The Sacred Romance wasn’t the first book foisted on me. Someone else told me to read Conversations with God, that new age piffle where God is like the Big Lebowski, telling you to “just follow your truth, dude.”
Who on earth had conversations with God like that? If I wrote my conversations with God into a book, they’d be very angry conversations. They’d go more like:
Susan: What the _______, God? Are you trying to kill me?
God: Shut the _______ up or I will!
And that would be the end of the book.
Still, Martha’s idea grew on me—not to read The Sacred Romance, but to take God to couples counseling. What if I could get God in a room with a third party and compel him to respond? What would I ask him?
• So, Lord, is there in fact a “purpose-driven life”? A “secret”? A “best life now”? Or are those just your latest marketing campaigns designed to get me to buy books and CDs and to tithe?
• Did you ever speak to me? Were you ever involved?
• Your people love to quote Jeremiah 29:11: “I know the plans I have for you,…to prosper you and not to harm you.” How come I never heard Jeremiah 20:7: “O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived”?!
• And don’t tell me, “Despite how it looks, I really do love you.” I’ve gone to Al-Anon. If it looks like abuse, it is.
But what sane, licensed therapist would counsel a woman who claims her spouse is invisible? And what devout Christian therapist would dare question the Almighty?
So I set out to find a therapist daring enough to take on a client whose spouse was the immortal, invisible, God only wise. God probably wasn’t going to change. But if this was a marriage and he was my husband, he needed to learn that (a) women just need to vent, and (b) men are wrong. More important, maybe the process of counseling could show me where I’d gone off track. Maybe I could find a way back to what I once knew: that God was good and Jesus loved me.
Just in case I ended up a pile of charcoal, I decided to write this book; that it would serve as a record of my counseling sessions with this God whom I loved, whom I could not escape, and with whom I was very, very pissed off.
Chapter 1
GETTING GOD ON THE COUCH
WHEN CHOOSING A THERAPIST, ONE SHOULD CONSIDER CRITEria such as the therapist’s reputation, field of expertise, affordability, and location. Since I was broke and my spouse was God, my criteria were “cheap” and “won’t call the psych ward.” Which is how in September 2003, I ended up working with Rudy O’Shea, a former pastor accumulating his hours for his therapist’s license.
The therapy center where Rudy worked was at an old Baptist church. Rudy’s office must have doubled as the Baptist rumpus room, because it was massive. In addition to Rudy’s “counseling corner,” it housed a piano, a coffee table with mismatched chairs, book-shelves, and a trophy case. What kind of trophies did Baptists win? Maybe memory-verse competitions—my Baptist grandmother knew every Bible verse about hell.
The walls were covered with photos of church secretaries, pastors, and missionaries of yore. And peppered among the photos were pictures of Jesus—Jesus with children, laughing Jesus, Jesus praying, Jesus tending sheep in the Alps, Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. (Actually, it was a farmhouse door; it looked like Thomas Kinkade before he went neon.) And last there was that famous portrait of Jesus—the brownish one where Jesus sits looking sober and kind. I grew up with that picture. More about that later.
Rudy O’Shea staggered into our first session one minute before the hour. “Sorry, man. The traffic from Topanga was gnarly!” Rudy was a short guy in his late fifties with gray hair, buckteeth, and a Hawaiian shirt. He pulled out a file and beckoned me to sit.
“You’re Susan, the girl who wants to take God to couples counseling?” I nodded. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week!” Rudy smiled broadly. He looked like Jimmy Buffett imitating a chipmunk.
“Obviously, I don’t expect God to actually materialize and have conversations with us.”
Rudy shrugged. “Actually, I think it would be cool if he did. But I also dropped acid before I got saved.”
Maybe I was going to get the Big Lebowski after all.
“That was thirty-five years ago,” he assured me. “I was a pastor for twenty years.”
“Why’d you stop?” I asked.
“Therapists help people who want to get well.” He smirked. Cool. I figured we’d get along.
“So, Susan, tell me how you got here.”
