GOD GIRL GETS ALL ‘BEHIND THE MUSIC’ IN USA TODAY (TODAY, WEDNESDAY MAY 16!)

UPDATE: 9:40 a.m. Wednesday: OH. MAH. GAH. GG’s picture’s on the FRONT PAGE!

The marvelous religion scribe Cathy Lynn Grossman has a profile of three religion journalists and their three books in Thursday’s USA Today. And, happily, our very own God Girl is the creamy filling in the middle between Bob Abernethy of the PBS show “Religion & Ethics Newsweekly” and Krista Tippett, host of NPR’s “Speaking of Faith.”

Here’s what USA Today had to say about GG:

Notable personalities share a piece of their spiritual lives

Cathleen Falsani

Public personalities often avoid deeply personal interviews. But many opened their doors — and souls — to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani because “I asked them about something they say no one ever asks them.”

“Why do you believe what you believe? What does it mean in your life? What are you searching for?”

In her 2006 book, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, out in paperback last week,(*) Falsani interviewed an eclectic mix of people, including Barack Obama, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate; novelist Sandra Cisneros, who wears a tattoo of the Virgin Mary in the lotus position; and Mancow Muller, a Chicago shock jock who is a born-again Christian.

Falsani, 36, has master’s degrees in journalism and in theology but discovered her calling at age 12 when she heard U2 frontman Bono rocking out with lyrics drawn from the Psalms.

Bono, talking about grace, is her lead interview. “He understands that Jesus’ command to love is not love as a fuzzy feeling. We are supposed to help the people who need our help, to live more, do more, be bigger,” she says.

Bono’s is one of eight interviews from her Sun-Times series. The book has 24 others.

Falsani stood on her head to interview hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons doing yoga. His advice to the world: “Stop doing s ——— that’s hurtful.

The book has surprises. Comic Sandra Bernhard is an observant Jew. Rocker Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) is unapologetically Christian. Retired basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon calls Islam the “architecture” of his life.

Not all those interviewed are believers. Law professor Barry Scheck, head of the Innocence Project, which tries to free people who have been wrongly imprisoned, is a secular humanist, Falsani says, who “raises ethics to a spiritual level.”

Falsani says that she is an evangelical Christian and that she prays all the time. Her watchword, which concludes the book: “None is worthy, but all are welcome.”

[* Ed note: The paperback of The God Factor actually goes on sale May 29, but you can pre-order it on Amazon.com by clicking HEREand, of course, the original hardcover is still available on Amazon and in bookstores nationwide.]

TO READ CATHY’S WHOLE PIECE in USA TODAY, CLICK HERE