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H
owever you scored in your spiritual self-assessment, please, sister, read on. Even some scientist friends who are confirmed skeptics have confided in me that they’ve had unusual, unexplainable, even mystical experiences or feelings. Has this never happened to you? I’m not trying to proselytize here—you are absolutely entitled to your own nonbeliefs, but if you’ve read this far, can I just ask you to share my experiences as I prepared myself spiritually for what would be the biggest relationship in my life? It’ll make us bond better, friend.

Christ for me is the ultimate comforter. I have known the most amazing relationships with my family and friends; exciting, romantic, and passionate relationships with men, but with all of these people, I’ve never known the constant peace that my relationship with Christ gives me. It is truly perfect peace.

I’ve always been a spiritual person because I was raised in a family where we went to church every Sunday, vacation Bible school during the summer, and revival meetings in between. Both my North Carolina grandmothers wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m used to getting up and going to Sunday school at nine thirty, to church again for the eleven o’clock service, lunch at the church, then to the three o’clock service or the six o’clock revival. That’s church all day, if
you’re counting. And just so we wouldn’t forget what we’d heard all day, the pastor would come to our house for dinner on Sunday to remind us, yet again.

Still, with all that, I don’t think it really jelled—what an intimate relationship with God meant—until college, when I got involved in my gospel choir. And then, when I discovered what a lonely place law school can be, I worked even harder at it with my great friend Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell.

But it really
all
came together for me when I watched that second plane go into the towers on 9/11. I was with my colleagues at
The View
in the makeup room; we were preparing for the morning meeting when the first plane went in. We didn’t see the footage immediately—nobody knew what was happening. It looked like a fire—maybe somebody had a little prop plane that got lost and slammed into the towers; you couldn’t really read the devastation from the television. But when the second plane hit within minutes, I knew something very bad was happening. Without talking, Jakki Taylor, one of my producers, and my prayer partner and makeup artist, Elena George, and I got up from our chairs in that crowded room, walked into the restroom, and started to pray.

No one had said, “What should we do?” We just knew we had to pray.

Strangely, as we talked about it later, we all agreed that our prayers weren’t for one another. We were each praying to God that he would allow us to understand what was going on, that he would tell us that he was in ultimate control. That would give me calm.

God came through.

We knew we had to get home. I had four friends on the show who lived in Jersey, Queens, and the Bronx, and we heard that every tunnel and bridge had been shut down, so because I could get home, I ended up having those four women come to stay with me in my Manhattan apartment. We stood on my terrace, and we looked toward the smoke. It had been the most beautiful day, and when those towers went, it was just gorgeous out, and then—only that oily, awful black smoke.

Want to know what perfect peace is? Over the next couple of weeks, I remember praying constantly for understanding, and where I couldn’t understand, for faith. I had to travel a lot on planes, and I did not feel scared—I did not feel scared once.

That’s what perfect peace is. Not feeling scared in scary moments. I wasn’t
afraid of terrorists on my planes or of what could happen next in the world. I was establishing a real relationship with God, and that was eternal and much stronger than terrorists. That’s why I call my spirituality the ultimate comfort.

But Could It Last?

Oh yes. There are days when as a woman, your parents don’t understand, your family gets on your nerves, your friends have their own priorities, the boyfriend is not acting right, you’re just not happy. After 9/11, prayer never failed to help me find happiness in other places. And I felt that the happier I was with God, the happier God was with me.

Instead of looking outward for the blessings that I hoped were coming to me, I started trying to bless other people. Doing something for others made me feel even more blessed. Everyone has to find her own fountain of calmness and peace, and that fountain doesn’t have to be an organized religion, but it should include the universal truths that appear in every religion.

Now, I know this: I could have made it alone, I’m a strong woman, but I would not feel complete without Al in my life. He’s made me better. I was pretty cool before him, but I’m even better now. That’s the way I feel about my relationship with God. I’m better because of my relationship with God—smarter, stronger, more centered, and more solid. I’m nicer. I care more about people, I give and get the blessings, and then, I can get through the crap. And I don’t have to tell you, there can be some mean stuff in your life—people have tragedies, you lose children, the first time you bury somebody close to you: you need a deep well into which you can dip for comfort.

How Would You Know That the Ultimate
Comforter Was Missing from Your Life?

