Steve Rogers (Captain America): For as long as I can
remember I just wanted to do what was right. I guess I'm not quite sure what
that is anymore. And I thought I could throw myself back in and follow orders,
serve. It's just not the same.
….
Peggy Carter: The world has changed and none of us can go
back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best that we can do is to
start over.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
 |
| Clark Family 2018 |
In my prior post, I detailed the process of losing my faith
in Mormonism. In this last chapter in the series, I describe the often
difficult aftermath of the last few years — disentangling from the faith and also trying to find my footing in the wake of a shattered worldview.
Apostate
In Latter-day Saint parlance, the term “apostasy” generally
refers to the spiritual state those who “turn away from the principles of the
gospel.” The church has also more pointedly described it
as “repeatedly acting in clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the
Church or its faithful leaders, or persisting, after receiving counsel, in
teaching false doctrine.” My guess is that most in the faith see those
two definitions as synonymous.
The corollary term “apostate” (someone in apostasy) in
Mormonism has historically lumped a wide range of individuals into the same
broad category:
- con
men who prey upon their congregation(s);
- sexual
predators;
- historians
whose research threatens the church’s correlated narrative;
- same-sex
marriage participants (at least from 2015-2019 — though there has been word in recent weeks that the excommunication of wedded, active same-sex couples
continues);
- podcasters
who expose the lies of church leaders;
- vocal advocates of female ordination;
- former
bishops who publicly lobby to stop the church practice of one on one
closed door interviews between youth and male priesthood leaders (that
often involve probing questions about the youth’s sexual activities);
- Couples who start Facebook support groups for those who have lost their faith in the correlated
version of Mormon truth claims; and
- Licensed sex therapists who advocate masturbation as a normal part of maturation
and sexual health, and who endorse same-sex marriage.
I further have memories, as a missionary, of using the term
“apostate” to describe missionary behaviors that were against the mission
rules, and as a label for those missionaries who wantonly broke those rules. It
was an epithet to describe the unfaithful.
Now, it apparently describes me, too.
Two Callings to One
In late March 2019, I was balancing two callings — youth
Sunday School teacher and elders quorum service coordinator.
A little more than a week after reading the CES Letter, and
with the weight of the world pressing down, I sent a carefully worded text to
the elders quorum president (the head of adult male priesthood holders in the
ward) begging off my coordinator responsibilities. I cited “personal issues”
that I didn't want to talk about.
It worked; he released me without asking for details.
This was the same day (March 31, 2019), that I spent
Sacrament meeting outlining the beliefs I had hoped to hold onto at the time
(which I included in my last post). As I was searching feverishly for spiritual
foundations, that was also the day I remembered the incident I referenced in my
first blog post in the series: getting a blessing from Dad, when I was a little
boy, for help not to be scared of the image of Medusa in my head.
At that time, it felt like the only spiritual experience in
my memory that I could trust, and that wasn’t much.
That next Sunday, now a few weeks into my world feeling
shattered, Michelle and I finally decided to loosen up a little: we informed
the kids they could now change out of their church clothes after Sunday
meetings.
They were floored by this welcome news.
Grandpa Feickert’s Death
In mid-May 2019, my Grandpa Feickert died. Family members
texted of tears and Grandpa’s happy reunion in heaven with Grandma (who had
died roughly 14 years prior). As I noted in my journal that evening, I hoped
that was true: “I really want to believe that. It’s a good thought.”
I felt my stomach tighten, though, when Mom asked me to give
some spiritual remarks at the graveside service. What could I possibly say that
would be honest, authentic, and helpful, given my recent difficulties?
In the end, I found a loophole (I am a lawyer): as we
surrounded Grandpa and Grandma’s grave in New Jersey, I framed my brief
remarks around what I knew they had believed about the future that
awaited them in death. I could readily talk about that.
No one seemed to bat an eye at the fact that I had
not borne testimony, beyond expressing a hope for that same future.
On that trip, too, I found that I was now really interested in my
uncle’s (Mom’s brother’s) perspective — who had never joined the faith — on
what it had been like to watch as the rest of his family converted to Mormonism.
It made for an evening of treasured conversation, conversation that
probably wouldn't have happened if I had still felt a defensive, vested
interest in Mormonism.
I also came dangerously close that evening to telling Mom
about my faith crisis. If I had had 20 more minutes alone with her, I probably
would have.
Skipping Church
On May 19, 2019, I intentionally skipped church for the
first time. It was almost entirely because I didn’t want to teach or
participate in the planned Sunday School lesson on “defending traditional
marriage” (i.e., preaching against same-sex marriage). I was open about
that with Michelle, but I leaned on a different, plausible excuse with my kids.
After everyone else left for church, I committed a second
heresy by spending those hours at the gym.
Describing the experience that evening, I wrote, “It was a
different experience being [at the gym] with everyone else on a Sunday morning.
I didn’t mind it too much.”
Searching for Sunday
The next Sunday, I attended church with a renewed enthusiasm
to focus on the “good” parts and connect with God. But during Sacrament meeting, I felt my frustrations growing. This is what I wrote in my notes as I
sat there that day:
It’s a cruel kind of irony now on Sunday mornings to
want so much to connect with God and nurture tender feelings of faith, and to
feel so frustrated in that purpose at church. Sometimes now just by being there
— by something said or done that’s now in conflict with an evolving sense of
what is “right” or “true” or even “good.” Or by something not said. Or memories
evoked. And to leave feeling notably worse than before. And, on the whole, to
feel you actually had a better chance of finding what you were looking for (if
it can now be found at all) by avoiding church all together.
The next Sunday, our friends the Shaws opted to skip church
for a Sunday morning hike. I was openly jealous.
