There, lying in the shade of a maple tree was a naked, dead woman. She wasn’t decomposed, just lifeless. She was voluptuous and curvy; her hair was long and thick, and her skin was smooth and white. The dried-apple faces threw a shroud at me and told me to roll the body up in it. I laid out the shroud next to the body, reached for her shoulder to roll her over onto it, and she leaped up at me!
Father Michael inhaled.
“Exactly!” I said. “I ran, but she was right behind, trying to grab me or something, like a demon trying to possess me. The Oakie church taught me how to rebuke a demon so I said in an authoritative voice, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, I command you to get back!’ Every time I said, ‘Jesus Christ,’ I felt power drain out of my body. This was a powerful demon. The religious ladies and I corralled her. She lunged at me one more time, and with one final, authoritative shout I rebuked her. ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, I command you to GET BACK!’ And that’s when she LEAPED INSIDE ME!”
Father Michael jumped. “Praise God!”
“WHAT? No! She got inside me. A demon got inside me!”
“Susan, that wasn’t a demon.” Why was he smiling at me? “That woman is your God-given feminine sexuality, which your shame tried to kill off. Come on: you tried to bury her in a shroud?”
“But my sin, Father Michael.”
“Oh, please. Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery. He didn’t tell her to go bury herself. Saint Irenaeus said, ‘The glory of God is man’—and woman—’fully alive.’”
I had been so sure I understood the dream. But Father Michael was right. He picked up my hand. “Can I pray for you for a beau?”
Later that day, I hiked up to an outdoor altar where the monks held services outside. I could see the bowl of the desert sweeping up to the north. I thought of that open road I’d imagined when Jesus first called me into this adventure. Overwhelmed, I knelt at the altar and offered myself to God, to all he had for me, glorious and fully alive.
Two weeks later, I got my period. It had been dormant for twelve years. I probably ovulated the night that dead woman leaped inside me. That was mystical and cool.
If God could bring me back to life, surely he was doing the same work in the lives of the men at my church. He’d made me to dance. Where were the Christian men to dance with?
“It’s so beautiful!” Mark cried when I told him what had happened. “But why can’t my true masculinity jump inside of me? Why am I still gay, still stuck between dead and damned?”
“I know, Mark. It’s not fair. Maybe you should go to the monastery.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Me and a bunch of priests?”
“Or a convent?” We laughed. And Mark cried again.
I met several guys over the next few months. There was Hans, who on our first date told me all about his sex addiction and how he wanted to kiss me but it freaked him out. George: a Catholic painter who dated only Catholics. Ben: a novelist who was so shy, after eight dates we hadn’t gotten past “What’s your favorite movie?” Then there was Wayne, whom I dated for three months, while he freaked out about commitment and finally broke up with me because of how I stacked dishes. (Wayne’s mammy told him to watch how a girl clears a table. “Is she class, or do she stack?” Years later he apologized. One thing about Southern men, they have manners.)
I also spent time with loads of Christian men who were funny, emotionally present, and not threatened by my intelligence. Men like Mark who were gay or trying not to be. The rest of the single men at my church were perpetually on the healing conference tour. And who has time to date when you’re at healing conferences, getting healed? (Or taking notes about getting healed?)
Well, life wasn’t just about men! I went out and got a job at a production studio. As the receptionist, I saw a lot of men come through that door. They were different from the men at church. They hadn’t had their huevos excised.
One thing about getting your hormones back: you get your hormones back. Yikes! I felt attracted to guys I’d never found remotely attractive: a heavyset bodybuilder, a computer tech, the guy who delivered sandwiches. Out of control. And then Pedro Donnelly walked in: a Cuban/Irish New York writer with blue eyes and red hair. True, I was attracted to writers. But red hair? Never.
Pedro spoke with old-school etiquette. He asked lots of questions: what book was I reading, how did I spend my Thanksgiving, what films had I seen? He acted fascinated that I too was a writer, of comedy sketches no less. And then he sashayed off to the producer’s office, all six feet three of him, leaving me with my resurrected hormones. The glory of God was man, fully alive. Rrrrrrawr.
