I grew up in a particular Christian culture where it was considered sin to be angry with God. We also had no framework for Christian living that recognized sin as a part of our lives.

“Just stop sinning!” was the underlying theme. (well, that and “culture is evil”).

I don’t know if Susan Isaacs came up the provocative title for her book Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir, but it works. At least it worked for me.

I remember seeing an ad when the book first released and thought, “I must read that book.” It took me a couple years to finally get to it, but I’m glad I did.

The perspective is unavoidably female, which might make the book seem un-relatable for some guys (not everyone is as sensitive as me), but her struggles are universal. She battles self-worth and identity; faith and doubt; relationships and honesty; and ultimately her view of God.

I especially related to Susan’s struggles to find herself in her art. She was always so compelled to fulfill her calling and find real meaning in touching the lives of those that encountered her work along the way.

(and of course she’s totally honest about her desires to be successful too – something I have a hard time with sometimes)

Even though I’d already had plans to read her book, I was especially interested in touching base with her about this interview when I saw that her acting career had landed her on some of my all-time favorite shows like Parks and Rec, Family Ties, My Name is Earl, Quantum Leap (!), Fresh Prince and movies like Planes, Trains and Automobiles (the one John Hughes classic that I unfortunately had to leave out of my recent JH poster series because I ran out of time).

When I saw she was also in one of my favorite eposodes of Seinfeld (the one with Jean-Paul and George taking the reps from Texas out on the town) I flipped.

Honestly though, it has been her writing that moved me the most. She is so honest and has come so far and so many women share her struggles with heartache and frustration and loneliness and impossible expectations that I must insist every woman I know read this book.

Tell us one of your favorite odors.

I have a very strong sense of smell. I smell rotting trash, farts, fire smoke, long before anyone else does. I can also smell good things, like honeysuckle and freesia and lavender, stronger than others. I like the smell of water on cement and sun tan lotion and peaches, because they make me think of my childhood summers. Grease on train tracks makes me think of New York City. But the most evocative smell for me, is the scent of good, strong coffee in the early morning.

What is it about that particular smell?

The smell of coffee in the morning brings on a sense of hopefulness for the day. Not just because I need coffee to wake up, but because coffee is associated with all the newness and optimism of a day not yet wasted. It goes deeper, however. When I was young, I woke up every morning to the smell of coffee; and saw  my mother in the living room, drinking coffee, reading Oswald Chambers, and praying. Coffee makes me think of Mom and what an impact she had on my spiritual life. She is 87 and has dementia, which is like Alzheimer’s. All that prayer and Bible reading went in deep. She can’t talk about much but she can talk about God. She has no adult editor left in her brain, but her soul is pure beauty. I credit the coffee.

What experience makes you feel alive?

Performing makes me feel alive, when I get to use the creativity God has given me.  I feel alive when I’m performing the show based on my book. It’s funny and painful. I love when the audience connects. Together we come to a mature acceptance of God, and of “Life on Life’s terms.” I feel even more alive when I get to talk to people afterward and they share their own hopes and pain. That’s when you realize that doing art, you’re just getting out of the way and letting God use the art to reach other people. It becomes bigger than you or your own work. I also really love hanging out with my husband; whether it’s going on a bike rides or a road trip or reading books together at night. When I get to the end of my life, I won’t remember the accomplishments. I’ll remember the moments with him.

What fears do you have?

I’m most afraid of not doing the things God has asked me to do: whether it’s completing a book or doing a show I know he has for me to do; or loving my husband they way he’s asked me to do; or loving the people God has put in my life to love. All day long we get these little nudges in the back of our head. Just a fleeting thought that drifts over the transom of our minds. And so often we ignore them, or put them aside to do later.

I am terribly afraid of missing those important moments.  My dear kitty died suddenly. She was 13 years old, and  was my best buddy all those years I was alone. I didn’t have the time to tell her goodbye, to love her or let her know how much she had meant to me.  Imagine if a good human friend or my husband died suddenly.  I can’t miss those nudges any more.

What have you learned about yourself over the past year?

Not everyone gets my sense of humor, on or off stage. I spent many years procrastinating, but when I get myself into a commitment I can’t back out of, I can do the work very well. But I still procrastinate. I need deadlines. I am selfish to the core.

Get married and you will find out what a rat you really are. The best way to get that selfishness out of you, is to live with someone and see yourself through their eyes. Marriage is school for heaven.

