Angry Conversations with God (14 page)

The very next day my favorite casting director called. He’d given my demo tape to a director; now the director was offering
me a small role in his new movie,
The Addams Family.
No audition!

I stood by the fax machine and watched the pages roll in. The first line that caught my eye said something about “enslaving
a pastor.” I pulled the page out. “Wednesday wants to be a witch like her grandmother, who ran in the streets naked and enslaved
a pastor.”

Before I could think, an intangible grief bubbled up and I burst into tears. Was it the Holy Spirit? Witches, slavery, pastor.
I thought about the dream the night before: me naked, acting, the Grim Reaper, head chopped off.

I told Pastor Craig about the dream and the role. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“God’s speaking, Susan,” he confirmed. “Don’t get decapitated.”

I called the casting director and declined. “It’s too spiritually dark.”

An awkward silence followed. “But, Susan, it’s a farce. It’s a high-costume comedy; it’s not meant to be real.”

“But the spiritual world
is
real,” I replied. “And there is such a thing as evil. I’m so sorry, but I can’t do it.”

“Okay.” He sighed. “I know they’ll be disappointed.”

I bet he thought I was nuts. Was I nuts? Was I reading into everything? What about the dream the very night before? That was
God speaking to me, wasn’t it? And I needed to listen. That’s what my life was about right then: listening to God and responding.

Right?

Rudy: That was some dream.

Susan: It was kind of hard to ignore.

God: You weren’t meant to ignore it.

Susan: Rudy doesn’t know how it turned out a year later.

God: No one knows how it really turns out until a thousand years later.

Susan: There you go, pulling the eternity card on me. Where’s Jesus?

God: I wanted it to be just you and me.

Susan: I feel safer with him around.

God: But he is here. “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” All that kindness and trust you feel with Jesus is from
me. I’d like you to grant me the same trust.

Rudy: I’m going to agree with God. You need to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I think we should concentrate on the
two of you for now.

Susan: Why do I have to do all the work?

God: Because you’re the one who has to change.

Susan: Well, you certainly aren’t changing your sarcasm.

God: Sarcasm is a viable form of communication.

Rudy: Let’s get back to the relationship. This seems like it was a positive time.

Susan: It was. I stopped and healed. I felt God’s love. I was grateful for friends like Mark. But…

God: Here comes the “But.” Ever heard that joke, “If a man speaks in a forest and his wife isn’t there to hear him, is he
still wrong?”

Susan: I am thankful for everything you did. (To Rudy) But is there such a thing as too much therapy? I was starting to feel
overloaded.

Rudy: It
was
the 1990s. That was the Golden Age of therapy.

God: And it was the Dark Ages of community service. Try getting people to volunteer at the orphanage or the shelter—forget
it. They were all healing their inner children.

Susan: We certainly weren’t off dating. But that’s for the next chapter.

Rudy: Susan, what do you think that dream meant?

Susan: After all that healing and symbolic interpretation, it was obvious. God was warning me that the film was dark and I
needed to turn it down. I lost that casting director’s respect. But God came first and I wanted to honor him.

God: I felt honored. I’m glad you felt like you made the right decision.

Susan: Wait, what?
“Felt like
I made the right decision?” It
was
the right decision. It was the only decision I could have made, given that dream.

God: Well, if you had taken the role, I’d have been there with you. Even the darkness is not dark to me. But you did what
was right for you at the time.

Susan: No. No, no, no! I trashed a vital relationship with a casting director who got me work! He was my champion! After that,
he thought I was a freak. I did not turn it down because it was “right for me at the time”; I turned it down because you told
me to!

God: Did you hear me say, “Susan, don’t take that role”?

Susan: You warned me in a dream the night before. I’m naked onstage, I convince myself it’s just comedy, but then the Grim
Reaper comes to decapitate me. Pastor Craig agreed: “Don’t get decapitated, dude!”

Rudy: Couldn’t the dream have represented your own fears? Or your psyche saying that you couldn’t handle it at the time?

Susan: I didn’t even know about the role until the morning after the dream.

Rudy: Oh. Wow.

God: But, Susan, what did you
hear me
say?

What had God said? Audibly? Nothing. I only had the dream. And the dream was mine.

Susan: This is exactly what I mean by too much counseling. We were taught to interpret dreams, look for clues in symbols and
imagery, listen to God speaking to our deepest hearts. And now you’re saying there was no right or wrong answer?

