuscripts and is working on a third. Housebound and semi-bedridden, Paul remains centered in a faith perspective that he offers to readers as a source of tremendous joy under favorable circumstances and tremendous strength under adversity.
