Now that I had Pastor Gil for a spiritual father, I could let my own dad off the hook a little. Throughout childhood, Dad’s rants sent me off to a corner to hide or seethe. Now I just felt bad for him. Maybe I could help him. Why did Dad think God had it out for him? I knew we never moved from our house because Dad lost too much money in a stock-market crash. I finally pressed him about it. “Two days before the crash”—Dad sighed—“me and some guys from work…we went to a stag film.”
“Dad, I don’t think God would crash the entire stock market just to punish you.“
He wasn’t listening. To him it was all orchestrated. “We couldn’t leave this house. But I had promised your mother we would, and she never forgave me. I bought that extra practice in the mall—that failed. Everything failed.” My father saw his life as a stack of dominoes God had toppled in retribution. For a stag film?
“Dad, you have a beautiful, kind wife. You have four intelligent children.”
“I shouldn’t have forced Rob into med school!” Dad blurted. “I was lying in bed thinking, I’ll tell him tomorrow.…” Dad’s voice cracked. I’d never seen him cry.
“Well, I love you.” I don’t know if he heard. I don’t know that it mattered.
“What is the deepest desire of your heart?” Pastor Gil asked the congregation. (We were in the middle of Vision Month.) “I want you to think of your deepest longing and hope, the hope you dare not tell anyone out loud, even yourself, because it’s so precious and fragile.…Dare to dream of your deepest desire. Now turn to the complete stranger next to you and tell him.”
Next to me was an obese woman in an oversized puff—paint T-shirt. Tell her my deepest desire? Well, in a church of ten thousand members, I never ran into anyone twice.
But what did I really want? I was making a living as an actor. I loved doing improv and comedy, like I got to do in PT&A and Scrooged. To do that every week, say on Saturday Night Live? I didn’t want to desire anything too much. Georgina said if I wanted something too much, it was an idol and God would have to kill it off before he could use me. Should I even articulate it? What if God killed it off?
The obese woman said she wanted to be a missionary but first she needed to clean up the secret sin in her life. If it was overeating, it wasn’t a secret. What was mine? she asked. Maybe if I said it in church, like a prayer rather than a desire, God could bless it. Okay then: “If it’s God’s will, I would love to write comedy or be on Saturday Night Live.“
The woman’s smile tightened. “God loves you too much to let you be exposed to the darkness of the world. Not until you’re ready.” I wondered about that girl on the ABC kids’ show I saw the first day at church. I wondered how she got ready. She’d been exposed to the darkness of sitcoms since she was twelve.
Fat Lady smiled. “Have you thought of writing Bible skits?”
I brought it up with Georgina in our next session. Of all the acting I’d done, improv and comedy were definitely my best work. I wanted to do more of that. I wanted to train for improv.
Georgina frowned. “Susan, your priority is Jesus, not getting famous. What did Jesus say? ‘The pagan world runs after all such things.…But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well’” (Luke 12:30-31).
“I don’t want to be famous,” I replied. “I just want to do what I love.”
“If you were on Saturday Night Live you’d be famous. God won’t promote you until you’re ready. Promotion comes from the Lord. Jesus is your agent. And right now your agent needs you in church.”
Several months later I got a call from David. He’d finally moved to LA. He’d gotten a job as a production assistant at a TV studio. And he wanted to hang out. With me! David was the funniest guy I’d ever met. It had been eight years since we’d dated, but I still longed for his approval. Which was silly, since here I was a working actress and he was just some PA. He told me he worked sixty hours a week, then went home to write scripts until three in the morning. Poor David. “The pagan world runs after all such things.”
“So what are you up to?” he asked.
“Church, mostly. Though I was thinking about improv.”
“You’d be great. You should check out the Groundlings.”
I’d heard about the Groundlings, a comedy improv school where comedians like Phil Hartman got their start. I wanted to study improv. But I was scared that I’d be running after the things of the world.
When I told Georgina about our conversation, she was very upset. “You cannot see him.”
“Why not? David is one of my best, oldest friends.”
