Angry Conversations with God

by Susan E. Isaacs

  God: You did freak out. At first.

  Susan: For about five minutes. But then I went back to trusting you, like in Psalm 13: “O LORD, how long will you forget me?…But I trust in your unfailing love.”

  God: And I just want to remind Susan that when things are crappy temporarily, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be crappy forever.

  Susan: Except for the people for whom it is crappy forever.

  God: But other times it’s only temporary and it’s for a good reason.

  Susan: I know. I learned that during the time we just talked about.

  God: I just wanted to make sure.

  Susan: Why would you want to make sure? You’re omniscient.

  God: Okay, I wasn’t making sure. I was reiterating, because you forget so easily. Sometimes you’re in a crap hole for a productive reason.

  Susan: And sometimes I’m in a crap hole because somebody pushed me.

  Rudy: Let’s get back to the good things. Please. Good things?

  Susan: I never thought I’d feel safe in church again. But I started to, just a little. Not too emotional, not too risky. It was good.

  God hesitated a moment before speaking.

  God: I understood your caution, Susan. But I missed the trust you had at the beginning of our relationship.

  Susan: Well, that was before everything happened.

  God: Like the part where you ditched me?

  Susan: Like all the parts before I ditched you—the Oakies, the Nazi counselor, the Slackers, the Roidhead, the gold-teeth wack jobs. I wasn’t ready to jump in and get hurt again. So I showed up, I sang the songs, I learned, and I prayed. What more did you want?

  God: I wanted your heart.

  Susan: My heart was guarded.

  God: I know. I’m saying this because I missed you.

  Susan: Don’t you think I missed you too? How could I forget what it was like at the beginning, when you were all that mattered? But our history mattered too. What happened afterward mattered. I couldn’t just erase that.

  God: Susan, I forgave you for what you did. Can’t you forgive me for what others did?

  Susan: I’m trying. But I don’t know if I can ever be that vulnerable again.

  God: But, Susan, what if this marriage depends upon it?

  Chapter 12

  MOSTLY MISTER RIGHT

  I HAD SO MUCH TO BE GRATEFUL FOR. AFTER ONLY A YEAR AND A half in New York, I had found a stable church, paying acting work, a creative sketch-comedy group, and a promising romantic life.

  “Wait, what romantic life?” you ask.

  Exactly.

  If I’m married to God, I shouldn’t need a romantic life, right? At least, that’s what I heard at every church singles fellowship I attended. I don’t need a man; I need the Man. I’m not longing for romance; I’m longing for Jesus. First I must get my needs met in Christ; only then can I love a man without unrealistic expectations. (Imagine if these ideas had caught on during the Middle Ages, when the average life span was twenty-eight years. The human race would have died out.)

  My friend Daniel became a Christian when he was thirty years old. Before that he’d slept around, so when he got to church he was eager to do everything God’s way, including dating. He asked a respected church elder for advice on how to approach Christian women. The elder said, “Don’t worry, Daniel. You just crawl up into your Abba-Daddy’s lap, rest in him, and the Lord will bring the right woman to you.” That was seventeen years ago. Daniel is still single. He’s also pissed off.

  These ideas aren’t unique to wacko Southern Californians. There have been dozens of Christian best sellers attempting to deal with our culture’s loneliness epidemic. Take the aforementioned Sacred Romance that Martha told me about. God is the “Ageless Romancer” to whom all earthly loves pale in comparison. (Fine, but I still wanted a human. Just because I wasn’t the ultimate cook didn’t mean I should stop eating.) Then there was that odious polemic You Can Kiss My Dating Ass Good-bye, or whatever it was called. (Martha introduced me to that book too.) Some GQ pretty boy declared that dating wasn’t biblical because people in the Bible didn’t date. No shizzle, Spinoza. They also didn’t floss or use flush toilets. If we totally returned to biblical dating practices, we’d have to bring back polygamy, concubines, and arranged marriages at age thirteen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FLDS stockpiled GQ’s book.

