Angry Conversations with God (3 page)

“But we believe in the same God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

“But my God isn’t an abusive deadbeat. I like God; I feel safe with him. I need to see God the way
you
see him. I need to hear how
you
hear him. You need to vocalize him, like he’s really in the room with us. Don’t turn him into Charlton Heston, but show me
what you hear him say and see him do. And Susan, God can change: your perception of him can change. It has to, because you
can’t stay married to an abusive deadbeat.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“What any couples therapist does. I’ll moderate. I’ll confront. If you get off-base, I’ll try to bring you back.”

“Will you separate us if we get violent?”

Rudy smiled. “Let’s bring God into the room.”

(Of course, God never showed up physically. And Rudy and I didn’t spend hours having conversations with thin air. But who
wants to read counseling transcripts? So I turned it all into a conversation. You know, like the book of Job.)

Rudy waited for me. How could I picture God in the room? I thought of the burning bush in
The Ten Commandments.
I thought of the cartoon God in Monty Python. I imagined God sitting there shaking his head in profound disappointment, just
like my own father used to do. Hmm.

Rudy: Lord, are you willing to show up for counseling every week?

God: Yeah, whatever.

Rudy: You don’t seem too enthusiastic.

God: I’ve got a universe to manage. Now I have to shrink my ineffability into some rumpus room so Susan can rag on me? (To
Susan) You’re right. This isn’t Darfur. Get over yourself.

Rudy: Wow. Is this you being a loving God?

God: Loving someone doesn’t mean spoiling them rotten.

Susan: There’s a difference between spoiling me rotten and rubbing my face in it. Come on, Central Park?

God: Got your attention, didn’t I?

Just then Jesus showed up. In my mind, of course. He sat down and put his hand on mine. His eyes were just like the sad, kind
eyes in the Jesus picture on the wall. I sure loved that guy.

Jesus: Hey, Suze.

Susan: Your dad is so mean to me!

Jesus: I know you feel that way, but he really loves you. Remember what I said, “When you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father”?

God: Yeah. The Trinity. Don’t you remember anything?

Susan: Then where’s the Holy Spirit?

God and Jesus: Around.

Rudy: Susan, do you see how you’ve split Jesus and God into Good Cop/Bad Cop?

God: Yeah, how come I always have to be the Bad Cop?

Rudy: (To God) The sarcasm isn’t helping.

God: Don’t blame me; I’m just a figment of Susan’s imagination.

Rudy: (Sighing) I’m going to earn every penny here. Clearly you are angry at each other. Anger is a sign of hurt. But we don’t
get hurt by people we don’t care about. We get hurt by people we love. So there’s love here.

God: Jesus and I never get angry at each other.

Rudy: I know you’re the Supreme Being, Lord, but right now I’d like you to listen.

God rolled his eyes. Okay he didn’t, but that’s what I imagined him doing.

Rudy: Before we end, I’d like you to tell each other something you love and something you’re hurt or angry about. Susan, you
start.

Susan: I don’t have any problems with Jesus. Well, except when I was bullied for three years and prayed for your help and
you didn’t come. But I guess you were busy. As for God the Father—I love your creation. I’m in awe of it, really. I love in
the Bible how you cared about justice and fought the evil guys. But the way you’ve trashed my life—I guess I’m the evil guy
now.

Would God roll his eyes at that? Would he try to defend himself? Would he care?

Rudy: Good job, Susan. Who’s next?

Jesus: I’ll go. Hey, Suze, I’m so sorry you feel like I didn’t help you.

Susan: Thanks.

Jesus: We’ll talk more about it later, but for now, just know I love you.

Susan: I love you too.

God: I want to remind Susan that Jesus is
me!
You’ve seen him, so you’ve seen me. I’m not just the Bad Cop!

Rudy: Lord, is that what you’re angry about? The Bad Cop? Because you’ve said it twice now. If you’re going to speak, I’d
like you to follow my instructions and start with something you love.

God: I don’t appreciate your correcting me.

Rudy: I’m not threatened by you. You’re just a figment of Susan’s imagination.

God: We’ll see about that. (To Susan) I love you. Not for anything you’ve done, but because it’s my nature to love.

Susan: Boy, do I feel special.

God: I love your creativity, your chutzpah. You stuck with me all these years, when other people walked away. You hung in
there, like a rabid terrier. However—

Susan: Here it comes.

God: I resent you blaming me for everything. And I do not exist to give you what you want.

Susan: Do
I
exist to give you what
you
want?

God: Well, actually—

Rudy: Enough. No responding, just listening. Did you hear each other? Susan loves the God who loves justice and mercy, but
she feels rejected. God loves Susan, but resents being blamed for everything. And Jesus…is sorry. Remember: where there is
real love, there’s real pain. I’d be more worried if you didn’t have any grievances, because then you wouldn’t be close. Okay?

And just like that, God and Jesus were gone. You know, from my imagination.

Rudy: This is good.

Susan: This is weird.

Rudy: Yeah, but it’s good too. It’s an adventure. For every session, I want you to write about a period of your life, bring
it in, and we’ll discuss it. Tell me where that angry, sarcastic God the Father came from. Tell me about the Jesus who loved
you but didn’t intervene. Where did you get that image of Jesus?

Susan: There. (I pointed to the Jesus portrait on the wall.) That’s the Jesus I knew.

Rudy: Then write about him.

