Angry Conversations with God

by Susan E. Isaacs

  God: Cruelty?! It was love that motivated me. I hated what happened to you. But I didn’t want you wasting any more of your life or your heart on Jack. I was tired of it. I was so tired of seeing you in agony. And you think I enjoyed it? You don’t know me.

  Susan: Then what about Bill and David?

  God: Oh, stop. Just stop it, Susan. What are your complaints against me? That I didn’t give you the career you wanted? That you didn’t get the husband you wanted? I’m not a life-insurance policy; I am your Maker. I want to be the Lover of your soul. You married me for my money! I know the church is messed up. Do you know why? Because they’re like you: you’re here to improve your own life. And then when you don’t get what you want, you complain: The church is too hip; it’s not hip enough. They’re too controlling; they’re slackers. Remember Miss Toft? She spent forty years in Japan trying to get one person to hear how much Jesus loved him. She moved back, an old spinster, to take care of an invalid sister and teach you poetry and long division. All she ever asked of you was to write one Bible skit and you wouldn’t do it. You were too cool.

  Wait. This wasn’t the Father at all. I could “see” his hands now. I could “see” him thrusting them toward me. And I saw nail prints. It was Jesus.

  Jesus: I gave you my life, Susan. But you wanted a career and a boyfriend.

  I hid my face.

  Susan: You’ve grown tired of me. You’re going to leave me.

  Jesus: I’m not coming back to these counseling tribunals.

  Susan: Please don’t leave. You’re all I’ve got. I may get angry with you, but it’s because I want to make this work!

  Jesus: (Pityingly) No, Susan. You want to make it work for you.

  I could see him turning for the door.

  Jesus: If you decide you want to know the real menot a drillsergeant Father or a wimpy Jesus you can manipulate or blame…If you want to love the real me, for better or worse, richer or poorer, lonely or in love—which is how I’ve loved you, Susanthen I’ll be back. But not until then. And don’t ask me to come back until you mean it. Because I’ll know.

  The room was as quiet as the first day I walked in. There was the trophy case, the Bibles and hymnals; the Baptists on the wall smiled with the same confidence. And there was the Nice Jesus on the wall, face caught in that same sad expression. But it was not a depressed or passive sadness I imagined now. It was heartbreak.

  Rudy: We’re out of time, Susan. I’ll see you next week with your next chapter.

  Susan: There is no next chapter, Rudy. This is where I am in my life: here with you, in a room with no spouse. I came to prove God had been a deadbeat and force him to step up and heal this “marriage.” And he walked out on me.

  Rudy: Did you just imagine him walking out?

  Susan: No, he really walked out, Rudy.

  Rudy: Do you think he walked out because he’s a deadbeat?

  Susan: No. The deadbeat’s still in the room.

  Chapter 16

  MIDDLE-CLASS WHITE GIRL’S DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

  TRUE To HIS WORD, GOD DID NOT RETUUN: NOT TO THE COUN-seling office, not at home, not anywhere. I could not conjure or cajole him in my prayers or my darkest imagination. Utter silence. How do you solve your problems with someone if he’s not talking?

  I couldn’t hear from God, but others could; maybe I could eavesdrop on their conversations. So I went looking at the place I knew best: church. I had attended some wacked and cracked churches in the past. I figured I just needed to find another church, one that wasn’t wacked and cracked, or at least wasn’t as wacked and cracked as I was now. I was desperate. I didn’t have the luxury of being a church snob.

  I tried Sophie’s church: everyone was either married or bluehaired. I felt out of place. I tried Gwen’s Episcopal church, but all the men were gay. It was hard enough that I couldn’t find a man; did I have to watch them find each other? I went back to Organic and Raw, but they were playing trance music. I visited the Bel Air yuppie church I’d attended before grad school. Now they had a rock-your-ass-off praise band that dressed in Abercrombie and flip-flops. A media screen lowered from the ceiling and played a snarky video about tithing. In the best of times I might have appreciated the snark. But this was my worst of times. I didn’t come for Abercrombie and snark; I came for Jesus. I left at the announcements.