That same month, June 2019, the world mourned the tragic and untimely death of Rachel Held Evans, a Christian
writer who had experienced a faith crisis with evangelical Christianity. Her
book about that experience, Searching for Sunday, had resonated with me
as I tried to navigate similar territory in Mormonism. And her funeral (with
her youth pastor memorably describing Evans’ “zero tolerance for
inauthenticity”) left me aching to believe, too.
I came away from her funeral and writings inspired to keep
moving toward faith. Even if, during that same timeframe, I described my
prayers as feeling “emptier, drier than they [have ever been].”
A few days later, I even wrote out this thought:
“Isn’t there a place for doubters like me in the church —
doubters who want to be authentic and still try to believe, doubters who still
want to be like Jesus?”
In Dreams Awake?
That night, I had a memorable dream. Grandma Feickert
appeared to me, but she couldn’t stay long. I held her hand and felt it. She
loved me.
Then I “woke up” and walked into the other room. Grandpa
Feickert was there.
For those few minutes, I felt elated: I had definitive
personal proof of life after death!
But then I really woke up, and I was sad to realize it was
all a dream.
“You’re not even really there, are you?”
By mid-June, preparing authentic Sunday School lessons for
the youth was testing the limits of my honesty and integrity. The subject
matter was the New Testament, but I wasn't sure I even believed in the divinity
of Jesus anymore (even if I still wanted to be like the version of him
described in the New Testament).
I started to feel internal pressure to ask for a release
from that calling as well.
I was also growing frustrated with God’s
continued silence. In one journal entry, I described an angry prayer that began: "You're not even really there, are you?"
But then I quickly followed that "I wanted them to be there. I want someone to be angry at, rather than just talking to myself." I really didn't want to feel alone, and I couldn't understand why God would leave me:
Where do I go from here? Maybe They [I had started
referring to God in the plural, thinking of Heavenly Mother, too] want me to be
brave. Maybe there is nothing, and we’ve created an elaborate story because
we’re afraid of death and don’t want to be alone. Maybe there’s a good reason
They feel so distant now, after years of relative nearness. Even though it’s now
that I could really stand to feel Their presence, to have that reassurance of
Their hands in my life. Now when I feel as desperate as ever and seem
wisened to the tropes and mechanisms that seemed to bring Them near before, but
which feel exposed now.
Meeting With the Bishop
A few days later, I met with the bishop — he wasn’t willing
to release me from my Sunday School calling without a meeting.
My stomach was in knots in the days leading up to that
visit.
When we finally met, I told him that I needed a release from my teaching
calling as I had “pretty much lost my faith.” I told him I wasn’t sure it would
ever come back. I did my best to carefully describe why that was without saying something that could unnecessarily injure his faith.
He responded with empathy, but mostly just listened. Gratefully, he
didn't pretend to have answers.
He did offer counsel at one point to stay with the
scriptures as I kept searching. I pushed back, though, telling him I had been
doing that, and that it still felt like God had abandoned me when I
needed him most. Also, by that point, reading scripture had started to feel
oppressive.
I told him that the ground kept crumbling beneath me to the
point that I was now openly questioning whether God was real, and it was awful. Tearfully, I told him how much I wanted for God to be real.
The bishop did share his own testimony of God, of Jesus’s
Atonement, and of the Book of Mormon. He even observed that he didn’t see how
the Book of Mormon could have come about except by God.
[I avoided the temptation to mention he sounded exactly
like me just a few months before.]
But he also told me that he wanted me to feel like I belong
and that I was welcome. No matter what.
That meant a lot at the time.
A Blessing and Confession
Two days later, my sister Sarah was in the hospital. My
brother Matt reached out to me, offering to drive me down to the hospital to
help give her a priesthood blessing. I felt trapped by the invitation, and it
was a rough experience for me to “pronounce a blessing as the Spirit directs,”
as I had diminishing confidence there was a God, and that this God had authorized me
to pronounce inspired blessings in his name.
I did the best I knew how, but it felt so fake. And for me,
there is almost no feeling more horrible [the experience of trying to give
inspired blessings was hard enough even when I believed].
 |
| Me and Sarah - 2021 |
Mom was there, looking on. She offered to give me a ride
home, and I realized this was probably the time to tell her — I was
already tired of feeling like I was living a lie.
So a few minutes into that drive, I swallowed hard and did
one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
I told Mom I had something difficult to tell her. I started
with the fact that I’d been to visit the bishop and asked to be released from
my teaching calling . . . “because I don’t think I have any faith
anymore.”
[Mom would tell me toward the end of that drive that my
setup led her to think that I was about to admit to an affair. When I asked if
the actual news (losing my faith) was better or worse, she laughed
nervously, but didn’t respond. Honestly, the aftermath has left me with the
clear impression that confessing to an affair would have, in a twisted sense,
been the more comforting of the two options for her.]
As I tried to lay things out for Mom in a generalized way, I
instinctively had the sense that I was on trial: I was presenting my case for
legitimacy and acceptance. [Whether warranted or not, this would be the case every
time I “confessed” my loss of faith to someone that I was close to.]
Mom became quiet, cautious. During that 35-minute drive, I
only remember her asking me one question: was my lost faith the result of my
marriage difficulties?
I really didn’t think so. If anything, my difficult marriage had
made me cling tighter to my faith.
I tried to convey that I had found myself in this space,
ironically, by trying to follow Jesus. I was doing the best I knew how to be
“true,” and to do what's right.
That didn't seem to register.
I also felt the need to assure her I hadn’t done
anything — I was still worthy of a temple recommend, and I didn’t have a secret
list of commandments I was anxious to break. I told her that I wanted to believe
in something, and I desperately wanted reassurance I would see Dad again. But
those feelings now conflicted with my sense of integrity and authenticity.