“He could seduce you.” She glared at me with that holy-fire glare of hers.
“He’s not interested in me,” I scoffed.
“But are you interested in him?”
“NO!”
I lied a little. Of course I still had feelings for David! Residual feelings. Leftover feelings. David was my first love, but I wasn’t hot for him. I wasn’t hot for anyone. I hadn’t ovulated in eight years—not since I’d broken up with David, married Jesus, and starved off my sex drive.
“Susan!” She glared. “Satan is using that man to plant seeds of doubt and send you off the path of God’s will.”
“Georgina! He’s my friend.”
“He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I forbid you to have contact with him. If you do, I cannot in good faith continue to counsel you. You need to trust me. Trust and obey.”
“But—”
“Susan, if you see him, I will not be your counselor.”
I drove home shocked. How could she give me an ultimatum like that? I loved David as a good old friend. Nothing was going to happen! But she’d been right about so many other things. The ties were so deep-think of the shredded cardboard, for God’s sake.
Only one conversation with him and already I was questioning Georgina and questioning myself. What if Satan was trying to seduce me into running after the things of the world? And what if David did try to seduce me too? I entertained the idea a moment too long.
When I talked to David about it, he was stunned. “What do you mean, you can’t see me?”
When I talked to David about it, he was stunned. “What do you mean, you can’t see me?”
“I just can’t. Not right now.”
“Susan, I’m not trying to ‘go out’ with you—”
“I know.”
“I just moved here. I don’t know many people.”
“David, I’m working through issues in my past. For right now, it’s better that I not have contact with you.”
The line was silent for a while. His voice came back bruised. “I just wanted to be your friend.”
I hung up and cried. Was it because I had wanted something to happen? Or was it because I’d rejected someone I cared about? I knew Satan must have gotten to me because I felt angry at Georgina. But she taught me anger could be good, like when someone violated your boundaries…the way Georgina was telling me what to do. Just what was her experience anyway?
My friend Cheryl from the Oakie church was studying to be a therapist. “She makes you write down your finances?”
“She says God can’t bless your life if you aren’t accountable with your finances.”
“But do you have problems with your finances?”
“No.” Then I told her about the David Ultimatum.
“Susan, she doesn’t sound like a therapist. She sounds like a dictator.”
Either Satan was using my friends to make me distrust Georgina, or Georgina wasn’t to be trusted. I began to pull back. Georgina noticed.
“Are you seeing David?” Her holy-fire glare again.
“No. Blowing him off burned that bridge.”
“Good.”
“I signed up for an improv class on Wednesday nights.” I hadn’t really. I said it to see how she’d react.
Holy-fire glare. “Wednesdays are midweek Bible study and career group.”
“I’m already volunteering with the high school
group.”
“Wednesday nights you need to interact with your peers.”
“I need to interact with my acting peers.”
“You’re defying me.”
“No. I’m taking an improv class.”
“I knew it. Satan has gotten to you.”
“No, my friend who’s getting her master’s in counseling got to me. She thinks you’re exerting too much control in my life.”
“Are you questioning me because some friend of yours took a psych class?!”
Now she was scaring me. “I think I need to leave.” I stood up.
“Susan, if you walk out right now, you cannot come back.” I kept walking. “Mark my word, Susan! You will go right back to bingeing and vomiting; you will stray from God; you’ll destroy everything I’ve accomplished in you!”
“Everything you’ve accomplished?!”
Georgina shouted a few things out the door, but I was already getting into my car. I found myself trembling. I drove to the store, bought and ate a pint of frozen yogurt, and threw it up. I hadn’t done that in two and a half years. I was eating over my anger, and my anger scared me. The whole thing scared me. Yes, Georgina was scary, but what about God? I prayed for help and he led me right to her. What did that say about him? And how could I keep going to that church with Georgina skulking around the prayer room on Sundays? But I had friends here. I looked up to my pastor. I’d mastered alliteration.