  Finally I returned to the “Orthopraxy, Dude” church. I arrived late; the pastor was in the middle of his sermon. He must have just uttered something profound because he removed his glasses, wiped his tears, and bellowed, “God, I love my job!” His fan club applauded. I looked around; they seemed like intelligent people. Couldn’t they see through this bloviator? Was everyone hoodwinked? Or was it just me, having a theological meltdown? I excused myself, went to my car, and wept. “God, where are you?” I panicked. Jack was right. He didn’t find God in church. Because GOD WASN’T THERE!

  All my life I had felt God’s presence: the Jesus in the yard; the God in the clouds of a March sky; the God who spoke to me in dreams; the still, small voice I heard when I sat and prayed for hours. Even when I’d pushed him away he remained the Still, Small Squatter I could not evict. Now I could hear nothing, feel nothing, know nothing. The squatter had vacated. So what began as a collapse of romance and career turned into something far more sinister: a collapse of belief. Church was not safe. Maybe God wasn’t either.

  Susan: I know I’ve chosen some bizarro churches, Rudy. But those last ones—Othropraxy Dude, Organic and Raw, and the yuppies—they’re mainline denominations, not gold-teeth hippies in circus tents. But even if the problem is all mine, I just can’t endure one more forty-five-minute worship set followed by one more three-point sermon on “How to Be Better.” I don’t want to be better. I want Jesus! Is it me? Have I lost it?!

  Rudy: It’s not just you, Susan. The American church is messed up. Of course, there are millions of loving Christians with real, honest faith. But the American church on the whole has become more concerned with the American dream than with Christ’s dream for us. We’ve been selling programs and products aimed at self-improvement and personal fulfillment. Yes, Jesus came to give us abundant life. But he didn’t come to sell stuff. The church sold you stuff, Susan. You got robbed.

  Susan: I knew it. I knew something was wrong. What a horrible relief.

  Rudy: What does that mean?

  Susan: I’m relieved it’s not just me. It’s horrible because it’s true.

  Rudy: I’m not saying it’s all the church’s fault, but it’s not all yours either.

  So Rudy wasn’t coming with a magic mirror I could look into and see my life right side up. The truth was far more difficult. What if God’s will was simply: “Love me and do what you like”? Or “Lay down your life and die,” or “Lay down your life and live”? Forget it. It was useless to ask. The years were gone. They were never coming back.

  The only safe place outside of Rudy’s office was my writing class, so I wrote. I was predisposed to love my teacher, Terrie; she was a Beatles fanatic like I was. But Terrie was also a fantastic teacher. She emboldened the shyest writer; she could listen to the same boring story every week and coax out something beautiful and original every time. And when all I could do was cry, she encouraged me to keep writing.

  It was one thing to cry to Terrie after class, but quite another to read my writing in front of other students. Most of them were too cool, too secular, too intellectual. Like Andrea Askowitz, a secular Jewish lesbian who was writing a bitingly funny memoir about having a baby on her own; or Cameron, who was born in Tonga, kidnapped by Mormons, and taken to Salt Lake City. Their stories were so hip and interesting and original. I was sure they were annoyed by my endless talk about God. I could hear Pastor Ingebretsen: “The world will persecute you because you love Jesus.”

  “I don’t want to read.” I cringed in front of them. “I’m tired of my God story.”

  “I’m not!” Andrea perked up.

  “It’s just another piece about my
white-girl Christian drama. I can’t read it!”

  “Then just talk about it,” Terrie suggested, “and we’ll ask you questions.”

  Ugh, maybe this would be worse. No, it would be worse not to talk. So I talked.