  I realize these authors meant well. And they made some valid points: our current dating rituals are wacked, and human romance won’t end our spiritual loneliness. But neither will turning Jesus into a divine Mr. Darcy or inspiring single men to become Bachelors for the Rapture. There’s a very simple reason why quality relationships are scarce: we live in a fallen world, and it sucks.

  I did date Christian men before Pedro and after Butler. Well, I thought we were dating. We’d go to movies, art galleries, restaurants; he’d come to my place and spill the story of his life while giving me a foot massage. Then he’d give me a lingering good-bye tee-pee hug. (Arms firmly embracing, the rest of the body a safe three feet away. Please, dude, you just fondled my instep.) This would go on for a couple of months. Finally I’d ask Christian Guy what his intentions were because all that emotional nakedness created a bond that I called “a relationship.” At that, Christian Man would balk.

  “Susan, I’m not ready to be in a relationship. I have issues I need to work out.”

  “Issues you’re working out on me,” I’d point out.

  “But that’s what friends are for,” he’d protest.

  “No, that’s what therapists are for.”

  I wanted a relationship. That’s what boyfriends were for.

  When I moved to New York, I kept trying. I got crushes on Christian men who never returned the sentiment. Like Zorba, the forty-five-year-old actor who was praying for Angelina Jolie to convert. Or Sexy Jesus Guy, who was chasing a waitress in New Jersey.

  I realized I might be part of the problem. Mark thought men found me intimidating.

  “Intimidating? What’s intimidating about me? Go on, tell me. To my face.”

  Mark laughed. “Macho guys like to feel needed. You’re too self-sufficient.”

  “Dang me, Mark. How else did I survive as a single woman, lo these fifteen years?”

  “Next time a man asks you out, try to be needier.”

  “Okay. Maybe I’ll ask him to open a jar.”

  Mark wasn’t intimidated by me; he loved me for who I was. I loved him, now more than ever. We’d been hanging out a lot since I moved to New York. He wasn’t the dependent boy I’d known in Los Angeles. Mark was directing plays and running his own acting studio. He’d taken authority over his life. He got his mojo working, and it sure did work on me. “Mark, are you at all attracted to me?”

  “Honey, I’ve always been attracted to you. I just want to have sex with men. However, I’m proud to say I haven’t had any anonymous sex in over a year.”

  “That’s great!” I replied.

  “No, it’s lonely. I’d do anything to be sexually attracted to you. Why can’t God just zap me?”

  “It would solve both our problems.”

  Really. Mark and I got along so, so well. Why couldn’t God do a miracle?

  I continued to make myself available and tried to avoid Christian men who were praying for Angelina’s salvation.

  Finally I met Really Nice Guy. We went out on several dates. I let him open doors. I let him buy me dinner. The problem was: he was too nice. Already he was gazing at me with unbridled adoration. It couldn’t really be about me—he was transferring his fantasies onto me, right? Really Nice Guy really scared me off. (Yes, I know what God would say: if only he’d been aloof and caddish, I’d have fallen madly in love with him. Yes, Lord; thank you for pointing out my interest in unsafe men, a habit I acquired from the unsafe earthly father you provided me.)

  So from whence might Mr. Right emerge? I knew of several unconventional success stories. Gwen was now engaged to Danny. He was a good man—he even
shared her faith. But he hadn’t been raised in the church, so while he didn’t quite get the whole “hungering for Jesus” thing, he still had his ’nads. My producer friend Paula became a Christian while dating her husband, Marty. And then there was my own story: God had brought me back through a 12-step program, not church. Maybe God was trying to tell me something: like I should stop being so dogmatic about the outward appearance and look at the heart. Maybe God had men stashed away in places I never expected.

  “Why don’t you date Mark?” Martha probed even though she suspected Mark was gay.

  “He’s not ready,” I replied blithely.

  “I’m ready,” Mark declared. We’d spent Memorial Day together roaming Central Park, watching Gladiator, and getting pizza in Times Square.

  “Ready for what?” I asked.

  “I think we should date. I’m really attracted to you now, Susan.”

  My heart jumped. “But what about your attraction to men?”

  “That’s just a sex-addict attraction. It’s totally different with you.”