I told her that, mentally and spiritually, I was in an awful
space. I felt like I didn’t have any spiritual anchors now that I could trust.
Mom was uncomfortably quiet for much of the ride, and I
could tell that her guard had gone up (even if I could also tell she was trying
as best she knew how to be supportive).
I heard concern in her voice when I referred to “Mormonism” — my use of the term already putting a clear distance
between me and the faith. Also when I told her that I hoped that these
“good” yearnings within me — for fairness, kindness, love, and integrity — were
evidence of God within me, but that I couldn’t rule out they were simply an
internal evolutionary mechanism.
At my mention of “evolution” Mom made an audible note to
herself, as if keeping a list, that I was now talking about “evolution.” I felt a growing distance from her, even as I was trying to draw nearer. I couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
Mom did talk hopefully about the idea that I was
simply going through “a phase.” And, at one point, she seemed to be reassuring
herself (more than me) by observing that my doubts didn’t
negate “ultimate truth.”
She counseled me not to “do anything stupid” that would
“close any roads” [e.g., have that affair]. I assured her I wouldn’t.
As we pulled up to my car, I felt like I had been talking
the entire time but hardly explained myself. Things felt incomplete, and I had been anxious for a reassurance that never really came.
I stood outside her car and leaned into the doorway and begged her to ask me further questions in the
coming days — I really, really wanted to be understood.
Two years later, she’s never asked me anything about it
again.
A Disappointment
In the immediate aftermath of that difficult conversation, I
felt relief. Telling her hadn’t been horrible, and with disclosures to Mom and
the bishop, I figured the hardest parts were over.
Maybe they were, though I had vastly underestimated the
difficulty still in front of me. After all, I still hadn’t talked to my kids, nor any of
the hundreds of other people I knew in the faith. Those people included many
loved ones and close friends.
The extent of that remaining difficulty would become clear
early the next month.
Following Michelle’s performance in a community play in
early July 2019, I was outside the auditorium catching up with a friend who was then in our ward’s new bishopric. As we talked, I realized he didn’t know about me and where I was at
spiritually (I had asked the bishop not to tell anyone about me, and he kept his word). For all intents and purposes, my friend thought he was still speaking to
that version of me fully in the faith.
In that moment, I realized that I was still living a
lie. And I felt keenly how disappointed this friend would surely be to learn
the truth.
As I continued our conversation, it occurred to me that this
Catch-22 — living a lie vs. the sure disappointment of the truth — would follow
me everywhere. It would play out again and again with everyone in the
faith that I had ever known.
I wasn’t used to disappointing people, and realizing this
was my new reality felt thoroughly depressing.
Internal Battles
By mid-July 2019, my journal entries more fully reflected a
shifted internal battle: I was no longer trying to figure out if the church
could be true (it wasn’t). I was trying to figure out if I could even
authentically believe in a version of the Christian God.
In my reaching for those answers, I felt drawn to some
unlikely sources. In fact, one of the most helpful during that time was Oprah
Winfrey's podcast, “Super Soul Conversations.” Oprah always left me
feeling good and hopeful, and some of the people she interviewed felt
incredibly helpful in pulling me toward God.
For instance, after listening to her podcast one morning, I wrote of feeling like “I'll be able to settle into a belief in God that I can hold onto.” In those hopeful moments, I viewed my desires to be “good” as evidence of him. And I would even go farther to posit that maybe my past spiritual experiences still had meaning — “maybe despite the church rather than because of it.”
But for as often as I felt such optimism, there were at least as many days when I described feeling “so low,” “empty,” “hollow,” and “lonely.” Where once it seemed like I’d had evidence of God in abundance, his absence (especially then) could leave me feeling like I was rummaging through the scrap heap, just hoping to find any lingering traces of him.
The Temple Recommend
Throughout this time (actually, through all of 2019), I was
still attending church, though the dynamic had changed. There were moments when
certain hymns still brought good feelings, but otherwise messages about the
restored gospel, the Book of Mormon, modern prophets, missionary work, the “covenant path,” or almost anything outside of Jesus (who,
notably, almost never came up — except in passing or with impersonal allusions
to “The Atonement”), felt triggering.
More often than not, church left me feeling anxious.
So I got used to checking out and focusing on other things
during the meetings (thank goodness for smart phones!). Eventually, though, I
began ducking out of the 2nd hour entirely.
One thing that had weighed heavily on me was what to do
about the temple and my temple recommend. The church places a heavy
emphasis on remaining “worthy” of the temple, and I had clearly
internalized that message. As estranged as I was becoming from orthodox
Mormonism, it was still difficult to think of not having (or being worthy of) a
temple recommend.
Whether it’s intended that way or not, the temple recommend
is a status symbol in the church — a
marker of faithfulness and 1st class citizenship in the kingdom of God. Letting go of it would also mean that, if my
children chose to marry in the temple (or if they chose to serve missions and receive
their temple endowment beforehand), I wouldn’t be there with them.
I agonized over this.
One day, though, I remembered one of
the questions of the temple worthiness interview: “Do you have a
testimony of the restoration of the gospel [restored through Joseph Smith] in
these the latter days?”
I knew that I didn’t. And I knew that I wasn't willing to
lie about that. Suddenly, the decision became very easy: I was already “unworthy” to enter the temple. There was nothing more to agonize
over and decide.
It surprised me how much peace that clarity brought me.
More Wrestling
By early August 2019, I began to feel like I was
lying to my children by not telling them where I was at, and by holding onto orthodox
practices that I no longer believed in. On August 7, 2019, I wrote that I was "wrestling with when and how to tell the kids
about what's up."