I gave Rudy a synopsis of my history with God, much as I wrote in the introduction. “Either God isn’t personal and I’ve wasted my time, or he is personal and he hates me.”
“There’s a third option,” Rudy suggested. “God loves you, but crappy things still happen.”
“That’s easy for you to say, sitting over there in your comfy therapist’s chair.”
“It’s not comfy at all. No lumbar support.”
“Rudy, I know worse things have happened to better people. Mine are just middle-class white girl’s tragedies. But I’m a middle-class white girl, and they’re my tragedies.”
Rudy opened his legal pad and began taking notes. “So what do you want to accomplish in therapy?”
“Did they teach you that question in therapy school? It’s really therapese.”
“How else can I say it? What do you expect to happen here?”
“God’s not going to change—he’s immutable, right? I want to change. But not all of this is my fault, is it? Some of this is God’s responsibility, or at least the church that represents him. Isn’t it?”
There was a sadness in Rudy’s smile, as if he had an answer I might not want to hear. What did I want to hear? That it was all my fault? Actually, that would have been easier. Because then I would’ve been in control of the solution: me. But that’s not what Rudy said. His smile disappeared entirely. “I can’t tell you how many people come in here feeling disenfranchised, disillusioned, and disgusted with church. I’m talking solid Christians, lifelong churchgoers. They don’t know where their faith is or where God is. I think the American church got away from the gospel, and we took a lot of people with us. People like you.”
“Have I been in a cult? Has Jesus left the building?”
“I’m sorry. I was a pastor; I feel protective of people like you. I just want you to know that you’re not alone. And there’s good news. You can change with God’s help. So tell me why you want to do this as ‘couples therapy’ with God.”
“It’s easier to complain to a person than a concept.”
“Who’s going to speak for God?”
“You are. You’re the therapist/pastor. We can role-play. I’ll be Susan the neglected wife, and you’ll be God the abusive deadbeat husband.”
“I can’t speak for your God, Susan.”
“But we believe in the same God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
“But my God isn’t an abusive deadbeat. I like God; I feel safe with him. I need to see God the way you see him. I need to hear how you hear him. You need to vocalize him, like he’s really in the room with us. Don’t turn him into Charlton Heston, but show me what you hear him say and see him do. And Susan, God can change: your perception of him can change. It has to, because you can’t stay married to an abusive deadbeat.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“What any couples therapist does. I’ll moderate. I’ll confront. If you get off-base, I’ll try to bring you back.”
“Will you separate us if we get violent?”
Rudy smiled. “Let’s bring God into the room.”
(Of course, God never showed up physically. And Rudy and I didn’t spend hours having conversations with thin air. But who wants to read counseling transcripts? So I turned it all into a conversation. You know, like the book of Job.)
Rudy waited for me. How could I picture God in the room? I thought of the burning bush in The Ten Commandments. I thought of the cartoon God in Monty Python. I i
magined God sitting there shaking his head in profound disappointment, just like my own father used to do. Hmm.
Rudy: Lord, are you willing to show up for counseling every week?
God: Yeah, whatever.
Rudy: You don’t seem too enthusiastic.
God: I’ve got a universe to manage. Now I have to shrink my ineffability into some rumpus room so Susan can rag on me? (To Susan) You’re right. This isn’t Darfur. Get over yourself.
Rudy: Wow. Is this you being a loving God?
God: Loving someone doesn’t mean spoiling them rotten.
Susan: There’s a difference between spoiling me rotten and rubbing my face in it. Come on, Central Park?
God: Got your attention, didn’t I?
Just then Jesus showed up. In my mind, of course. He sat down and put his hand on mine. His eyes were just like the sad, kind eyes in the Jesus picture on the wall. I sure loved that guy.
Jesus: Hey, Suze.
Susan: Your dad is so mean to me!
Jesus: I know you feel that way, but he really loves you. Remember what I said, “When you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father”?
God: Yeah. The Trinity. Don’t you remember anything?
Susan: Then where’s the Holy Spirit?