  “I’d like the guy I’m dating to feel a sexual attraction.”

  “But I think I’m there with you. Oh, Susan, let’s just try dating!”

  We walked out into Times Square, holding hands. Mark stopped me in front of a strip club and kissed me. And then I passed out. (I think it was because I’d been wearing a nicotine patch and I got a big whiff of smoke coming out of the strip club.) We spent the next few hours in an emergency room in Hell’s Kitchen. That kind of put a damper on the evening.

  A few days later Mark went upstate for a weeklong directing seminar. He met a man. They fell in love. Mark cried when he told me. “I always held out that hope that if I could fall in love with you, it would prove I wasn’t gay. How come other gays can go straight but I can’t?”

  “What is it about men?” I asked.

  “You know. It’s the effing Father Wound. My dad didn’t love me so I go looking for that in other men. But look: your Father Wound drove you to become an artist. If you get healed, you’re not going to stop creating art, are you? It isn’t fair.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mark. It isn’t fair.”

  Mark wept. “I just want to be normal.”

  “I don’t know what normal is anymore.”

  Mark was one of my best friends. It would have been great to love each other that way. But, well, we live in a fallen world, and it sucks.

  Gwen and Danny got married in Rhode Island. Gwen flew out to New York and we drove to her mother’s house together. It was June; the world was thick with green, and the air was humid. Lavender was blooming in the garden, and there were fireflies in the trees.

  Gwen’s sister Sally joined us on the porch. Sally had recently become a Christian while dating her husband. “How about you, Susan?” Sally asked. “Has God brought anyone special into your life?”

  “No, I think I got dropped off his list.”

  “I’ll tell you what I do,” Sally squeaked. “Every day I wake up and pray, ‘Good morning, God! Show me what gift you have for me today!’”

  I excused myself and walked into the darkening garden. Like she could tell me how to pray. I let the anger pass, and a wave of sadness rolled over me: the losses of men in my life—my father, my first love, Pedro…even Really Nice Guy. “I will not blame you, Lord. You’ve brought so much good into my life. You aren’t going to stop now. But I will offer Sally’s naive prayer to you. ‘Show me what gift you have for me.’ And, Lord, please give me the eyes to see it.”

  Gwen’s wedding was beautiful. Danny cried when Gwen walked down the aisle. The reception continued well into the evening. Gwen and I noticed one of Danny’s high school buddies. He was tall with sandy-brown hair and blue eyes. Gwen and I exchanged looks. “Weddings are a great place to get in some flirting practice.” She smiled. “You’ll never see him again.”

  Gwen got Danny to introduce us to the guy. His name was Jack Knudsen.

  “Ya ya! KaNUDE-sen?” I mangled his name with my Norwegian accent.

  Jack frowned. “You got something against Norwegians?”

  “No, no!” What a geek I was. “My mom’s Norwegian, so I can say that.”

  “Really?” Jack lit up. “My dad was born in Oslo. Where’s your mother from?”

  “Iowa.”

  “Oh.” He nodded.

  “But she owns a krumkakke cookie iron.”

  He laughed. “That’s Norwegian enough.”

  Gwen elbowed me. “That’s not flirting.”

  “It is if you’re Norwegian.”

  Jack and I spent the rest of the evening together, chatting at the table, dancing to Danny’s mix tapes with the rest of the loser single people. Jack said he grew up in the Midwest but now worked as a journalist in New York. In New York! Oh, for the gift and the eyes to see it!

  The evening finally came to an end. We sent off the bride and groom. I turned to go but smiled at Jack. “See you in New York, I guess.”

  “How about I see you at dinner?” he replied.

  Three days later I had a date with Jack Knudsen. It lasted hours and we never ran out of things to talk about. In fact, Jack and I would not run out of things to talk about. Not for a long, long time.

  For the next two months, Jack wanted to see me nearly every day. It unnerved me. Was Jack like Really Nice Guy: transferring his needs onto me? Or were those never Nice Guy’s problems to begin with? Were they my problems? Was I too afraid of letting someone love me?