I loved my cat a lot more than I realized in the day to day.

Are you working on anything cool right now?

I’m working on the proposal for Book Two: Racy Conversations with God about Singleness, Intimacy, and the Clusterfuzzle of Christian Dating. Also, I’m going on tour with the amazing Anne Jackson, to promote her new book: “Permission To Speak Freely.” It’s Post Secrets Meets the Church. Anne got people to send artwork with secrets they are afraid to talk about in church. It’s going to be a really freeing book. It’s like that adage: you’re only as sick as your secrets.

Do you find your creative work a spiritual experience? In what way?

ABSOLUTELY YES. When I am really being obedient and doing the work God has given me to do, I feel less like a creator and more like a conduit. Like I’m just a lightning rod and God is striking me with his light and energy. I’m just the messenger, not the message. Sometimes I have to get off my chair and on my knees, thanking God for letting me participate in what he is doing.

What tunes have you been hooked on lately?

The Killers – “Human;” Imogen Heap – “Hide and Seek;” The Shins, The Daylights, Christy Nockels, Robbie Seay, Gordon Lightfoot, The Beatles LOVE album. And always, anything by the late, great Mark Heard.

More Susan Isaacs

• Susan’s website
• Susan’s Blog
• Follow Susan on Twitter

More Strong Odors

• Follow on Twitter
• Facebook
• The complete Odorifous interview series
• Check out my Illustration, Design and Production portfolio

Then I became rather obsessed with her after reading Real Sex and hearing her various lectures/podcasts on that book that were floating around the interweb.

I finally finished reading Mudhouse Sabbath, and though it took a little more concentrated effort on my part than Real Sex or Girl Meets God, it was still incredibly insightful and offered more of Lauren’s unique perspective on how Christians have either lost touch with our Jewish heritage or in some cases adapted certain traditions.

While Girl Meets God unveiled the connectedness between the Judaism of Lauren’s youth and her new-found Christian faith by way of comparing the holidays over her years of conversion, Mudhouse Sabbath compares eleven Jewish customs and how they have found a place—in one way or another—in her life as a Christian.

Her chapter on prayer was (like its Girl Meets God counterpart) was especially challenging to me, and the section on food was great…

To consider how food connects us to God… where our food comes from, what God might think of our food, etc.

Really each chapter was perfectly concise and had just enough oomph to make you stop and consider.

While many of those Old Testament traditions have found a place in some way in western Christianity, it was her chapter on mourning that seemed to stand out as something in particular that we as Christian-ized westerners seem to have no construct.

We may succeed sometimes as a community supporting those widowed within the few week following their losses…

but then what?

And what do we as mourners do when those around us are encouraging us to “get it together?”

To celebrate our loved one’s death?

yet we’re immobilized with fear and pain and anguish.

Lauren describes the Jewish tradition for mourning, which divides the entire year for the widowed into particular phases for mourning.

Each one has its own instructions for the community and the mourner.

This calendar of bereavement recognizes the slow way that mourning works, the long time it takes a grave to cool, slower and longer than our zip-zoom Internet-and-fast-food society can easily accommodate. Long after your friends and acquaintances have stopped paying attention, after they have forgotten to ask how you are and pray for you and hold your hand, you are still in a place of ebbing sadness. Mourning plateaus gradually, and the diminishing of intensity is both recognized and nurtured by the different spaces the Jewish mourning rituals create—the harrowing shock of aninut, the pain of shiva, the stepping into life and world of shloshim”

I don’t know if I’ll ever adopt this calendar… I’ll probably die before anyone else close to me…

And when I die… I want Wake Up played at my funeral…

and I want it played loud (don’t worry about the old folks)…

and I want everyone to sing along…

and I want my old buddy Luke Meyers to be the songleader…

Wake Up

by Arcade Fire

Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little gods causin’ rain storms turnin’ every good thing to
rust.

I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am, go-go, where I am

You’d better look out below

The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in [the celebration]. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, “look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!”

His father said, “Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!” —Luke 15:28-32 —The Message

The targets of this story [of The Prodigal Son] are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who do everything the Bible requires.

Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with the moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self-righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them. It is a mistake, then, to think that Jesus tells this story primarily to assure younger brothers of his unconditional love.

No, the original listeners were not melted into tears by this story, but rather they were thunderstruck, offended, and infuriated.

Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories.

—Tim Keller, The Prodigal God

Some men want fame and their name on marquees.
Some men love money.
I choose cheese.

From The Old Man Who Loved Cheese by Garrison Keillor, illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf

I spent my freshman year of college at Bob Jones University (it’s a long story for another post) – the world’s bastion for conservative Christian fundamentalism.

When I say “conservative” I mean it… these guys call Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell liberal…

Within a few weeks I was confronted by my dorm supervisor… brought into a private meeting.

I think he was trying to tread lightly, since they have so many culturally-sheltered students when he asked me…

“are you familiar with the Grunge Movement”

(apparently my purchased-in-the-nineties-but-made-in-the-sixties cardigans and jet-black-dyed hair had stuck out a bit in the sea of starch and ties and pleats)

I actually was familiar with grunge music of course… but had never heard of a “movement.”

I don’t think anyone else had (or has) either.

It would be a bit ironic… it’s the only movement I can think of that would be immediately shunned by its own participants just for being a “movement”…

Today NPR pointed me towards a new book by photographer Michael Lavine called Grunge.

Flipping through the sample shots on his site, I’m experiencing a weird combination of emotions…

I feel old… the photos look like something out of a history book and I really wonder if it’s possible 20 years have passed…

I feel a little self conscious… because my wardrobe hasn’t changed…

I’m not saying my style is the same, but I literally have the exact clothes hanging in my closet (or piled on my floor) as I did in 1995 and my sweater bin smells of mothballs and mohair…

And I can’t help but wonder if I’m a little bit like Uncle Rico… stuck in some moment in the past… super-cool to myself, but super-ridiculous to everyone else..

But honestly it makes me a little proud.

Because it was at this time in history that became who I am… and I’ve never had to compromise…

And because I don’t believe those photos and that music still strikes a chord with me because I was a teenager at that time, but rather because the message was a timeless one… perhaps never captured better in any other form.

Sometimes I’m afraid I’ve become boring in my thirties because I don’t put in as much effort as in my teens to be countercultural…

but that’s just the point of the Grunge Movement, now isn’t it?

As a guest on “To the Best of Our Knowledge” last week, Zen Master Brad Warner made a comment that caught my attention:

We are born and we die constantly, the “me” who existed a minute ago is dead and gone, and here “I” am, and I’m something else… possibly.
Which has a relation to what I was a minute ago, but isn’t the same thing.

It reminded me of that passage in the Bible that says “old things are passed away, all things have become new”

And I’m not sure of the verb tense, but I wonder if it is saying “old things are continually passing away, and all things are continually becoming new”

(Hopefully some of my Greek-geek readers can chime in on the verb tense)

If so… then somehow this Biblical concept that has always been difficult for me to comprehend was made a little clearer this week by this Zen philosophy of perpetual death and rebirth.

I recommend listening to this interview and the full program on TTBOOK website archives.

Donald Miller and I are so alike… I just love reading him because the way he says things, his sense of humor, and so much of his personality and feelings I can identify with so closely it is almost like he is my own personal ghost writer.

In fact, the first time I read Blue Like Jazz, I was actually a little upset because it was pretty much the exact book that I had hoped to write (only better).

To Own a Dragon is Miller’s thoughts on growing up without a dad, how it has effected him spiritually (among other things), and how as an adult he can use those experiences for good, rather than allowing them to own him.

Even though the book is written for men who have grown up (or are growing up) without a father, it offers just as much joy and value to those of us who have.

I especially identified with the chapter where he discusses the concept of “manhood.” I quite often feel like a 15-yr-old trapped in a 30-something’s body (ok, maybe I have a 15-yr-old’s body… but you get the point), and just within the past year have been trying to figure out what it really means to be a man… and every time someone mentions Wild at Heart,  I imagine that if I read it I (like Donald Miller) would most likely want to chuck it across the room.

(don’t fret, John Eldridge lovers… after a period of growth that very book was quite valuable to him and he recommends it)

As he describes sitting in the “men’s” Bible study group where the guys share hunting stories and make metaphorical life-lesson analogies about football and action movies, I was laughing out loud because I knew exactly what he was talking about.

If you prefer books that give you the “3 Steps to ….” or promise growth or success if you do this or pray that… or only use big sober words to discuss spirituality…

you’ll probably hate this book.

I liked it a lot.