God and Jesus: Around.
Rudy: Susan, do you see how you’ve split Jesus and God into Good Cop/Bad Cop?
God: Yeah, how come I always have to be the Bad Cop?
Rudy: (To God) The sarcasm isn’t helping.
God: Don’t blame me; I’m just a figment of Susan’s imagination.
Rudy: (Sighing) I’m going to earn every penny here. Clearly you are angry at each other. Anger is a sign of hurt. But we don’t get hurt by people we don’t care about. We get hurt by people we love. So there’s love here.
God: Jesus and I never get angry at each other.
Rudy: I know you’re the Supreme Being, Lord, but right now I’d like you to listen.
God rolled his eyes. Okay he didn’t, but that’s what I imagined him doing.
Rudy: Before we end, I’d like you to tell each other something you love and something you’re hurt or angry about. Susan, you start.
Susan: I don’t have any problems with Jesus. Well, except when I was bullied for three years and prayed for your help and you didn’t come. But I guess you were busy. As for God the Father—I love your creation. I’m in awe of it, really. I love in the Bible how you cared about justice and fought the evil guys. But the way you’ve trashed my life—I guess I’m the evil guy now.
Would God roll his eyes at that? Would he try to defend himself? Would he care?
Rudy: Good job, Susan. Who’s next?
Jesus: I’ll go. Hey, Suze, I’m so sorry you feel like I didn’t help you.
Susan: Thanks.
Jesus: We’ll talk more about it later, but for now, just know I love you.
Susan: I love you too.
God: I want to remind Susan that Jesus is me! You’ve seen him, so you’ve seen me. I’m not just the Bad Cop!
Rudy: Lord, is that what you’re angry about? The Bad Cop? Because you’ve said it twice now. If you’re going to speak, I’d like you to follow my instructions and start with something you love.
God: I don’t appreciate your correcting me.
Rudy: I’m not threatened by you. You’re just a figment of Susan’s imagination.
God: We’ll see about that. (To Susan) I love you. Not for anything you’ve done, but because it’s my nature to love.
Susan: Boy, do I feel special.
God: I love your creativity, your chutzpah. You stuck with me all these years, when other people walked away. You hung in there, like a rabid terrier. However—
Susan: Here it comes.
God: I resent you blaming me for everything. And I do not exist to give you what you want.
Susan: Do I exist to give you what you want?
God: Well, actually—
Rudy: Enough. No responding, just listening. Did you hear each other? Susan loves the God who loves justice and mercy, but she feels rejected. God loves Susan, but resents being blamed for everything. And Jesus…is sorry. Remember: where there is real love, there’s real pain. I’d be more worried if you didn’t have any grievances, because then you wouldn’t be close. Okay?
And just like that, God and Jesus were gone. You know, from my imagination.
Rudy: This is good.
Susan: This is weird.
Rudy: Yeah, but it’s good too. It’s an adventure. For every session, I want you to write about a period of your life, bring it in, and we’ll discuss it. Tell me where that angry, sarcastic God the Father came from. Tell me about the Jesus who loved you but didn’t intervene. Where did you get that image of Jesus?
Susan: There. (I pointed to the Jesus portrait on the wall.) That’s the Jesus I knew.
Rudy: Then write about him.
Chapter 2
THE NICE JESUS ON EVERY WALL
EVERYONE HAS IDEAS ABOUT GOD—THINGS THEY’VE LEARNED from religion, parents, and authority figures. Even atheists have ideas about God: like he’s a crappy God, which is why they don’t believe in him. I heard one of those new atheist fundamentalists on the radio. He must have had a lousy childhood because, man, he was one angry, arrogant turd. Anyway, even if you never stepped foot in a church or synagogue or Whole Foods, you have an idea of what God is like, and you got it from somebody, somewhere.
My ideas about God weren’t all good, all bad, or even all Christian. They were a syncretism of good theology, bad parenting, Lutheran passivity, and American culture. I’ll deal with the Father in the next chapter, but my ideas about Jesus could be summed up in that portrait hanging in Rudy’s office. The Nice Jesus on the wall.