EVERYONE HAS IDEAS ABOUT GOD—THINGS THEY’VE LEARNED
from religion, parents, and authority figures. Even atheists have ideas about God: like he’s a crappy God, which is why they
don’t believe in him. I heard one of those new atheist fundamentalists on the radio. He must have had a lousy childhood because,
man, he was one angry, arrogant turd. Anyway, even if you never stepped foot in a church or synagogue or Whole Foods, you
have an idea of what God is like, and you got it from somebody, somewhere.

My ideas about God weren’t all good, all bad, or even all Christian. They were a syncretism of good theology, bad parenting,
Lutheran passivity, and American culture. I’ll deal with the Father in the next chapter, but my ideas about Jesus could be
summed up in that portrait hanging in Rudy’s office. The Nice Jesus on the wall.

You probably know the picture.
Head of Christ,
by Warner Sallman, is arguably the most recognizable image of Jesus of the twentieth century. Painted in muted yellows and
browns, a kind, Norwegian-looking Jesus sits there looking sober, calm, and slightly depressed. His eyes are turned upward
as if he’s listening to the Father. Maybe God just got around to telling him he has to be crucified, because Jesus looks pretty
serious. You would too if you had to die for the whole world.

Sallman painted those other pictures on Rudy’s wall, and I knew them as a child too.
The Lord Is My Shepherd
shows Jesus tenderly carrying a lamb in his arms; there’s even a black sheep in the background, following along. Mom said
it was because Jesus carried the weak and loved the outcast.
Christ at Heart’s Door
was my favorite. I saw the love and patience in Jesus’ eyes, as if he would wait forever for someone to answer. But the
Head of Christ
was the picture I knew best because it hung in every classroom, pastor’s study, and toilet stall at Olivet Lutheran Church
and Day School.

My mother was a beautiful Norwegian-American who took her four kids to church every Sunday while my father stayed home and
cursed at the TV. My two older brothers were already in junior high, but my sister Nancy and I went to Olivet Lutheran grammar
school. Mom just wanted us to know Jesus. She wanted us to know that even if your husband ignores you and turns you into the
most beautiful unpaid housekeeper in Orange County, you will still have Jesus. In fact, all you’ll ever have is Jesus.

My mother spent her mornings reading the Bible and praying. I woke up every day to the smell of coffee and the sound of her
prayers: whispers of adoration, urgency, and melancholy. Sometimes her voice cracked it was filled with so much longing. It
was in her prayers that I first recognized what longing was: a hunger for something you couldn’t see.

I saw that longing at Communion too. Most of the time our church played the grand old Lutheran hymns like “A Mighty Fortress
Is Our God.” But on Communion Sundays, they mixed it up with Oakie waltzes like “In the Garden” or the hippie “Pass It On”—the
Lutherans’ way of being edgy.

I watched Mom get the wafer and grape juice. Sometimes Pastor Ingebretsen laid his hand on her head and prayed; sometimes
he didn’t. But every time Mom came back singing through her tears: “And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells
me I am His own.” Always off-key, always crying, always longing. At first her tears scared me.

“What’s wrong, Mom? Are you sad?”

“No, I’m not sad,” she blubbered. My mother was sad a lot, but at Communion her sadness was different. It was as if Communion
was the place her sadness could be heard, and the place where it could end. Communion was where she took her longing, and
that’s where her longing was met. Years later I suspected my mother’s longing for God was fueled by the lack of love from
my father. Perhaps our loneliness can never be filled with even the best of human love. Maybe the longing for human love is
just the beginning, and the longing for God is always the end.

All I knew at the time was that something happened at Communion. Mom tasted and saw that the Lord was good. And I wanted to
taste it too.

Every night after dinner, Mom sat us down to read the Bible and pray. I loved the stories about Jesus. He healed the sick
and fed the hungry. He talked back to the hypocrites. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He was my hero, like Mighty Mouse.
And Mom was right. Jesus did love the weak and the outcast—that’s who he hung around with. If Jesus went to my school, he
wouldn’t be in a clique. As a child I knew that was real love. I knew it the way you only have to see blue once to know what
blue looks like.

My early years at Olivet Lutheran Day School were happy and uneventful. Most of my teachers were retired missionary spinsters
who smiled and turned the other cheek. Pastor never got angry except when he preached about evil. In fact, no one at church
got angry—which is why my dad rarely came to church.

I liked going to a school where Jesus was present. We had chapel twice a week, we read the Bible in class, and there on every
wall hung the picture of the Nice Jesus. I had a lot of years to study that picture. Yes, Jesus was nice, but he also looked
sad. My third-grade teacher, Miss Toft, said maybe Jesus was busy praying for someone who was hurt. She said Jesus got up
every morning to pray. I thought of my mom. Maybe Jesus wasn’t sad; maybe he and Mom were just lonesome for God.

Once Miss Toft was out taking care of her invalid sick sister, and we got a sub. Mr. Lund told us about Jesus’ clearing the
temple. “This was the area where pagans and outcasts were free to come to pray, but religious leaders turned it into a swap
meet! This was just not cool with Jesus. So he went in and gave them all the fourth-down punt!”

Wow! I wished we had a picture of
that
Jesus on the wall! When I looked at the Nice Jesus again, I thought maybe he was listening intently as God instructed him
on how to go to the temple and kick butt.

My happy world changed in fourth grade. Our class was joined by a Lutheran nightmare named Kirsten Shanahan. Kirsten hated
anyone who did better than she did. And I was better at everything. Once I beat her out for a choir solo. So she got the entire
alto section to kick my chair for an hour. Another time I knocked her out in four square. She got everyone to leave the game.
When I got A’s on tests, she taunted me throughout recess.