A few days later, Michelle and I at least started that process. After church on August 11, 2019, we took each of our
kids aside for a brief chat. We wanted to emphasize to them that we were learning
to think for ourselves (as opposed to having the church do our thinking): we would decide what was best for our family.
In our discussion with Jared, then 15, I ended up telling
him that I was no longer comfortable giving priesthood blessings. He,
understandably, grew upset and pressed me about why. I vaguely admitted I had problems
with Joseph Smith, but I tried assuring him I was still trying to do the “right” thing — I just wasn't sure what that was.
This expression of good intent wasn’t enough to comfort my
son, and he remained angry with me afterward. He would even confide to Michelle
that I clearly wasn’t trying hard enough.
The next day, though, he sent an unexpected text, assuring
me that things were ok: he just wanted our family to “do what's right and
be like Jesus.”
Opening Up to a Friend
In mid-August 2019, I exchanged emails with my close friend
Christopher Beesley (then in the stake presidency in our old San Diego stake).
In response to his general queries, I confided:
“I have all but lost my faith. The church, for me, is
not what it claims to be. And I'm further struggling with notions of God and
Jesus. So pretty much just about everything that's been important to me.”
After I sent it off, I realized how heavy a thing I’d done, and I spent the next several hours agonizing over how he’d respond.
Fortunately, Christopher would text me in the early
afternoon, referencing Captain America’s line near the end of The Winter
Soldier: no matter what, he was "with [me]. . . to the end of the
line."
That response brought me to tears. I knew he meant it.
Coping Mechanisms
During this time, my early mornings at the gym were
breeding grounds for existential crises. The irony was that those early
morning hours used to be when I felt nearest to God — when I could discern him most
clearly. Now, though, I spent the time ruminating on the implications of
losing my faith entirely. That possibility, which felt inevitable on my worst
days, was soul crushing and threatened to rob my life of all the meaning I had
ever hoped to find in it.
I wasn’t the best at handling this added stress. One of my
chief coping mechanisms has always been food — lots and lots of sugary food
(there is a reason my site is titled “The Forbidden Donut”). Which, of course, has almost always left me feeling far worse.
And yet, I felt almost helpless to stop it.
Mormon Stories
During these months (and for awhile afterward), one of the
greatest comforts was hearing the stories of others whose experiences with the
faith were similar to mine. This is where podcasts like Mormon Stories (a long running podcast that now mostly features interviews of those who have left Mormonism) felt
like a life preserver, helping to keep me afloat.
In this regard, I keenly remember Anthony Miller's Mormon
Stories interview in August 2019. It is several hours long (for better or
worse, they all seem to be that way). As I listened to Miller describe his own faith deconstruction, and his pain and disillusionment with Mormonism, I had to hold back tears a few times — his story felt like my own. He also seemed to have, eventually, found some peace.
Miller’s story (and others’) helped me feel I wasn’t alone.
And they reminded me that, even in really dark times, there is
comfort in realizing that yours is a shared grief — that you are not the
only one trying to manage feelings of loss, or to navigate disillusioned
uncertainty.
Telling the Kids
In late August 2019, it felt like time to tell my kids, at least about me (Michelle was still trying to figure out what kind of relationship she wanted to have with the church).
As
we got home from church one Sunday, Michelle and I gathered everyone around the
kitchen table. The kids grew apprehensive at the prospect of a serious
discussion. I told them what I’d been telling everyone lately: that I
didn't believe anymore, that I didn’t think the church was what it claimed to
be, and I wasn’t sure about God and Jesus.
I told them that I wanted to believe, but I just didn’t know.
Jared flashed an unexpected grin and boasted that he’d
already known what I was going to say.
Emily and Natalie, though, were torn up
at news. Emily burst out in anger at me. Natalie, meanwhile, responded with
instant, anguished tears: “This means you won’t go to the Celestial Kingdom?!”
She then asked meekly if this also meant we wouldn’t be
together as a family in the next life.
It was a piercing question from my little girl, but I had
expected something like it.
I tried to reassure Natalie that if God was real, I
couldn’t imagine him keeping us apart. I was, after all, just trying to do the
best I knew how with the information I had. I also tried to convey how much I
loved them, and how much I just wanted to do the right thing.
Remarkably, my answer seemed to put Natalie immediately at
ease. I saw her whole body relax, and she dried her tears. She then hugged me
and told me it was ok to believe what I wanted.
Emily softened, too, and also hugged me.
The rest of that afternoon and evening, the kids peppered me
with questions about what I believed and didn't believe now, and the
implications of that shift (i.e., what could they now get away with?).
Meanwhile, because Michelle hadn’t said anything about herself, the kids had the impression that she was still fully “in” the faith — she was still one of them. So they would confide in her with questions and observations they weren't quite comfortable sharing with me.
It was an emotionally draining day all around.
Proactive Steps
After telling the kids, it felt like time to be more
proactive and alert key people in the ward. I texted our home
teacher/ministering brother (someone assigned in the ward to look after our
family) to let him know where I was at.
I also explicitly told him we wouldn’t mind his continued
visits.
He responded that he loved our family, and that felt
comforting at the time. But then he would never again try to set up another
home visit. For someone who had faithfully visited us prior to that (and
whom we had considered a good family friend), the absence was notable.
I also set up a meeting with the elders quorum president. I wanted to set boundaries over how the ward dealt with my family going forward: We didn’t want our family discussed in ward council; we didn’t want to become a ward project or subject of concern (I had been in enough council meetings to know what that looked like); we didn’t want the kids to be treated any differently.
We wanted, too, to have a modicum of control over the narrative.
