Angry Conversations with God (29 page)

By the fall of 2004, I had been living in the same place, working a steady job, and counseling with Rudy for over a year.
And it showed in my life. I had come to accept that for now I was a church secretary who wrote on the side. I accepted that
I needed to get my own place and signed a lease on a studio apartment over a garage. Now I wished I’d accepted my mother’s
Revere Ware when she was cleaning out her house.

I must have turned a corner on my grief with Jack, because one afternoon I was walking out of a coffee shop and there he was.
Jack, in Los Angeles! He said he was in LA to visit friends. A few days later we had lunch. We caught up; we had a few laughs,
some awkward silence too. I took the opportunity to apologize.

“I’m sorry. I tried to make you into somebody you weren’t.”

“It’s okay,” Jack replied. “I did that too.”

“You’re a good man, Jack.”

“So are you. I mean, you’re a good woman.” Jack laughed, embarrassed.

I loved that Jack wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable and embarrassed. He really was a good man. Yet I was pierced by the loneliness
of watching his life continue without me. We hugged and said good-bye. I got into my car and wept.

I thought I was over him! So why did my heart still rip? Why did I still feel this sorrow? I got this strange sensation that
God was with me. And he was angry. He was very angry—not at me and not at Jack. God was angry at the pain I was going through.
I wondered if that was why God hated sin, because of the destruction it caused. For a moment I felt awe for a God who loved
me enough to hate the things that hurt me without hating me for causing them. But as soon as I tried to grasp the moment,
it was gone.

I finally began to accept the fact that I might never make a living as an actor again. Yes, it sucked when Jeannie was writing
with her husband, Todd was raking it in with commercials, and Bill and David had just won an Emmy. I was proud of them. I
willed myself to accept the way things were. In fact, I distinctly remember leaving the office one afternoon and praying to
the God who still had not spoken: “As survival jobs go, this is a great job. Thank you for the stability, a paycheck, friends,
and the fact that I live walking distance of a Trader Joe’s. Thank you, Lord. You really are good to me.”

Not two days afterward, I was standing in a supermarket checkout and noticed the cover of
TV Guide.
There on the front cover was an actor who’d been in the failed TV pilot back in New York with
King Baby,
now starring in a new sitcom. And two
nights later I was watching
Law&Order
and saw an actress who’d been in that pilot also! She had a recurring role on
L&
now. They were probably grooming her to be the police chief on
Law&Order: Spanish Harlem.

I marched into Rudy’s office, my placid acceptance shot out by a
TV Guide.

Susan: I’m in some kind of shooting gallery game. God is picking off everyone around me for success. Stand closer. Maybe you’ll
become the next Dr. Phil.

Rudy: I thought you said you were grateful for your job.

Susan: I
was.

Rudy: Susan, you’re angry because God didn’t give you what you wanted.

Susan: What’s so wrong with what I wanted? Isn’t it okay to want?

Rudy: God doesn’t always give us what we want. If a child asks her parents for candy—

Susan: CANDY? I am not asking for candy! The thing I loved to do has vanished at a stage in my life when it feels impossible
to reinvent myself. You call that candy? How dare you!

A tense silence followed.

Rudy: I’m sorry, Susan. That was wrong for me to say.

Susan: It’s all right. You’re just a guy.

Rudy: Yeah. I’m just a guy.

Rudy closed his file.

Rudy: I loved being a pastor. I loved preaching. I loved encouraging people. The Gold Teeth debacle destroyed that dream for
me. It took years to get over it. I like being a therapist. But I loved being a pastor. Not all of my longings will be fulfilled
this side of heaven.

Susan: I don’t want to wait for heaven. I want to live now.

Rudy: So do the people in Darfur. But heaven may be the only hope they have right now. If your theology can’t work in Darfur,
it can’t work anywhere.

Rudy’s boneheaded remark left me feeling self-righteous. Candy?! Give me a massive break. If my life’s dream was some puff
pastry, how come God was passing it out to all of my friends and not to me? Ridiculous.

Sophie had another perspective. “Go read Step Two.” She smirked. I hated when she acted like she knew everything. Just because
she’d been sober for fifteen years…What a know-it-all. I read Step Two. It said that I was angry because God didn’t “give
me the life I had specified.” I hadn’t asked what God’s will was, but rather had told him what it should be.

Well, that was just
wrong.
I had spent countless hours on the couch, praying for God’s will. I asked his will for my breakfast! (Okay, so that was excessive.)
And I was excessive in the other direction, drinking too much and sleeping with guys. Yes, God helped me heal and blessed
me when I was in New York, and yes, I said, “I’ve got it covered,” and put Jack’s will above God’s. But I was ready to give
that up before 9/11. I moved back to LA to help my mom, didn’t I? Oh, all right! I also came back to revive my career. What’s
so bad about that? And God repaid my (relatively) good behavior by torching everything?!

Rudy: You want God to apologize.

Susan: Yes, I do! I want him to apologize for tricking me into thinking my dreams meant something. And if he’s my husband,
he owes me more than an apology. He owes me spousal support. But he’s not even here for the court hearing!

I’d finally uttered the words that had been lurking under my tongue all these months. They didn’t sound right; they sounded
ugly.

Susan: An apology would be nice.

Rudy: So basically you think you know more than God does.

Susan: I know more about what it feels like to live in my skin!

Rudy: Susan, what if your mind is sharper than God’s? What if your heart is purer than God’s? Take that thought to its logical
conclusion. Imagine what the world would look like if we knew more than our Creator. Do you really want to live in that universe?

Susan: No, I’m not saying that.

Rudy: But you are. That’s the logical end of your belief. If you know more than God, then God knows less than you do. God
is dumber than you; he’s stingier than you; he’s more sinful than you.

Susan: God is not sinful.

Rudy: But if God owes you an apology, then he screwed up. You’re better than he is.

Susan: But I’m not.

Rudy: Then what are you doing telling God how to do his job?

I drove home smarting from Rudy’s suggestion that I thought I was the greatest being in the universe. I knew God was smarter
and holier and more loving than I was. And how could Sophie suggest I was angry at God because he had not granted the life
I had demanded?

Had I sought God’s will? At times I had, in moments of gratitude or naïveté. Back when I was young and silly, when I thought
the answers to all of my questions were Yes and Amen. I joined Jesus because he promised me a big life, filled with adventure
and meaning. Hadn’t I obeyed Georgina because I wanted life to go well? Hadn’t I sought healing so I could be happy? Even
when I gingerly returned to God, hadn’t I kept him at a safe distance? When I sought his will, hadn’t it been for the promise
of a good life? From the moment I prayed that first prayer, there had been a stipulation: “No Bible skits.” I was still putting
riders and stipulations on every agreement with God: Deliver to me the life I specify.

Come on,
I defended myself. Who would love someone who offered a life of disappointment and hardship? Sure, people made wedding vows:
for better or worse, for richer or poorer. But what sane person would knowingly sign up
just
for the worse, the poorer, the sicker, the sadder? Who on earth would do that? Come on. Who?

A list of heroes and saints, real and fictional, came to my mind: Frodo Baggins, William Wallace, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa.
Mom. Each was dogged by pain and suffering. They fought evil without, doubt within. Some of them died, but I loved them for
their courage. And then there was Jesus, who did not consider his equality with God something to hold on to tightfistedly
(the way I hung on to my promises) but emptied himself, became a servant, was stripped, filleted, and hung on a cross to die
a horrifying death.