  “Okay, isn’t the spiritual life supposed to be a hike up the mountain? You know—people hike up the mountain to find the Buddha? Well, it’s a hike, all right. And mine is a schlep up Mount Everest. I always thought the church was the path upward. My ex, Jack, didn’t want to go up that trail. He wanted to go back down to base camp and suck oxygen in a tent. Weasel. Well, I did not get this far up Mount Everest to turn back. So Jack and I broke up and he hiked down. But the minute—the minute!—I start back up the trail, I walk into church with its hair gel and Abercrombie and narcissist pastors! It’s totally FUBAR! There’s no trail upward; it’s just a bunch of self-improvement loops around the same stretch of nowhere! And I can’t go back down to Jack because he’s at base camp French-kissing some Sherpa at the pretzel cart!”

  “Do you want Jack back?” Terrie asked.

  “No, no. Forget I mentioned Jack. It’s not about Jack. It’s about the mountain. I can’t go back down. And I have no way up. So why am I here? Did God lead me up the mountain to die?”

  “What are you going to do, Susan?” Terrie asked.

  “I’ve got to keep climbing. Even if I have to climb over rocks, even if I fall into a crevasse and die, I have no other choice. I have to find out if God is up there.”

  “Do you think he is?”

  “When I was eight I felt Jesus stand next to me. He can show up on a mountain!”

  “I’m completely secular,” Terrie went on. “I have no language for that. You have to tell me what that felt like and looked like.”

  “What do you want me to say—that my hair stood on end and the wind stopped? I just knew.”

  “I was raised Mormon,” Cameron interjected. “I know exactly what you’re talking about, having Jesus stand next to you.”

  An awkward silence followed. They all probably thought I was a geek.

  Geoff, a nihilist punk rocker, spoke up. “I feel like I’m at base camp watching you climb Everest. I could never do it. But it’s pretty cool watching you do it.”

  I didn’t leave class that day with answers. But there was something in just being listened to without someone giving “the Answer.” Maybe God and art had something in common. Maybe my writer friends were closer to spiritual friends than anyone else was right now. And none of them said, “Where we are going is Jesus.”

  Rudy: I think you’re going through your Dark Night of the Soul.

  Susan: Yes, I know the term. And it sure feels dark. But tell me what that really means.

  Rudy: It’s a purging of the senses and the spirit. Remember when you first walked with God? He led you with big strokes; he gave you big doses of his presence. In the dark night, he removes the signs, the blessings, and the sense of his presence. He disappears from your senses and your spirit to the point that it feels like he doesn’t exist.

  Susan: But why? Is it a test?

  Rudy: God wants to destroy anything in your faith that’s based on you: your senses or your intellect or even your heart. Because you will fail you. But ultimately that’s a blessing. Not many people make it that far.

  Susan: I’m not in the advanced class. I have screwed up too much to be that far along.

  Rudy: Well, maybe God’s trying to get you to catch up.

  Susan: Have you ever had a dark night?

  Rudy: Yes. It’s called “seminary.”

  I got a letter from my sister. We hadn’t talked since she hissed at me about wanting to marry a man who was going to hell. She apologized in her letter, but she was also hurt that I’d called her a James Dobson mix tape. “James Dobson has done a lot for our family. I just want my kids to enjoy being kids while they’re kids.”

  I called her and apologized for my remark. But I told her I was never going to be a Focus on the Family fan. I didn’t have a family to focus on. I found family with the artists and the outcasts of the world. “They need to see a different Jesus than the one James Dobson offers.”

  “I feel like you’re judging me, Susan.”

  “I’m not. I’m proud of your kids. You’re doing a great job. I always felt like you were judging me! Maybe we’re just called to different kinds of families, that’s all.”

  Nancy changed the subject. “So how are you doing?” I used to hate when she asked me that. I felt like she was trying to trap me into a confession. But her voice was devoid of judgment. She was just asking.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore, Nancy.”

  “Have you thought of doing acting as a hobby?”

  “Have you thought of being a mom as a hobby? I’ve wanted to act and write my entire adult life.”

  “I’m sorry, Susan. I just meant maybe you could find another way to do it.”

  “Maybe. But first I have to get out of this spiritual desert.”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad place to be, Susan. When you have nothing but God, you know he’s the only one you can truly turn to.”