During this meeting, I wondered openly if there was even a place
for me now (as a doubter) in priesthood meetings. I had felt out of place for some time, but I still rather expected the same
unqualified reassurance the bishop had given me months before.
That wasn’t quite the response, though. In a tone that seemed
like it was meant to be encouraging, this good man assured me that I could certainly come, sit silently in the back of the room, and “just listen.”
I was taken aback, but I tried not to show it (I got the sense that it hadn’t even occurred to this man that he had said something potentially hurtful). As introverted as I am, I used to enjoy participating in quorum meetings with questions and comments. But since things had fallen apart, I felt like I couldn’t (or shouldn’t) participate — no one comes to church to have their faith challenged by the disillusioned.
The elders quorum president now seemed to be confirming this: I was welcome to attend. . . so long as I remained silent.
I also asked if I could continue as a personal minister to
my neighbor and his family. Given how hard it is to get people to make regular
visits, I expected he would welcome this continued engagement.
But he surprisingly nixed that, too. Ministering is a priesthood responsibility, and he cited my discomfort
with giving priesthood blessings.
In a way, that proved to be a great relief to me, especially
when I realized that I didn’t need the church’s permission (or a calling) to
make sure I was there for my friend and his family.
After our meeting, the only thing still tethering me to the
faith was my actual membership: I no longer had any responsibilities.
Growing Frustrations with God
In late August/early September 2019, I was still trying to work out whether I could believe in God, though all that “work” continued against the backdrop of his pronounced absence. For someone who really wanted to believe, God’s silence was incredibly frustrating. And, as I wrote in my journal entry on August 28, 2019, it didn’t make any sense — especially if the idea was that his silence was part of
some “test”:
I’ve tried thinking through this morning why a perfect
and loving God would make it so hard to figure out if he’s even real. [Life is]
hard enough even if we were to know [he is real]. And if this life were meant
as a test, why are the rules of the test, the material we’re being tested on,
what the test is and how it’s supposedly scored, and even whether it’s
really a test — why would this all be made so hard to discern? And why
would there be such disparity of opinion and belief on these matters amongst
those who sincerely want to figure this out?
I still had the occasional hopeful moments, but they had become rather sparse. A few days later, I noted this about one of my still regular prayers: “My
prayers included the observation that it didn’t seem like God was there — that
if He was, I couldn’t understand why He would do this to me.”
Efforts to “Help”
In early September 2019, certain members of my family, and
even some in our ward, reached out to send me conference talks, or
quotes from church authorities. This unsolicited material came because the people who read these materials were “thinking” of me and thought the materials might “help” [usually this kind of language is code for when someone feels they’ve been prompted by the Holy Ghost].
I knew these people meant well. In fact, for many years, I
used to do the same thing. But now these efforts felt more frustrating than
anything. None of those sending me stuff had taken any time to even ask about
where I was at spiritually, much less try to find out why. And yet, that
didn’t stop them from sending me things they thought would “help.”
For me, it was akin to a doctor prescribing treatment for a
patient without ever bothering to ask what was wrong, without ever trying to
find out where it hurt and why. In medicine, that would be considered clear malpractice. But in the faith, too many traffic in certainties about those who
leave without ever bothering to talk to them (apparently with the idea that the Holy Ghost can tell them what they need to know).
If these friends and loved ones had asked, they would have
known that I was probably far more familiar with these talks and quotes
than they were. And they might have learned why I now found them completely
unhelpful.
But precious few ask.
So, shortly thereafter, I emailed my family asking them to
stop sending me such things — at least until they had taken the time to
understand where I was at and why.
A Last Ditch Effort at Prayer
I believe I stopped praying regularly in mid-September 2019. The day before had felt particularly taxing, and I ended up going
to bed a little after 7pm.
[Going to bed that early has almost never worked out the way
I hoped it would.]
By 1 am, I was wide awake, still exhausted but unable to get
back to sleep — not with all of the heavy things on my mind. I finally got up
around 1:30 am.
The moon was so bright, and I went outside to take it in. It
was too cold, though, to spend more than a few minutes out there.
So I came inside and sat on one of our reclining chairs in the
living room. In the darkness, I prayed aloud, thoughtfully, deliberately,
slowly:
I want you to be there...
I want there to be someone to thank for the kindness of
my circumstances...
I want there to be someone wiser than I am, and
infinitely more perfect, that I can rely on and trust...
But you seem to be gone. You have left that corner of the
room where I used to find you...
And I can't understand why you would do that to me.
As with all my other prayers in the six months prior,
this one, too, met with silence. I didn’t even want anything from him — just some indication that he was still there. But even that seemed to be too much to ask for.
In the minutes after that prayer, still in the darkness of those early hours, I moved past the point of frustration; I now felt resigned to his absence.
Since that night, I have experimented with prayer once or
twice, but that was the last time that I really tried. For as often
as I had sung (and believed) the hymn, “Where Can I Turn for Peace?”, this god I had worshipped so fervently — this god I had felt so keenly in my
naivete — no longer “reach[ed] my reaching.”
It was about time to move on.
“I really miss believing”
A few days later, I noted that “I really miss believing,” but I had started to wonder if all of my spiritual experiences “were just the result of some version of the placebo effect.”
Not long after (I believe during a
Sacrament meeting), I started to think more critically of my experiences with god. It seemed to me that “god” was probably little more than a construct I had used to talk to and teach myself. And suddenly, some things made much more sense:
Who he is or becomes for us — for mankind — seems to
almost always be who we think he is; who we think he should be. So he’s
vengeful and jealous in the Old Testament. Polygamous in the Doctrine &
Covenants. That seems to be why god is always fitting in with what we think or
want him to be. Why he was so demanding and withholding of approval in my early
years. And why he’d become much more loving and understanding in these later
years.
