When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, we're

Host: The church was empty — long past the hour of sermons and salvation. Candles burned low on the altar, their flames trembling as if unsure they still belonged in this century. The air smelled faintly of wax, dust, and the quiet ache of unanswered prayers. Outside, the city hummed — indifferent, electric, alive. Inside, silence ruled like an old god with no congregation left.

Host: Jack sat in the back pew, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped not in reverence but in thought. Jeeny sat a few feet away, one leg crossed over the other, her coat draped loosely around her shoulders. She looked up at the stained-glass window — Jesus frozen mid-mercy — and exhaled slowly, as though trying to believe in something she’d long since outgrown.

Host: Between them lay a small notepad, a single line written across the page in black ink:

“When we talk to God, we’re praying. When God talks to us, we’re schizophrenic.”
— Jane Wagner

Jeeny: half-smiling “It’s funny — and terrifying. The kind of truth that laughs at itself because it has to.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said. “A perfect 20th-century psalm — half irony, half despair.”

Jeeny: “So what do you think she meant?”

Jack: “That faith is a one-way mirror. We like to look through it, but we panic if anything looks back.”

Host: The candles flickered, bending the light in uneven halos that danced across the cracked marble floor. Somewhere above, the sound of distant thunder rolled — low and lazy, like a god clearing His throat.

Jeeny: “You ever prayed?”

Jack: “Once or twice.”

Jeeny: “Did it help?”

Jack: “No,” he said softly. “But it made me honest. That’s something.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s all prayer ever is — an attempt to hear our own conscience in a different voice.”

Jack: “And when that voice answers back, we call it madness.”

Jeeny: “Because we’re not ready to believe the divine could sound like us.”

Host: The rain began to fall against the stained glass, tapping rhythmically like fingers on a confession booth.

Jack: “I think Wagner was mocking our double standards,” he said. “We celebrate faith when it stays polite — when it stays silent. But when it grows teeth, when it speaks back, we diagnose it.”

Jeeny: “You think she was angry?”

Jack: “No. I think she was laughing — the kind of laughter that comes when you realize irony’s the only way to survive belief in a god who won’t return your calls.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her voice dropping to something quieter, closer to prayer.

Jeeny: “But what if she’s right? What if there really is a fine line between revelation and insanity? Between divine whisper and delusion?”

Jack: “There is. The line is called ‘social approval.’ Saints and lunatics say the same words — just to different audiences.”

Jeeny: softly “So truth is a popularity contest?”

Jack: “Always has been.”

Host: Lightning flashed — briefly illuminating the church’s interior, the broken wood of old pews, the dust swirling like small ghosts around them.

Jeeny: “You sound cynical.”

Jack: “I’m not cynical. I’m practical. You tell someone you hear voices from heaven, they put you on medication. You tell them you hear voices from your trauma, they send you to therapy. But you tell them you hear nothing at all — and they call that normal.”

Jeeny: “So silence is the only acceptable god left.”

Jack: “Silence and irony.”

Host: The thunder cracked closer now, shaking the walls just enough to make the cross above the altar sway. A drop of wax slid down a candle like a tear.

Jeeny: “Do you think people need God?”

Jack: “They need permission to hope. God’s just the best brand name for it.”

Jeeny: smiling sadly “You make it sound like a marketing campaign.”

Jack: “Isn’t it? Churches sell eternity. Therapists sell understanding. Politicians sell redemption. Everyone’s got their altar — just different lighting.”

Jeeny: “And you? What do you sell?”

Jack: “Doubt.”

Jeeny: “Expensive product.”

Jack: “It should be. Costs me my sleep.”

Host: She laughed then — quietly, tenderly — the kind of laughter that doesn’t mock but mourns. The candles flickered brighter for a moment, as though even they recognized the fragile grace in irony.

Jeeny: “Maybe faith isn’t about hearing God,” she said. “Maybe it’s about being willing to listen, even if He never speaks.”

Jack: “That’s not faith. That’s loneliness.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re the same thing.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, drumming on the roof in uneven rhythms. Jack looked toward the altar, eyes thoughtful.

Jack: “You know, I think Wagner’s quote isn’t just about religion. It’s about our fear of belief itself. We want to believe in something — anything — but only as long as it doesn’t talk back, doesn’t change us, doesn’t demand too much.”

Jeeny: “Because true belief is dangerous.”

Jack: “Because it breaks control. It makes you unpredictable. And society hates the unpredictable.”

Jeeny: “That’s why prophets become patients.”

Jack: “And visionaries become case studies.”

Host: The thunder rolled again, softer this time, like an exhausted god laughing from far away.

Jeeny: “You ever wish He would talk back?”

Jack: “Every day.”

Jeeny: “And if He did?”

Jack: “I’d probably ask for a diagnosis.”

Jeeny: smiling “You’d be too logical to believe it.”

Jack: “No. I’d be too afraid to trust it.”

Host: The rain began to ease. The last of the candles guttered out, leaving only the soft blue light of lightning filtering through the stained glass — fractured, holy, human.

Jeeny: “You know,” she said finally, “maybe hearing God isn’t madness. Maybe it’s just art — the imagination refusing to shut up.”

Jack: “And maybe prayer’s just humanity talking to its own reflection, hoping the echo sounds divine.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the schizophrenic isn’t cursed — maybe they’re just the only one still listening.”

Host: The silence that followed was deep, sacred. The kind of silence that feels like it’s waiting to be answered.

Host: And in that stillness, Jane Wagner’s words floated through the air — not as mockery, but as mirror:

“When we talk to God, we’re praying. When God talks to us, we’re schizophrenic.”

Host: Because the border between madness and faith
is thinner than the space between breath and belief.

Host: We want to hear meaning in the void —
but when the void whispers back,
we call it illness instead of intimacy.

Host: And perhaps, in this trembling, ironic age,
where silence is safer than revelation,
the only divine truth left
is that we still keep talking —
even when no one answers.

Host: For maybe that is all prayer ever was —
a beautiful form of schizophrenia
we’ve all agreed to call hope.