God: Susan, honey. Right or wrong, you did what you needed to do to protect yourself. I am delighted you wanted to honor me.
But I also wanted you to feel confident in making decisions for yourself. Like choosing your own breakfast or choosing a movie
role. I would be with you no matter what you chose. You weren’t ready at the time, and that’s okay.

Susan: I see now. I see why you’ve been so kind today, why you said you wanted it to be “just you and me.” You’re trying to
look balanced and functional in front of Rudy. Rudy doesn’t know what happened a year later.

Rudy: Tell what happened later,
later.
How did you feel at the time?

Susan: (Bitter) I felt grateful!

A brittle silence hung for a moment.

God: I wasn’t trying to look good in front of Rudy, Susan. I meant it when I said I wanted it to be just you and me. Because
you know what I remember about this time in our relationship? You wanted me. You loved me. Of course I was heartbroken that
you were in so much pain. But you came to me. You let me in. We haven’t been that close since. And I miss that. I miss you.

I DON’T WANT YOU TO THINK I’M NOT GRATEFUL
. I WENT FROM vomiting and not wanting to live to being abstinent and optimistic. And it was all due to the Lord. (Well, the
Prozac helped.)

But…

As my 12-step sponsor said, the goal was to get out of the food and into life. And what life did I have besides hangin’ out
at church with the Big J-Man?

David once suggested I take classes at the Groundlings, that famous LA improv and sketch comedy troupe. Improv was popularized
on the show
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Actors are given suggestions from the audience, such as an activity and a relationship, and the actors perform a scene on
the spot.

I finally got up the courage and enrolled. The first class was like skydiving: terrifying, liberating, and once I had done
it I had to do it again. I improvised and wrote scenes, and characters bubbled up from my imagination. I hadn’t played this
note since high school. I wished I was still friends with David to thank him. But I burned that bridge under Georgina’s regime.

Taking classes was one thing; moving up the ladder and getting into the performing company was another. Classes were competitive
and teachers were tough. But in nine months I went from Beginning Improv to the Sunday Company, the theater’s B string.

I was on a high. I invited my friends to come see me. I was judicious of course. A rule of improv is “Never deny.” If someone
does something onstage, you don’t ignore or deny it. So if my scene partner, say, dry-humped me, I had to find a way to say,
“Yes, and” to his dry-humping, rather than “No, but,” while maneuvering him off my leg. I learned how to say “Yes, and” and
keep my integrity. I also never invited my sister to the shows.

All this healing had been for something! God really did have a purpose for me. I was twenty-nine years old, but in some ways
my life—the living it—had just begun.

A couple at my church was involved in a Benedictine monastery out in the desert. Every month they fasted, prayed, and met
with a monk for spiritual direction, which was like therapy, only mystical and cool. “Mystical” sounded good to me. I missed
the liturgy. (Nondenominational churches say they don’t have a liturgy, but they do: it’s forty-five minutes of music, forty-five
minutes of preaching, and announcements.) I wanted a deeper experience. Besides, I was on the cusp of something new, and I
wanted God to lead me there. In a mystical and cool way.

Thanksgiving weekend I blew off my family and went out to the desert. I didn’t even eat the monastic turkey roll; I fasted,
prayed, and scheduled an appointment with a monk to talk about where God might be leading me.

That night I had a horrifying dream, far more horrifying than the cesspool or the Grim Reaper. I woke up and paced my room,
afraid to fall back asleep and into the dream.

The next morning I met my monk. Father Michael had a round face and a welcoming smile. “Dear, you look as if you need to unload.”
So I did.

In my dream, I was on an outdoor stage, dancing with the Beatles. The Beatles! John Lennon was singing “You Make Me Dizzy,
Miss Lizzy”—very sexy, very much alive. And I was dancing with him. A group of stern religious women with dried-apple doll
faces came up and forced me off the stage. They said I had to go bury a dead woman. They herded me into a churchyard. (I realized,
while telling Father Michael, it was the same church where I usually attended 12-step meetings.) The dried faces told me the
dead woman could not be buried in the churchyard because of her “sexual sin.” They said it like Pastor Norman: “SECK-shull,”
like a sourball, but also like they relished the judgment in it. She had to be buried in the park. And I had to do it.

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.