These desires for good — to be kind, to reach out to
the marginalized — might not really be god after all but just the product of
empathy, of allowing other people (and their pains and difficulties) to become
real to me. Otherwise, how did so many others throughout history screw things
up so horribly?
By mid-November 2019, I had mostly settled into the space I
find myself now. In a text exchange with my brother Bryan, I described myself as “an agnostic, leaning toward atheist.” Given my experience, it was the only conclusion that felt intellectually honest.
A Walking Shadow
To say I had “settled” into agnosticism does not
at all mean that I was at peace. The truth is that
confronting the likelihood that there was no god left me in a dark, dark place.
I felt a profound loss of meaning. And though I was desperate to
fill the gaping hole left by my former faith, I also felt inherently skeptical
of anything offered up as a purported replacement; I was not about to be
fooled again.
My journal entries for most of 2019 and 2020 actually reflect a
persistent depression (the pandemic didn’t help), which I frequently tried to assuage with cycles of binge
eating and striving for drastic changes to my physique. Those cycles tended to compound my difficulties.
In this reframed reality, life felt so much more precious to me —
it was all I had — but at the same time, almost completely meaningless. Death felt so much more terrifying now, but then I also grappled with the nagging feeling that nothing I did between now and then really mattered (though it was still important not to screw things up for my
kids and other loved ones). I felt all the more anxious to hold
onto my life, but I couldn’t get
past the feeling that what I was trying to hold onto
meant so little now.
Twenty-five years since Mrs. Williams’ high school English
class, and I could only now understand Macbeth’s description of life as a “walking shadow” that might be “full of sound and fury” but ultimately “signify[]
nothing”:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
The more anxiously I searched for something to hold onto —
something to reassure me this dark view of reality was not accurate —
the more I felt stuck with it. So the early mornings of
existential crisis continued. Also a few evenings curled up in a ball on my
bed, sobbing. And there were many moments where these thoughts stopped me in my tracks and took my breath from me (and not in a good
way).
Pandemic Upheaval
As we rolled into 2020 (before the pandemic became our reality), I decided to stop attending church entirely. Michelle still wanted to go, since she found value (and had a voice) in the community, and she was still playing the organ for ward services.
This meant our kids now had the option to stay home with me or go to church with her.
I would not have minded the peace and quiet, but the kids increasingly opted stay home. [Michelle and I had made a point to allow the kids to hold onto their faith — we would support whatever level of activity they chose, and we were careful to not purposefully tear down any of their beliefs. We would, though, answer their questions honestly. The girls claim now they never really believed, that they were quickly delighted by my loss of faith. Which, ok. Jared was the most cautious of the three. For several months, he continued to attend seminary, and that meant he would sometimes challenge me on points of doctrine and church history, though he had never been ok with the church's treatment of those identifying as LGBTQIA. Eventually, though, as he did his own research (outside the correlated materials), Jared, too, grew disenchanted with Mormonism. He’s a sharp and sensitive kid who asks great questions — he is so much farther along than I was (on so many things) at his age.]
That same month, January 2020, I went public with my loss of faith — here and on Facebook — as I reflected on the five year anniversary of Dad’s death. It felt important to me to be open about things, especially given how public I had been before about my former faith.
A few in the ward, including that friend in the bishopric and the neighbor I had ministered to, responded beautifully. They were appropriately sad, but they assured me that my loss of faith would not change our friendship. And perhaps most important: their interactions with me since have confirmed that.
Meanwhile, the pandemic ended in-person services around March 2020. That gave Michelle a forced reprieve from her organ calling and allowed her to experience Sundays without meetings. It seemed to surprise her a little how much she did not miss church, and she began commenting on how this “day of rest” now actually felt restful and enjoyable. She certainly seemed much more relaxed. Our family started doing Sunday brunches and hikes, and it felt like a whole other world opened up for us to have an extra day in the week.
Counseling
The pandemic did take its toll, though. I was already feeling a loss of community in retreating from the faith. And then, as I was forced to stay at home for months on end, the isolation tended to further feelings of depression.
Eventually, in mid-2020 (so several months into this blog
project), I sought out counseling for help with those persistent dark feelings in connection with my faith transition [it turns out there's a cottage industry in
the coaching/counseling business for helping people transition away from
Mormonism.] I had wanted help for awhile, but it was another thing entirely to actually
make calls and set up an appointment. I just wasn’t sure what real “help” would even look like. How could a counselor or coach help me
find “meaning” or provide better answers to my questions? And did
that require trusting a different kind of authority figure?
As I noted above, I desperately wanted guidance, but I also
wasn’t just going to trust those who purported to have it.
I eventually landed with Jana Spangler, of Symmetry Solutions. She is among several in that group that specialize in helping people through faith transitions.
Ironically, Jana is a practicing Mormon, though perhaps one of the most nuanced Mormons I've ever known.
In our first session together, she listened carefully to my
story and wept with me. As part of that story, I talked about feeling like I
was staring into the abyss.
She told me that was ok.
I told her, though, that I felt stuck staring into the abyss — I couldn’t look away. And all that staring left me anxious and
fretting, in part because I wondered if something was wrong with me. She told
me that was ok, too, and nothing was wrong with me; it was actually an
important part of the journey.
In fact, she suggested it was part of my own “inner
wisdom” telling me to wrestle with the lack of meaning in my life. She suggested
that I listen to, and learn to trust, my inner voice.
In other words, she was telling me trust myself.
Why did that feel like such a foreign concept?
In our sessions together, we explored Fowler’s stages of faith. She also had me read Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward (whom she’d
studied with) for his discussion of first and second half of life spirituality.