You probably know the picture. Head of Christ, by Warner Sallman, is arguably the most recognizable image of Jesus of the twentieth century. Painted in muted yellows and browns, a kind, Norwegian-looking Jesus sits there looking sober, calm, and slightly depressed. His eyes are turned upward as if he’s listening to the Father. Maybe God just got around to telling him he has to be crucified, because Jesus looks pretty serious. You would too if you had to die for the whole world.
Sallman painted those other pictures on Rudy’s wall, and I knew them as a child too. The Lord Is My Shepherd shows Jesus tenderly carrying a lamb in his arms; there’s even a black sheep in the background, following along. Mom said it was because Jesus carried the weak and loved the outcast. Christ at Heart’s Door was my favorite. I saw the love and patience in Jesus’ eyes, as if he would wait forever for someone to answer. But the Head of Christ was the picture I knew best because it hung in every classroom, pastor’s study, and toilet stall at Olivet Lutheran Church and Day School.
My mother was a beautiful Norwegian-American who took her four kids to church every Sunday while my father stayed home and cursed at the TV. My two older brothers were already in junior high, but my sister Nancy and I went to Olivet Lutheran grammar school. Mom just wanted us to know Jesus. She wanted us to know that even if your husband ignores you and turns you into the most beautiful unpaid housekeeper in Orange County, you will still have Jesus. In fact, all you’ll ever have is Jesus.
My mother spent her mornings reading the Bible and praying. I woke up every day to the smell of coffee and the sound of her prayers: whispers of adoration, urgency, and melancholy. Sometimes her voice cracked it was filled with so much longing. It was in her prayers that I first recognized what longing was: a hunger for something you couldn’t see.
I saw that longing at Communion too. Most of the time our church played the grand old Lutheran hymns like “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” But on Communion Sundays, they mixed it up with Oakie waltzes like “In the Garden” or the hippie “Pass It On”—the Lutherans’ way of being edgy.
I watched Mom get the wafer and grape juice. Sometimes Pastor Ingebretsen laid his hand on her head and prayed; sometimes he didn’t. But every time Mom came back singing through her tears: “An
d He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own.” Always off-key, always crying, always longing. At first her tears scared me.
“What’s wrong, Mom? Are you sad?”
“No, I’m not sad,” she blubbered. My mother was sad a lot, but at Communion her sadness was different. It was as if Communion was the place her sadness could be heard, and the place where it could end. Communion was where she took her longing, and that’s where her longing was met. Years later I suspected my mother’s longing for God was fueled by the lack of love from my father. Perhaps our loneliness can never be filled with even the best of human love. Maybe the longing for human love is just the beginning, and the longing for God is always the end.
All I knew at the time was that something happened at Communion. Mom tasted and saw that the Lord was good. And I wanted to taste it too.
Every night after dinner, Mom sat us down to read the Bible and pray. I loved the stories about Jesus. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He talked back to the hypocrites. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He was my hero, like Mighty Mouse. And Mom was right. Jesus did love the weak and the outcast—that’s who he hung around with. If Jesus went to my school, he wouldn’t be in a clique. As a child I knew that was real love. I knew it the way you only have to see blue once to know what blue looks like.
My early years at Olivet Lutheran Day School were happy and uneventful. Most of my teachers were retired missionary spinsters who smiled and turned the other cheek. Pastor never got angry except when he preached about evil. In fact, no one at church got angry—which is why my dad rarely came to church.
I liked going to a school where Jesus was present. We had chapel twice a week, we read the Bible in class, and there on every wall hung the picture of the Nice Jesus. I had a lot of years to study that picture. Yes, Jesus was nice, but he also looked sad. My third-grade teacher, Miss Toft, said maybe Jesus was busy praying for someone who was hurt. She said Jesus got up every morning to pray. I thought of my mom. Maybe Jesus wasn’t sad; maybe he and Mom were just lonesome for God.
Angry Conversations with God Page 2