I went to midweek services that night. The sanctuary was overbooked. People were crammed into overflow rooms. I got herded into an empty seat in the first row, right in front of the band. The music was way too loud up there. I turned and scanned the crowd: the thousands of joyous faces, the men in their Arnold Palmer slacks, the women in stirrup pants, mumbling to the Lord in their secret speech. And I thought to myself, What am I doing here?
“Stand up and give God a standing ovation!” the worship leader screamed. Everyone stood up. Everyone but me. He shot me the quickest glance and went on. “And for those of you who have been obedient to stand and give God praise, he will unlock to you a special, double portion.”
Double portion of what, I never found out. I stood up. I turned to the person next to me, said, “Excuse me,” and walked out the door.
I never went back.
Two months later, Planes, Trains & Automobiles premiered. All of my scenes had been cut. Maybe Georgina’s prophetic curses were coming true.
Rudy: I wish I could say that’s the worst I’ve heard, but I was a pastor.
Susan: I’ll give you the worst. It’s coming in a few sessions.
Rudy: Well, I need to hear from your spouse.
How did God feel? My knee-jerk reaction was to imagine God throwing out some sarcastic rejoinder to absolve himself. But if I had to change, then so did he—that is, my idea of what God would feel and do and say—had to change. Maybe he did feel bad. Maybe he was even angry like I was.
God: You quoted Psalm 18. “He rescued me because he delighted in me.” But you’re forgetting the first part of the psalm. “In my distress I called to the LORD.…From his temple he heard my voice.…The earth trembled and quaked,…because he was angry.” I was angry at what happened to you.
Susan: Then why did you send me there? If they betrayed me, so did you.
Rudy: Susan, you can’t keep blaming God for other people’s actions. At least don’t blame God for your feelings. Try using an “I feel…” statement.
Susan: A what?
Rudy: That’s where you take responsibility for your feelings instead of making God responsible for them.
Susan: Regardless of what God did to make me feel that way?
Rudy: Just try it. “When you did _____, it made me feel _____.”
Susan: Like, “When you stole my wallet, it made me feel ripped off”? When God betrayed me, it made me feel betrayed? Like that?!
Jesus: Hey, can we all chill out?
Rudy: Jesus, Susan’s argument is with the Father, not you. So unless you have something particular to add—
Jesus: I died for you, buddy.
Rudy lifted his hands in abdication.
God: Susan, you said it yourself. You needed rules.
Susan: I needed rules, not the KGB!
God: You were terrified of living, let alone making a decision. You were starving, you were throwing up! Remember Karen Carpenter? You needed those rules. They saved your life.
Rudy: Susan, can you think of them as rules you needed for a time but then outgrew?
Susan: (To God) Why couldn’t you provide a counselor who was emotionally healthy enough to allow me to outgrow her?
God: She was the only one I could find!! I had two choices: do nothing and watch you kill yourself, or get you to Georgina. Yes, she was a control freak. Yes, I knew you’d end up blaming me, but at least you’d be alive to blame me. And here you are. You’re here! You’re alive!
Susan: (Quieter) And I’m blaming you. But…you could’ve found some other way. Done a miracle. Jesus fed the five thousand.…
God: Yes, but someone had to give him a fish. Georgina was our only fish.
Was it possible that Almighty God was limited not by himself but by his people? By who was available to help?
Susan: It would have helped if I’d understood this back then.
God: You were too hurt to understand. I didn’t expect you to.
It was a hard task to stand outside my life and see it from God’s perspective. The answers weren’t always yes and amen, at least not in the short term. Sometimes there’s no way around heartbreak. And heartbreak was coming.
Chapter 7
ROCK ’N’ ROLL SLACKERS 4 JESUS
I FELT THE FIRST STING OF BETRAYAL: NOT JUST BY GEORGINA OR the church, but by the God who had led me to them. Who was this God to whom I had pledged my life? Why would he allow all of that to happen…unless he was on their side?! Maybe God was punishing me for defying the authority he’d placed in my life. I panicked. Georgina’s prophetic curses were already coming true. I’d thrown up a few times, and I’d been cut from PT&A. What was next?! Thank God my friend Cheryl was there to talk some sense into me. After all, it was for freedom—not for mind control—that Christ had set me free.