But I knew the drill with men. I knew it from every conversation I’d ever had in a church foyer: they talk and smile; they discover all the things you have in common. “You drink PG Tips too?” “I love Elvis Costello.” “Brothers Karamazov is my favorite!” And then they walk off, no clue that they’ve tampered with your ovulation kit.
Pedro hadn’t been on my radar more than two weeks when he called the office one morning. He asked me the usual questions about books and life and movies. As the conversation started to feel embarrassingly long, I went to transfer his call to the producer.
“I’m not calling for him,” Pedro interrupted. “I called to ask you out socially.”
He called to ask me out socially? How quaint.
OMG—HE JUST ASKED ME OUT! Did I answer yet?
“Why, yes, Pedro. I’d be delighted to see you. Socially.”
I did not sleep the night before. We went for a three-hour hike and never ran out of things to talk about. Except for the moment we leaned over a rock to look at the moss. I felt his lips brush the back of my neck. I startled. He apologized profusely, and I apologized for being profusely startled. It’s just…It had been so long.
He asked to see me again and I said yes. I don’t remember where we went; I only remember that when he leaned in to kiss me, I didn’t startle. We kissed for a long time. When he drove away my skin hurt, the way a frostbitten limb burns as it thaws and sensation returns. My whole body had been frostbitten. Now it ached from his touch.
Pedro bought me books; he took me to poetry readings and indie films and museums. We went to restaurants in decaying areas of town: areas I was afraid of in college because that’s where the Goth lesbian pagan-idol-worshipping filmmakers lived. But Pedro wasn’t afraid; it was just life. He made it an adventure.
The first time I stepped into his apartment, it was like breaking into a bunker: the secret world of men and their things. Shoes stacked up at the door, a basketball, a bike. Bookshelves with dog-eared paperbacks and CDs of bands I’d never heard: the smells of beer and gym socks and incense. Pedro may have been sophisticated, but he was still a guy. A guy with guy things. One night we were at a bookstore, huddled over a novel he was reading, and I felt overcome by, well, you can call it hormones, but I’ll call it the joy of being fully alive. It scared the crap out of me.
Occasionally Pedro would stop our conversation to say, “You know what I like about you?” And he would make some observation about me. It unnerved me. I couldn’t remember the last time a man wasn’t reciting a monologue about what God was doing in his life. But Pedro saw me. And I saw him, and I fell in love with what I saw. And he said it first. “I am helplessly in love with you.”
I let him know there wasn’t going to be sex. Not for a long, long time. “Like how long?” he wondered.
“Like, not until we decide we’re right for each other and want to get married. Or not until we get married.”
He exhaled. “That’s a long time.”
“It’s not just a faith issue. Sex can get so selfish and confusing.”
“But it’s not a taking thing, Susan. It’s a giving thing.” I saw in his eyes that he meant it. The church painted married sex as a holy transcendent institution, and anything outside that was dark, destructive, and demonic. Men were selfish bullies, out to take sex and leave. But Pedro w
anted to give; he wanted to stay.
“Is kissing okay?” he asked. We kissed a lot.
Pedro had everything I could have asked for in a guy: creativity, intelligence, drive, discipline, humor, and integrity. Everything but Jesus.
“It’s not that I don’t believe,” he explained. “I just don’t know that I do.” When I tried to share my spiritual experiences, it felt like I was describing life on another planet. I started to feel like an alien. After a while the longing turned into loneliness.
Cheryl was worried. “You can’t date him, Susan! You can’t be unequally yoked.”
“But we’re not yoked,” I protested. “We haven’t taken our clothes off. Well, only a few. But he’s the most honorable, thoughtful person I’ve met.”
“At least he’s the right gender,” Mark piped in.
“Why don’t you invite him to church?” Cheryl suggested.