  Jack reminded me so much of Pedro: quiet, intelligent, and literate. He loved words. He loved good stories. He loved sad stories most, maybe because his father died when he was a child. But that tragedy made Jack human and vulnerable. He’d come to see the world much the same way I had: broken, beautiful, and hopeful all at the same time.

  There was another way Jack was just like Pedro. “Sure, I believe in Jesus and God,” Jack said. “I just don’t get anything out of church.” I understood that: I didn’t get much out of church for a while either. So many of my friends had come to faith through a back door. I returned to God through the back door of the 12 steps. Just because Jack didn’t get anything out of church now didn’t mean he never would.

  “Danny was just like that,” Gwen said when I told her. “But he came around. Give Jack some time.” I had been too afraid to give Pedro time. Now I had a chance to do better with Jack. I gave him my entire summer. One afternoon in September, Jack and I wandered over to the Hudson River boat basin. We stood and watched the boats tacking in the afternoon breeze.

  “I love New York!” Jack blurted out.

  “And I love knowing you in New York!” I replied.

  “And I love you,” he whispered.

  The sun peeked out, a vision of the future opened up, and there was someone else in it. Maybe this was “The One.” Maybe Jack was the one I’d been waiting for.

  But there was one issue on which Jack differed from Pedro: Jack was not going to stay celibate. “That’s weird,” he said.

  I fumbled for words—other people’s words—Pastor Norm’s cardboard, words about how sex without a commitment made you physically vulnerable, how destructive and imbalanced it was.

  Jack countered, “Getting emotionally vulnerable for months on end without a physical commitment feels destructive. For me, anyway.”

  I thought of the guys who’d spilled their guts while giving me a foot massage but wanted no commitment. The emotional vulnerability was just as bonding.

  “I want to find a soul mate, Susan. I want to get married. But I can’t wait.”

  We didn’t wait. And the next morning I felt like my guts had been kicked in. How did those characters on Sex and the City jump in and out of bed? Maybe it was all those cosmopolitans they drank.…(How was it that Carrie and Samantha never ended up in AA?)

  I called Paula. “Sex wasn’t a big deal for me, but it was for Marty. He wanted to wait and I wanted to honor Marty’s boundaries. Do you want to wait?”

  “I want
to be loved.”

  “But how can a man love you if he can’t love your boundaries?”

  “I don’t know what my boundaries are anymore.”

  “I would not want your dilemma, Susan.”

  That night I told Jack I’d made a mistake. Sex made me feel off balance, exposed. I needed objectivity until I knew him better.

  “What more is there to know?” he protested. “We’ve been dating two and a half months. That’s long enough for me: I know I love you. I know I want to marry you someday. But I can’t go backward; it’s just too hard.”

  Blecch. Why hadn’t I just said no the night before and gotten the breakup over with?

  “I’m sorry, Jack. I want to have sex, but I can’t.”

  “Then you want to break up?” He looked heartbroken.

  “No, I don’t want to break up. I don’t want to have sex.“

  “Then we’re breaking up.” Jack exhaled.

  “Okay.” I exhaled back.

  My train arrived at the subway platform. “Please, Susan. Don’t break up. I love you.”

  I ran off to my train. Couldn’t God work through less-than-perfect situations? Hadn’t I ended things with Pedro too soon and been haunted with “What if…” for years? I didn’t want to be haunted with what-ifs with Jack.

  Who could I talk to? Who would tell me the right thing? Martha? Yeesh!

  I never told my mother much about my personal life until after I got sober. When I told her I’d lost my virginity in high school, she sighed. “Dear, I don’t judge you. But I’m glad you didn’t tell me back then. I couldn’t have handled it.” That was Mom in a nutshell: sweet, Christian, and not so good with conflict. But she still held the most spiritual weight in my life. And I needed to talk to someone about Jack. I sure wasn’t going to call Martha.

  After a moment of shocked silence, Mom sighed again. “Oh, Susie, I’ve prayed for you every day, that you’d find a good man who loves the Lord. It breaks my heart you’ve been alone so long. Do you love him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he’s Norwegian?”

  “Part.”

  “Then just marry him. Quick.”