Rohr, a nuanced Catholic priest who embraces mysticism and contradiction,
suggested that 2nd half of life spirituality (which many Mormons never get to)
is about wrestling with paradox and teasing out something greater. He offers
the idea that it is all part of a grander adventure we are meant to set out on
— that there is some greater meaning on the other side of this new
quest.
There was a certainly a beauty and pull to Rohr’s ideas, but
I honestly had a hard time making sense of them. I had an even harder time
trusting the setup of Rohr’s paradigm: it seemed, after all, to assume a belief in god. And why should Rohr know better than anyone else if god is
real? Better than me? And if his paradigm was accurate, why couldn’t he explain it to me in a way
that I could understand?
When I reluctantly shared these criticisms with Jana, she
seemed almost delighted. I hadn’t expected that. But then again, one of the
primary themes of our work together was to learn to trust myself, to follow my
natural curiosity, and to notice what's happening inside me (with far
less judgment or assessment than I was used to).
She pointed me toward secular Buddhism and suggested I might
find it helpful. I really did. The “four noble truths” of Buddhism
offered a reframing of life that felt real to me in a way that the prosperity
gospel of Mormon Christianity never had [e.g., Mosiah 2:41: “And moreover,
I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those
that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things,
both temporal and spiritual. . . .”].
There wasn’t any particular magic to our sessions, though
there is an almost magical quality to feeling truly understood, especially by
someone who has walked where you have. She pointed me to several helpful
resources that broadened my understanding and interests. And, perhaps most
important, she helped me strip away much of the judgment I (often unwittingly)
harbored toward myself and my efforts to figure things out (e.g., that my
experience seemed to be so different — more devastating — from almost everyone
else I knew).
I came away from our 4 sessions with a growing confidence in
myself and my ability to navigate this new terrain. Which is not at all
to say I felt any lasting release from the emptiness of that liminal space,
though there were moments. And, here and there, I began to have mornings
when I was not working through an existential crisis. And sometimes,
though there were still plenty of lows, I eventually felt the occasional high.
Those “highs” showed up most often in the form of
gratitude — for what has been and for what remains.
Resigning Membership
As I’ve noted above, in disentangling from the church, I had tried to be open and
up front with people. We had also tried to set boundaries with how we wanted the church to interact with our family.
But as time wore on, and especially as my kids stopped attending meetings and activities, we noticed more and more “rescue” efforts from ward members/neighbors. While we still had healthy interactions with several people from the ward (Michelle especially), it also felt like we were becoming a project for at least a few of the ward auxiliaries.
Perhaps most emblematic of this was when the ward mission leader stopped by, with the missionaries, at Christmas time to sing to us and drop off a gift. This after we had already received a neighborhood gift from the mission leader’s family.
It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on.
Of course everyone meant well, but that dynamic bothered us. We didn’t want our interactions with
neighbors to be colored with even the possibility that their kindness was part
of an effort to “rescue” us (bring us back to church activity). And
yet, by leaving our names on the church rolls, I felt like I was tacitly
complicit with these continued efforts.
As I grew more disaffected from the institutional church (with what I saw as harmful doctrines and practices), it also bothered me that I would be included among the
number of church members announced at general conference (yes, that’s a thing).
Remaining on the rolls, for me, implied that I believed in it, at some level. I
did not.
So in early 2021, after yet another knock on the door to encourage my kids’ attendance at some ward activity, I made the decision to resign my membership. We decided, too, that we should remove the kids from the rolls. They were in total agreement by that point, but Michelle and I also didn't want the church following them around into adulthood (because it would if they remained on the rolls).
If they want to rejoin as adults, now fully informed about the problematic aspects of the faith, they can certainly choose that. But in the mean time, having brought our children into the faith without much choice in the matter, we felt we owed them a clean break.
Michelle took a bit longer to
submit her resignation. As I alluded to above, a big part of why she wanted to stay was to be a continued voice, within the faith, for those on the margins. But as many of us who have left can attest, that can be a hard position to hold — especially when your voice cuts against the correlated materials and the people in power. After she met with the bishop (to discuss how to talk about and treat those who leave), it became clearer to her that her voice really wasn’t as welcome as she had hoped it would be. And then, after BYU sought to distance itself from a pro-LGBTQIA display put on by some students, she decided she no longer wanted her name associated with the faith — the faith was causing too much harm to the very people she’d wanted to stay to be a voice for.
For those unfamiliar with high demand religions, the church makes the process of resigning one’s membership unnecessarily cumbersome. I'll avoid my tale of myriad frustrations in that process, though I’ll note that bishop was understanding and accommodating. That meant a lot to us.
Perhaps mostly because the church makes it out to be such a huge deal, we felt a certain heaviness to signing and sending off our resignation letters. But the more time and distance we put between ourselves and the church, the better we’ve felt about our decision.
Wrapping Up
As I conclude this project, I battle the nagging feeling
that I need to have some grand reconciliation — a deeper meaning beneath the
surface of the feelings of depression and emptiness that still linger occasionally. Or that I need to describe having found a thing that’s better (or at least commensurate) to what
I’ve lost.
I wish I could.
But if I’m being honest, after 40+ years in Mormonism, I’m
really just at the beginning stages of finding my way forward. I get the sense
that’s ok. In fact, I heard former Mormon John Larsen say that, in general, one should expect
this unwinding process to take at least one year for every decade in the faith.
By my calculations, that gives me at least another two years before I should
start to worry.
In the meantime, if I have found any secure footing, it
seems to be in moving toward kindness, courage, and integrity. Despite all the
turmoil of the last few years, those values have remained constant. And I’m
happy to report that I don’t seem to need god or religion to still feel drawn
to them.