Pedro thought it would be a good idea. Church was the possible deal-breaker. We needed to find out one way or another.
Of course all the weirdos came to church that day, and they all sat next to us. Like Herman, the sixty-seven-year-old in tight cutoffs who wanted to make end-times movies with stock footage from old sci-fi movies. The place was full of vagrants and granolas and unemployed singer-actor-waiters. They stood and wept to the power ballads: “Jesus, hoollld meee!” flailing their arms right in Pedro’s face. I kept my eyes down, but I could see Pedro’s body stiffen in my peripheral vision. After the service Herman tried to cast me in his end-times sci-fi movie. Pedro waited until we got around the corner before commenting. He was gracious, given the terror on his face.
“That didn’t feel like church. That felt like a rock concert.”
“They’re Slackers.” I cringed. “Rock ’n’ Roll Slackers 4 Jesus.”
“But you’re not a slacker, Susan. What are you doing here?”
Yeah. What was I doing there?
Was I a snob? Did I want them to be sophisticated and cool and live in Silver Lake, just so Pedro would like me? But why couldn’t Christians be sophisticated and smart and love Jesus? Why did they have to be weirdos making end-times movies in outer space? Pedro ruined church for me.
And God ruined Pedro for me. The closer I got to him, the lonelier I felt not sharing my spiritual life. I could not bridge the gap, nor could I kill off the love of God for the love of a man, or vice versa. “Now you know how I feel,” Mark said.
The pressure grew from without. “Do not be unequally yoked,” Cheryl scolded me. And from within. I heard that still, small voice. And it was speaking, very still, very small, and very stern: “Choose today whom you will serve” (see Josh. 24:15). I heard it more each day. “Choose today whom you will serve.”
Choose. Today.
Choose.
Choose.
All right. All right. ALL RIGHT!
When Pedro and I broke up, it was amicable, heartbreaking, and we knew it was right. Yet the only thing I could say to God was, “Happy now, God? Happy now?”
I cried on Mark’s shoulder for a month. “You found a great guy.” Mark sighed. “Does he have to be a Christian too?”
“We would have broken up eventually. I do want someone I can share my spiritual life with. I just feel bullied into the decision. Don’t be unequally yoked.…What business does darkness have with light? Choose, choose, choose!”
“Don’t listen to Cheryl,” Mark consoled me. “Just because she’s a therapist doesn’t mean she’s right.”
But my sister said the same thing: “You don’t want a marriage where you can’t share Jesus. Look at how lonely Mom is.” Of course, Nancy met her husband when they were eighteen; they got married at twenty-three. They’d been having happily married sex since they were registered to vote. What did she know about being lonely?
I felt forced to nip that romance in the bud and was robbed of enjoying the flower. And I began to resent it. Plus, I missed Pedro. I would miss him for a long, long time.
Why was my ache for God so wired into me? Why did my partner have to be at the same place spiritually? Was it simply part of my personality, or was it part of my pathology? Was I so terrified of life that everyone around me had to replicate the same longings and desires?
Why had God resurrected my feminine self only to rob me of the chance to enjoy it? Why had God made me to dance and not given me anyone to dance with?
Rudy and I sat quietly for a moment. A window stood open, letting in the sound of children skirmishing in the alley. Pedro had lived not four blocks from here. My mind left and traveled down the street to the café where Pedro and I first got coffee, to a kiss that persuaded me all the answers to life could be Yes. Then Rudy’s cough brought me back to the counseling room; back to the truth that so many of those answers had been No.
Rudy: Before you lament the lack of dance partners, let’s celebrate the fact that you could dance at all.
Susan: True. You can’t appreciate the power of hormones unless you’ve lost them and gotten them back.
Jesus: You could have danced with me.
Susan: I went to that Catholic church on my lunch hour just to sit with you. I went to the monastery. But was I wrong for wanting a human to dance with?
God: There were some diamonds in the rough.