  Sophie called. A friend e-mailed her a job ad from a church. “The ad says, ‘Good pay, flexible hours.’ Since you’re broke and desperate, you might want to check it out.” Okay, so she didn’t say desperate, but I was. And the irony of working at a church just when church felt unsafe was far too intriguing. Sophie forwarded me the e-mail. It was the Orthopraxy, Dude church.

  Pastor Bloviator greeted me at the door. His name was Frank. Up close, he wasn’t such a bloviator. He was actually pretty nice. He sat me down. “Tell me about yourself!” He waited, smiling kindly.

  I opened my mouth and burst into tears. I dumped everything on him, from the career death to Central Park to how church didn’t feel safe to how I didn’t know where God was anymore. I even told him that I’d visited his church and I thought he was a jackass.

  He laughed hard. And then he shook his head. “That sucks, man. I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I. This is a job interview, not an audition for Boys Don’t Cry. But I am a kick-ass typist and organizer. When I’m not having a meltdown.”

  Pastor Frank introduced me to the staff: Micah, the executive pastor; Dwight, the director of administration; and Travis, a seminary intern. What did they need me for?

  “We’re guys,” Frank replied. “We can’t organize our socks.”

  I took the job.

  Rudy: I’m glad to hear Frank isn’t a total egomaniac.

  Susan: You probably have to have an ego to lead a church. But he’s also funny and empathetic. I told him how I couldn’t sense God anywhere, and he just listened. I needed someone to listen because I don’t know when I would hear from God again.

  Rudy: God said he’d come back if you wanted to know the real him.

  Susan: You mean I imagined God said that. And which God is going to come back, another god in my image? God in the American church’s image? What is God really like? What is true about God that isn’t just another one of the church’s marketing schemes? The whole idea of God as husband and lover seems like another product the church sold all of us lonely pathetic single people who can’t do relationships!

  Rudy: There’s all sorts of imagery in the Bible about love and marriage. Read the Psalms. David spoke to God with love and longing. The rest of the Old Testament uses marriage imagery too: God made a covenant with Israel and accused her of committing adultery with other gods. He longed to bring her back and love her. And the church is the Bride of Christ. It’s not just a modern fabrication; it’s all over the Bible. You can trust that, if for no other reason than that love is the driving force of life itself. If we’re made in God’s image and we long for love and relationship, then God must long for that as well.

  Susan: But how can I trust that God wants that with me?

  Rudy: Because it’s the only thing you’ve talked about since you got here.

  At the en
d of every ten-week session, Terrie staged a public performance of our works in progress. This scared the tar out of me. Terrie supported me and my classmates supported me, but they had become my friends. Now I had to get up and read in front of a crowd of hip, artsy Hollywood types. Andrea and I walked down to the coffeehouse before the reading. “You’d better keep working on your God story,” she insisted. “I have to know how it turns out.”

  “I don’t know yet how it turns out. You like my story, but you’re my friend. My story sucks.”

  “No, Susan. It rocks.”

  We had a packed house that night. I realized why I was scared. I wanted to be hip and cool like everyone else in class. But I wasn’t; I was just a middle-class white girl who wanted to find God. Didn’t everyone want to find God? Get over yourself, Susan, I thought. It was my turn to read:

  When I think of the people whose character I admire, they’ve all walked through deserts or hells far worse than mine. And when they got to the other side—the ones who did get to the other side—they always said God got them through it. They have a peace and a friendship with God that I want. But the problem is, the man who’s stuck in the desert because God put him there looks exactly like the man who’s stuck in the desert because he’s lost. And I don’t know which one I am. I don’t know if I’m here to find friendship with God or if I’ve been left to die.

  My ex used to get angry when I said that. He would say, “God isn’t personal. God isn’t good or bad. God is like science. God just is.” But even with science…Look at the stars. You see such beauty and order, and you sense the Thought that went into their making. But if that thoughtfulness is not extended to me, then all that order and beauty is merely cold and sterile space that mocks me because I’ve been excluded from it.