Of course, I fall short of those ideals all the time, but
that’s nothing new.
It occurred to me this week that, in a real sense, I’m still
“put[ting] [my] trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do
justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously.” [D&C 11:12]. It’s just that
these ideals have increasingly put me at odds with Mormonism. Yes, there is
still a great deal of good in the church. But, as someone else has observed:
The things that are good about Mormonism are not unique to Mormonism. And the
things that are unique to Mormonism, far too often, are not good.
In this post-Mormon space, I have tried to make peace with the
idea that this life is all there is — that the only thing I am guaranteed is
the moment I’m living right now. As I noted above, this perspective does
make life feel more precious now than I had ever felt as a believer (when I
pined away for a future heaven). Candidly, though, this added value in the
present sometimes becomes yet another stick to beat myself with — when things already feel hopeless and empty; it tends to compound feelings of depression.
Often in those low points, the best I can think to do is remind
myself of Viktor Frankl’s stirring observation in Man's Search for Meaning:
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of
bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that
everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to
choose one’s own way.
Sometimes that’s enough to rouse me out of the doldrums: the idea that when
all else fails, I can still choose kindness, integrity, and gratitude.
But then, while it feels necessary not to shy away from
those difficult feelings, it’s also important to note that they don’t always
carry the day. In fact, they seem to have less of a presence the farther along I get on this path.
Also, in many, many ways, my circumstances have improved
significantly in recent years.
My marriage is in a much better place. Michelle and I have
gone through this process together, and I feel a healthy connection to her that
was elusive for most of our years before (and not just because our Sundays are much improved).
I have a closer relationship with my kids, and some of our
candid post-Mormon discussions with them have felt priceless. My kids are
learning to think for (and trust) themselves, and it brings me some peace to
know they’ll grow into adulthood without much of the baggage that Michelle and
I carried with us from Mormonism.
I also feel notably less anxious now than I did two years
ago. Or even a year ago, when I started this project. That’s not so much
because I've found the satisfying answers I’d been searching for. Mostly it’s
because I'm adjusting to (learning to make peace with) the unsatisfying
answers that I’d feverishly tried to avoid the last few years.
We humans can be resilient that way.
There are days now when I feel an almost childlike wonder at
learning new things (as opposed to the years when I had to fit all new
information into the Mormon paradigm). I am particularly intrigued by the
psychology of belief and the workings of the mind, especially as they relate to
my former convictions. And I’m further fascinated by what it takes to shift one’s deeply held convictions, especially in the face of confirmation bias,
belief persistence, and the backfire effect.
You could say that I still chase after a kind of
“spirituality,” though it takes continued work not to equate that word with how
I defined it as a Mormon (i.e., obedience and rule following, as well as a
pursuit of the metaphysical and supernatural). Meditation has largely replaced prayer
for me. And, as I noted above, I find meaning in a secular Buddhist approach to
life and suffering. At the same time, I remain intensely skeptical of anything
approaching “woo woo” spirituality and mysticism.
I see that skepticism as healthy. If there is a god, he gave me the ability to think critically. And I cannot subscribe to the idea that he would expect me to set his gift aside to be able to know him.
My skepticism aside, though, I feel more drawn than ever to
want to connect with others over deeper questions of belief and the nature of
reality — especially with those who can
make genuine space for my loss of faith.
It helps now that I feel less need to defend a particular
worldview.
It also helps that there’s a part of me that’s still searching, that wants to learn, and that (at least theoretically) is open to
having my understanding turned on its head once more — even as I feel increasingly
grounded in my own journey and conclusions.
I crave and deeply appreciate the moments in life when I
detect genuine vulnerability in others. And at the same time, I’m learning that
my own vulnerability won’t always engender the understanding I hope for. The farther along I get on this path, though, the less need
I feel to justify myself, or to win the acceptance of those who aren’t inclined
to respect (or who feel threatened by) my efforts and conclusions.
If nothing else, this project has helped me appreciate and
make peace with who I am and where I’ve come from. It has also helped grow my
confidence in who I want to be going forward.
And it seems like, in telling my story, I’ve helped at least a few others feel a
little less alone in theirs. It has certainly helped me connect with many others with stories similar to my own.
Speaking of hopes, I hope I have several more decades (at
least) to stick around in relatively good health. I do want to make the most of
whatever time I have left — to realize life while I’m living it. I hope to fill as many days as I can with kindness,
compassion, gratitude, understanding, purpose, love, contentment, laughter,
good food, and perhaps even a few moments of unbridled joy.
And who knows: maybe, against all hope and probability, I’ll
be pleasantly surprised when I get to the other side.
Alone At Sea
Alone in my little ship
Tossed with bois’trous waves and wind
He rests in hinder part asleep
And wakes I know not when.
‘Neath cloudless skies we set the sail
And at his pleasure journeyed hence
Our aim the other side to pass—
He felt so near me then.
The ship now full, He sleepeth still
Whilst I labor sore afraid
Through years of troubled seas and dark
Few mem’ries linger of the shore
The wet and gloom drain aching limbs
I feebly cling to stern and oar,
Ever watchful for his stirring
‘Mid fear He wakes for me no more.
Wake, Dear Master! Wake! I perish!
Rebuke the winds and waves and dark
E’en thy censure would I cherish
To sense thy hand ‘gainst tempest’s roar
****
he did not wake.
he left me.
To face the threat’ning storms alone
I kept a faithful watch (and wept)
Confused why he had gone
Years later now, and still at sea
And somehow yet my ship afloat
I chart my own course toward the shore
In view of others’ kindly boats
I doubt now if he ever was —
That he was near at even tide
And yet,
I shouldn’t mind to see him there
When I reach the other side.