Susan: Like who? Wayne? He dumped me because I stacked dishes.
God: Not everyone was on your timetable, Susan. And just because you wanted to dance doesn’t mean you were ready.
Susan: But I could have been ready. You learn to dance on the dance floor. You said you’d have been with me; that no place was too dark for you. What if I’d married Pedro? Would that have been too dark for you?
God: You have a dim memory of your parents’ marriage.
Susan: Pedro was nothing like my father!
Rudy: Susan, is it possible you were a difficult match? Or were your standards too high?
Susan: My standards were “loves Jesus” and “has a sex drive.” But those seem to be mutually exclusive.
Jesus: We know, Susan. The church has confused being good with being nice. Look what they did to me: “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” Men in the church have gotten the same treatment.
God: They’ve been castrated! Making them sing rock ballads—girlie love songs with guitar riffs.
Susan: But you’re God. Why don’t you do something?
Jesus: It’s the five loaves and two fish again. We did do something. We found you a fish. Pedro was the fish. He fed you; he woke up your femininity; he appreciated you. But he couldn’t feed your soul for the rest of your life. Can’t you just appreciate that he was great for you for that period of time?
Susan: I didn’t hear, “Pedro’s great for you right now.” I heard, “Don’t be unequally yoked. What does darkness have to do with light? Choose today whom you will serve. Choose, choose, choose!”
Rudy: But was that God, or your version of God?
Susan: Just because my version of God forced me to break up doesn’t mean the real God didn’t too. The Bible does say not to be unequally yoked, that darkness doesn’t have anything to do with light. (To God) But what does mediocrity have to do with excellence? What does creativity have to do with shame? What does a smart creative artist have to do with passive, asexual wimps?
God: What if a church guy tried to muster up the courage to ask you out? What if he overheard you trash him like that? Maybe church guys are wimps, but you’re brutal.
Susan: Just say it: I’m angry and no one will like me.
God: No, I will not say that. But don’t you think we ached for you to find a lover you could share your whole life with? I used your teachers to encourage you creatively when the church could not. I used Georgina to build structure in your life when you had none. I used the Rock ’n’ Rollers to heal you, and Pedro to wake you up. I worked with whatever I got my hands on. Can you see that?
Susan: The church made me terrified to live.
God: The church healed your wounds. The church introduce
d you to me. And you’re ungrateful because I didn’t adhere to your timetable?
Everything God said had a point. If only I’d understood what was happening at the time. If only there had been healthy leaders to explain it. Or maybe there were but I hadn’t listened to them. If only I’d listened. If only I hadn’t been so afraid. If only. “If only” was as useless as those memories of Pedro, calling to me from just blocks away.
Chapter 9
BREAKING UP OVER DENTISTRY
MY HEART MAY HAVE BEEN BROKEN, BUT AT LEAST I HAD WORK. I threw myself into the Groundlings. I wrote sketches and performed on Sundays. I did the Thursday all-improv show. I was thrilled to play my note. But we didn’t get paid to do the Groundlings; I still had to schlep around town for auditions and bookings and rejections. Between writing three-minute sketches and playing Woman #5 on the latest doomed sitcom, I started to feel like I was back on that moving walkway, running to stand still. Yes, I was “having fun,” but was I putting my talents to their best use? Did God want more from me? Why did I still ache for some larger meaning?
“Oh, stop complaining about meaning, Susan,” Mark scolded me. “I’ve done one lousy no-pay production of Bleacher Bums. And I’m a waiter. You’re making a living. You were on Quantum Leap twice already. You’re in the Groundlings. It’s only a matter of time.”
The Groundlings had launched a lot of people’s careers. I needed to be patient. Finally, I auditioned for a recurring role on a TV series. When I was down visiting my parents, the casting director called to say the role was nearly mine; I just needed to meet everyone. Between the time I got into the car and the time I arrived at the lot, the series was canceled. I cried all the way back to my parents’ house. And I kept going.
Angry Conversations with God Page 10