What would be a sign? An emptiness, that would be your best sign. A feeling of being incomplete or hungry no matter how much you have or how heartily you’ve eaten. If someone would say to you, “Vanda, you’ve published twenty
books, made five blockbuster movies, and are a mega millionaire, how do you feel?” And the answer would be, “Empty—I feel empty,” that’s a good clue that something grand and spiritual is missing from your life.

You feel empty when you’re hungry because you get a stomachache or a headache, and so, you go looking for food. But if you eat and you’re hungry again right away, there’s probably something else you need besides food to fill that hunger. When I was overeating, I would gorge to get rid of the craving, but I now know the hunger was not for food, it was for completion. Once I started getting healthy, I didn’t have that kind of emptiness. So, even though I thought I had a wonderful relationship with God, I had to deepen that connection.

Relationship, Not Religion

I’m Protestant but nondenominational. I don’t need to be a Baptist or a Methodist. My relationship is with Jesus Christ—that’s all I need. One of the most important things I did when working on my relationship with God was to search for relationship, not religion. The word
religion
often makes people uncomfortable because people tend to claim it for their own purposes that have nothing to do with God or spiritual comfort. Some misguided fundamentalist Muslims claimed religion as the reason they flew their planes into the World Trade Center, but any true Muslim will tell you that was a truly antireligious, ungodly deed. What’s uncomfortable for me is living in a world where there is so much hypocrisy masquerading as religion, where some “religious” person can stand in a pulpit on Sunday, proselytize on morality, and sexually assault a child on Monday. Hypocrisy is when a prominent minister has an affair outside of his marriage, and even though I know that anyone can be redeemed, hearing about religious hypocrisy still makes people weary of religion.

Okay—you’re allowed to be weary of religion, but don’t be weary of a relationship with God. The ability to pray and to recognize that you don’t know everything and that you need some help—that’s relationship.

As I explored my spirituality and my deepening connection with Christ, I recognized that I couldn’t live my life without God. Personally, I also understood I couldn’t live my life without a human relationship that had its strength
in spirituality. I know that many women don’t feel the same way: they’re wonderfully independent and choose to live their lives unattached to a partner. That’s fine, of course. But it’s different for me. Although the ultimate relationship was with God, I needed a man to help me feel fulfilled and complete, who felt the same way I did about God.

So I did my Bible studies, I went to services and trying to understand more, I consciously tried to do more things for other people, not just for me. It’s funny—on
The View,
Madonna said she started writing children’s books because her kaballah teacher told her exactly that: “Why don’t you do something that’s not for you.” Now, I think that’s the essence of the spiritual woman—to love her neighbor as she loves herself.

I stopped focusing on Star. I got out of the house and volunteered in soup kitchens. Because I’m a fashion plate and love clothes, I went down to an organization called Dress for Success and helped put clothes on the backs of women who’ve never owned a workplace suit. A friend of mine, also working on developing her relationship with God, loves to dance, and so she used to go to an assisted living facility to teach seniors how to boogie. I started feeling so much better about Star Jones.

I used to tell my mother, “I’m exhausted, tired, I need to rest.” Once, having enough, she said to me, “Star, exhausted is raising two children as a single woman, working two jobs, and trying to stay off public assistance. That’s exhausted; I don’t want to hear that you’re exhausted.”

When I stopped whining and started doing for others, exhaustion flew out the window. I didn’t know it then, but I really was on the last leg of my journey to prepare myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually to meet my life partner.

T
hen, I met him. You already heard that story.

So, now Al’s in the picture. We met, fell in love, and got engaged in three months. Sure, we talked about our commitment to God. But how did I really know we were on the same page, spiritually? I found out.

He asked me to go to his uncle’s funeral with him and his family only three weeks into our relationship. I went down to Horsepasture, Virginia—that’s where Al’s from—and I thought this would be a good time to check out each other’s roots because my grandparents lived very close, and we could go to see them afterward. I stood with Al at the funeral, and afterward, we went back to his mom’s house. Al had been telling his mother, “Oh, I met this great girl, and, Mom, she’s the one, she’s the one, she’s the one.”

Miss Ada—that’s what I call his mom—had been watching me on television, getting a chuckle out of me on
The View,
but frankly, she had her doubts. I was a pretty public person, and they were good, quiet, religious people. After the funeral, Al’s mom asked him and two of his brothers to come home with her to put up a mailbox. In the culture of many southern families, no matter who their men are, no matter who their guests are, the mother says put up a mailbox, you put a mailbox up. And of course, Al took on his customary role as supervisor.

