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Towards the end of last year I was afforded the opportunity to hear from  Susan Isaacs, author of Angry Conversations with God and @susanisaacs on Twitter. I listened with rapt attention, a thing that hadn’t happened in quite some time. Maybe it was because so much of what she was saying deeply resonated with me, speaking to the hurt of my last year, and to the hope of something better, something more real than what I thought I once had, or needed.

Susan, a Hollywood actor with multiple “failures” in both her career and her relationships, decided she’d had enough of God. So she took Him to couples counseling and chronicled the journey in Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir. It’s funny as all get-out and painfully honest. Her transparency bleeds from the pages, and where most comics use their gift to hide their inadequacies, Susan’s self-deprecating style brings everyone’s guard down to where we know we are like her in so many ways. Consequently, if she can laugh and grow, then, by God, we can too.

On her book tour (before I’d read the book), Susan challenged me to be brutally honest before God. This is something that had never occurred to me before. I feared being “smoten” for my insolent ways.

Then I recalled my experience, just a few months prior, when I yelled at God like I never had before. And felt bad for doing so, because that’s what a “good” Baptist upbringing will do to you.

Yet I quickly got over that feeling, because the felt injustice of my situation was too overwhelming, to the point where words that I would never have thought about using in a prayer starting running away from my mind and out through my lips. The words came in such a flurry of fury that the sentinel at the door didn’t have time to man the battle-stations and stop the tide of vehemence. He was woefully under-prepared for the onslaught of pent-up rage.

When the words stopped, the silence was dreadful. I was sure I was about to be struck down, to be given the chance to meet my Maker right then and there so I could voice my complaint in his very Presence. But instead of instantaneous death, I heard these words:

I know… I know… I know…

…spoken as from a mother heartbroken over her child’s necessary pain.

I sat stunned, drowning in grace. My anger subsided. And while the answers I wanted didn’t come (ever read the end of the book of Job?), it didn’t matter. The fight I’d had with God (which still continues from day to day) changed me, as if from Jacob to Israel.

So thank you Susan, for being honest with yourself, with God, and with us. It’s helped me, immeasurably. I’m not as mad as hell anymore; I’m just mad at hell on earth.

A few months ago I saw Rob Bell at the Paramount Theatre on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin as part of his book tour for his recent release, Drops Like Stars: A Few Thoughts on Creativity and Suffering. Rob (@realrobbell) is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan (“cultural epicenter of all things progressive”) and may best be known as the Nooma guy.

I wrote the following review/synopsis  after returning from the event; however, at the time, it didn’t see the light of day, or screen, as it were. I didn’t buy the book for myself at the event (since it’s an over-sized, highly visual coffee table book), but I did buy a copy for a friend. Before handing over the book, I wrote the following down for future consideration. However, just last week, I bought the thing at Mardel for $5 and was consequently reminded of what I’d written.

Don’t keep reading if you still want to read the book! This is a very general synopsis, but now that you’ve been warned…

Bell breaks down his thoughts into three sections, or “arts.”

I. The Art of Distraction
It occurs when life throws you a knuckle-ball that, instead of hitting the dirt, smacks you in the eye. It knocks you to the ground, takes the wind out of your lungs, and quickly, painfully, alters your worldview. Layoffs. Bankruptcy. Divorce. Death. Things that most of us never see coming. Things most of us never imagine happening to us.

There are some who never recover from a hit like this.

There are others who cannot get beyond the muddy, murky existential questions of Why me? Why now? Why God?

Then there are those, and narrow is this path, that press through the questions (whose answers, if they come, seldom help the way you think they will) and get to the place of asking What now?

II. The Art of Elimination
Taking away what is to show what could be. Michaelangelo said the statue of David cried to be freed from the stone pillar from which it was carved. Mark Twain said that if he’d have lived longer, he would have written less. Every true artist, in every true art form, knows that brilliance and genius lie in the tension between the giving and the taking away, between what is and what isn’t, between the first draft and the pared-down final copy.

If I’m to assume that my life is a work of art co-created by its Author and subject, I have been squarely placed in this point of my life for the sole purpose of editing myself – to eliminate what is to become what could be.

What should be.
What should have been.
Which never could have been, had I not been given the “opportunity” to be in this place in the first place.

I now see my recent past as chisel to stone, regardless of who’s hand was on the blade.

III. The Art of Possession
You can own something and not possess it.
You can possess something and not own it.

You’d think consumerism is all about the buyer, the consumer, but I think the word is more dastardly than that, even in its blatancy. Consumerism consumes, even like a roaring lion, looking for whom it may devour.

It will eat your life in tiny bites and make you feel thankful for it. You’ll feel thankful because, somehow, the buying gives you meaning, a reason to exist, a thing to do.
If this is the case, your story is too small, not even long enough to be a novella.

You will own much and possess woefully little. You will not be happy, not where it matters at least. You will wear the same facade you’ve seen on TV, worn by actors who are paid to lie to you. You will buy that lie, repeatedly, as many times as it takes so the effect of the drug doesn’t have enough time to wear off.

But then death calls. Or she leaves. Or the money disappears.

How much TV do you watch then? How much shopping happens then?

Facades like scales fall from your eyes.

You remember how much family means.
You recall why you made friends with your friends in the first place.
You feel God, maybe for the first time, in a long, long time.
You reach out while reaching in, and feel emotions you thought you’d buried so well.