“We just need to find a healthier church,” she said.
“We?”
“Between what happened to you and my counseling degree, I’m not going back either.” Thank God for loyal friends with therapy training.
“I don’t know what kind of church I’d fit into,” I lamented.
“You need to be with other artists who’ve got God in their lives but are still edgy. What could be more edgy than being a Christian and an artist?”
“How will you fit in at a church like that?”
Cheryl smiled. “Anyone trying to be a Christian and an artist needs a therapist.”
We started by visiting a church that was over the edge. They met in a school auditorium. It was packed, but not with disco divas or stars from The Love Boat. It was packed with punk rockers, actors, directors, teachers, even some surfers and vagrants. They didn’t wear stretch pants; they wore ripped jeans and blue spiky hair. The warbling Pentecostal organ had been replaced by electric guitars. No Pentecostal waltzes with lyrics about the victorious Christian life—the worship band played raw power ballads, yearning for Jesus the way an addict longs for a shot of heroin.
Jesus, you can light my fire (pronounced FYE-YUHHH)! Yyyyou’re my only true desire (dee-ZYE-YUHH)! Jesus, Luvvah of my soul-ahh, let me to thy bosom FLY-YAHH!
And man, did that music strike a chord with me. They were playing my note—not an artistic note, but a spiritual one. It was the same note I had vibrated to during Communion as a child, or when I’d sat and prayed for hours in college. And it was an ache that the Oakie church’s programs and Georgina’s rules had never alleviated; they’d only slapped a Band-Aid on it. Now this hair band was strumming my pain with their power chords. It was like they ripped off the Band-Aid. I wept with heartbr
eak and relief.
Pastor Craig was a hippie drug addict who got saved at a pizza joint on Venice Beach. He left the drugs behind but brought a hang-ten attitude to his preaching. Sometimes he’d cite John Calvin in his sermons, sometimes Calvin and Hobbes, and sometimes he’d just wing it. Something like:
“So I was at Winchell’s Donuts this morning,” Craig croaked, “and the Lord really spoke to me. He said, ‘Dude, you need coffee!’ Seriously, here’s what he showed me: Our hearts are like donuts. On the outside they’re crunchy sweet—maybe they’ve got sprinkles or glaze, sayin’, ‘Look at me!’ or, ‘Aren’t I smooth?’ But on the inside of every donut there’s a hole! There’s a hole in your heart where the Lord’s supposed to be! You may say, ‘No way, Pastor Craig. I don’t have a hole. I’m a cruller.’ Then, dude, you’re twisted!”
Craig said you could have a hole from not knowing God at all, or you’re hiding some ancient wound you’re afraid to let God heal. He was right! That’s what the ache was—it was a hole! I’d tried to stuff it with food or deny it by starving. Parroting praises silenced the longing, rules kept me moving. But now I had stopped and the hole was still there. There was still a HOLE IN MY DONUT!
“Here’s the good news,” Pastor Craig said, interrupting my reverie. “The Lord is here this morning to heal you. The worship band’s gonna play, the prayer team’s gonna come up, and we’re gonna hang out and let God fill our holes.” Half the auditorium went forward, crying out for Jesus to fill their holes. I was right there, singing along: Jesus, luvvah of my soul-lah.…
That’s what they did at the Rock ’n’ Roll church—Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, midweek home groups. Artists got together, sang power ballads to Jesus, and let God fill the holes in their hearts.
If the Oakie church had preached salvation through behavior, the Rock ’n’ Roll church preached salvation through experience; in particular, the experience of healing. Most artists have pain in their lives; it’s why we make art: to create beauty out of chaos, to find meaning and healing in the art. So it followed that a church filled with artists would preach a gospel of healing: They needed it. I needed it. That’s what the Rock ’n’ Roll church was all about. I made it my home.
Angry Conversations with God Page 8