Afterward, Al comes in, and the supervisor’s wiped out because he had been working and traveling all week. And Miss Ada, who was cooking in her kitchen, and I, sitting in the family room, started to talk. Their family room adjoins the kitchen so you can talk right through the two rooms. While the pot was doing what it was doing in the kitchen, Miss Ada came out to sit on a stool next to me on the settee. Then Al came in and lay down on the settee next to me and put his head right down in my lap—with his mom sitting there.

So, next thing I know, absentmindedly I’m stroking his head, which is one of his favorite things, and he falls asleep on my lap. There we were—just the three of us, one of us comatose, and his mother says to me, “Is this all real?”

And I say, “Absolutely.”

And she says, “How will you know what to do when all this fun and frivolity fades? What will you do then?”

And I say to her, “That’s when we’ll start praying.”

Later, Miss Ada told me she fell in love with me at that moment. That moment right there. She knew how truly I meant it. And then, Miss Ada and I had a conversation about how none of this would ever work or be worth it if Al and I were not united in our faith. I knew that it would be tough for us, and that we’d be the subject of tremendous scrutiny because I’m a television personality, and it’s just the nature of celebrity for others to go rag on visible people. We live in an age where paparazzi run their cars into a young Lindsay Lohan’s car just so they can get a photograph. We live in a world where a man thinks it’s funny to squirt water in Tom Cruise’s face (thank God it wasn’t acid or urine). We live in that world now, so both Miss Ada and I knew it would be tough for Al and his family.

Later, Al told his family, “I know this feels fast moving, but it’s clear to us that we’re moving toward permanence. I want you to know that we’re very serious, and she’s very important to me. I love her, and there will be lots of things said in the media, and I’m going to need you all.”

Miss Ada was okay with that. She’d seen my heart. And then, we prayed as a family.

We held hands and made a circle. It’s typical of both our families to pray that way—the most natural thing in the world. I needed to be with a man for whom it would be natural. You know what? I was sorry his uncle died, but before I really
committed to Al, I had to go into his house in his small town, and before we had a meal, I had to see his family bless the table. I knew then, that when Al and I sat down at a meal in a restaurant, it wouldn’t be uncomfortable for him if I reached for his hand and said, “Let’s bless the food.” I knew when I made dinner at our own home on a Sunday or a Friday or whenever and I said, “Babe, bless the table,” he’d know what I meant.

You just need to know that I’ve spent as much time focused on his relationship with God as I did with all the other silly things that women think about like, Can this boy dress? Am I going to have to start from scratch with him because if he doesn’t know how to wear his jeans, like if he wears them too tight, I would
not
like that, okay? Women often spend time on that silliness, especially me: Does he know how to wear his hair? Does he wear too much jewelry? I can’t stand a man who smells too much, but I like a little cologne. So, you spend all that time on the superficial. You don’t spend any time on the stuff that’s really going to get you through when it’s funky.

Can he bless his table? If Al could bless his table, we’d be all right.

Then, we left there and went to my grandparents all in the same weekend. We went out to dinner together, we sat in my grandparents’ house, and my grandfather, who doesn’t say an awful lot because he’s now eighty-nine, sat there, watching Al. My grandmother talked to Al. And Al blessed my family’s table, and we prayed before dinner, and we prayed before we got on the plane.

And we were a family yoked in spirituality.

Some Amazing Statistics

The MacArthur Foundation in a recent study found that seven out of ten Americans say they’re religious and they consider spirituality to be an important part of their lives,
but
only about half of all Americans attend services—and even those go less often than once a month. The same study also says that one in three people have left the religion of their birth.

I feel that one of my personal purposes in life is to show the glory of the satisfied and spiritual life. People can manifest such a life in different ways, but I get to be on television and expose issues I think are wrong, I get to be a philan
thropist, and I get to write this book and, I hope, help people looking for love in all the wrong places. It’s all fun stuff, but in the end, I hope that my personal spirituality encourages me to be nice to people, to give back to my community, to care what others think (I never did before), and not to be arrogant. Most of all, I want my life to show thanks and worship of God—I’m the one he placed in this blessed position, and I want to stop and say thank you.

So, how do you come to spirituality if you’ve never been there before?