Things become meaningless, but the world erupts with life.

You have the fleeting thought that this is how life is supposed to be, even in the pain, in strange ways because of the pain.
You were always supposed to be like this, not acting like that. That’s not who you really ever were; this is who you are – this is who you should have always been.

So your things no longer define you, and self-gratification is no longer your motivation.

You begin to own little, yet possess all.

IV: The Art of Suffering
This is not one of Rob Bell’s points, although it may have been The Point of the Book, or the point I’m supposed to do something with.

Suffering births creativity. Artists create meaning from their suffering.

This is not new information.

In my current state, on this Friday the Thirteenth of November 2009, I want to forget everything about the last year.

Lately, each day causes me to recall “What exactly was I doing on this date last year?” It’s a sinister mind game. I already know the answer, and yet I feel the need to dredge the sludge of the slums of my previous life. I wonder why my mind does this to itself. I’ve processed so much, and have come so far, yet I still wonder “Will the self-damning questions ever end?”

And I wrestle.

I wrestle with the fact that I do not want this experience to define who I am.
I do not want to use it as a crutch for the rest of my life.
And I want to forget, because that’s easiest, no matter how hard my mind tries to make it.
Yet I cannot forget it, and I will never forget it.

While it will not define me, I cannot help but to realize that it is, however, an irrevocable part of my definition.
The full definition of “me” won’t be realized for many years to come (if even in this lifetime), but I still have a very active role in writing those words.

In learning to birth creativity from this suffering, I must humble myself, pray on bent knees, pick up the shattered remains of a previous life, and piece them back together into something wholly new but still wholly me.

It’s time to start living the rest of my definition.

I caught myself overreacting to an Internet outage the other day. I told myself to take a breath, step back, and think about the greater perspective. Then I realized that, while The Noticer is a quick read, its main idea had already gotten past my mind’s defenses.

Jones, the titular Noticer, is an itinerant philosopher, counselor, and friend, who seemingly does not age. Through multiple “chance” meetings with people in various walks (and troubles) of life, Jones (and author Andy Andrews) doles out sage advice that always comes back to regaining a greater perspective.

While the advice is worthwhile, I find it difficult to believe that the characters in the book would change their lives so drastically based on reason alone, as if one encounter with a wise man who finally speaks truth into their lives will change years of bad habits. I believe it can happen; I just don’t believe it happens all that often. However, should someone in a like situation to those found in the book read The Noticer, they might in fact be motivated to change. Or at least think about changing. Which is forward progress, even if it’s barely… noticeable.

Then again, the book even makes mention of the difference between intention and action, citing intention without action as being the same as inaction. So do you intend to change, or will your actions show your change? That’s the open question at the end of the book: Did those who meet Jones actually change?

As for my internet outage, I realized I’m more fortunate to have even a non-functioning internet connection than probably four-fifths of the planet.

Greater perspective indeed.

- posted as part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogging Team

As a disclaimer, I signed up to be a Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogger a few weeks ago. They send me books; I read them and review them. Fortunately, they ask that the review be honest, and about the whole book. That’s always my intention.

This is Your Brain on Joy is not a book I would typically read. Not that I think I have life figured out (far from it!), but I seldom read “self-help” books, even though I’d have a hard time classifying Dr. Henslin’s book as your typical “self-help” book.

Through his relationship with New York Times bestselling author Dr. Daniel Amen (of the Amen Clinic), Dr. Henslin provides insight into the physical realities behind our depressions, our manias, our phobias, and our lack of true joy. Through SPECT imaging of the brain itself, Dr. Amen and Dr. Henslin can help a person pinpoint their areas of actual brain weakness. Each chapter is devoted to a specific area of the brain, and how any minor damage, through any number of causes, can radically affect a person’s experience of life. Dr. Henslin then provides a number of recommendations to help a person change the way their brain functions. He provides examples of helpful supplements, activities, scriptures, quotes, recommended reading, listening, and watching, and a host of other ideas to help pull a person out of habits that can otherwise deteriorate a life well lived.

For such an intrinsically complicated subject, Dr. Henslin almost becomes too simple in his descriptions, like when he describes the Cingulate Gyrus as the Circular Gerbil Wheel, because people with problems in that area are compulsive, dwell on the negative, and tend to store hurts. In other words, they can’t “get off the wheel.” But, these simple images do help to metaphorically convey in a quick way what occurs in our minds, and how that plays out in our lives. The book itself is an easy read and has many good recommendations for those that might see themselves in its pages.

On a personal note, before reading this book, I thought that joy only came from God, and if I wasn’t feeling joyful, then I must not be doing something right. That’s a flawed view. Joy does only come from God, but God can use any number of means to bring it into our lives. Taking any kind of supplement or medication seemed like anathema to me; through a few recent exchanges with friends and family, I’ve learned that God can use those things to help reorient a person to joy.

And joy has to be sought. I was one to wait on it, not to seek it out. Dr. Henslin provides plenty of ways to seek out joy, and by understanding your brain deficiency, you’re better able to utilize his recommendations.

The Last Word: This Is Your Brain on Joy is an easy and practical read. It’s recommended for those that lack a deep sense of joy or those that are interested in how the brain’s functioning contributes to our daily experiences of life itself.