What Do You Write About When There's No Longer a God?

This week I was talking with a friend who is a brilliant poet, and she mentioned that as she has recently moved away from the church, she feels as if she no longer has anything to write about. I mentioned that I’d felt the same for several years post Mormonism, and as we continued to talk about it, I said some things aloud that I realized were and are still true for me as I continue down the road beyond religion.

For a long time, my writing thrived inside of the tension the church provided. I think in many ways, this “thriving” extended beyond my creative pursuits and dictated my personhood. The stakes for everything felt so high, and so, when I wrote or spoke something inside of Mormonism, it honestly felt like it was a means of helping people be saved.

Or even better, when I wrote something that was counter to what the church might like, (which I did often on the By Common Consent Blog), it felt particularly heroic. I think we all love a good fight for justice, and the church provided excellent grounds to practice that muscle. I always had something to be fired up about, while at the same time, exercising the ability to also find the good about the gospel, and so, inside of that roiling ball of tension, I was able to produce a lot of work. It was a refiners fire that constantly felt important.

I don’t resent this fact because this scenario provided me with some valuable skills about being intentional with my thoughts and words, it helped me to know how to defend an idea, it helped me articulate with greater clarity.

The problem then, was that when, after a lot of work, I was able to step outside of that particular fire, leave that roiling ball of tension behind me, I felt a flatness to my thoughts that I had not experienced before.

If I was no longer grappling with the creator of the universe and some of the most powerful men in the world, then what could I possibly have to say of value?

What I have learned over the years though, is that the fields beyond that perceived and absolute importance will not lie fallow forever, or even very long. When you leave a field fallow, it is often a period of inactivity in order to restore fertility to the land.

I have learned, and am still very much learning, that my brain, my creativity, who I had built myself into inside of Mormonism, very much needed a period of rest. I could not write to the same topics, with the same urgency, inside of the same paradigm anymore. It wasn’t that I didn’t have things to say, or that I wasn’t thinking hard, but rather, I had expended so much energy to say so much in order to stay and then finally leave the church, that all I craved was quietude. A period of rest.

In the past six years, I have come face to face with doubt about my abilities. Like, did I only have something to say when I was writing about God and the church? The answer was and is still, no, but when you are inside of an environment that gatekeeps the world from you, it is hard to find your footing beyond it.

Portrait my 7-year old made of me. I love it so much.

I am, like all of us, still in the process of planting and sowing my first harvests without the soil of religion. I am both relieved and grateful to find that I still have so much to write about. In some ways it feels far less heroic, and more mundane, but I’ve come to appreciate the maturity required of my voice in those spaces. I cannot rely on frantic emotion or high stakes to move the work along. I find myself sitting more and more with exactly what I know, which is so little, and yet, still enough. I find a peace in the writing that is developing now, in the ways that I approach creative work in my life. It is not necessarily built to save or change or disrupt, it just is. I just am.

The church would have you believe that you lose your value when you leave it, and for a time, I grasped on to that belief. I felt as if the foundation of my creative pursuits did not belong to me, but that was never true, even when I used my creativity exclusively as the church would have wanted me to (hello, welcome to the first person to sell hand-painted prints of the temples at craft markets and made so much money).

I feel like now I am meeting a more refined version of that creator. Skeptical of so much, yes. Wary of hope, faith and anything with a whiff of saccharine, yes. Lacking a set of defining beliefs about the world and the afterlife, yes. But also, more comfortable in my skin, yes. Delighted by things like small purple flowers and snow on the mountain, yes.

The church, God, prayer, the scriptures, my mission, belief, tension, progressive Mormonism, did not have ownership over my writing, my art, my ideas, my ability to exist in the world. They offered me a training grounds to test my creativity, but here on the other side, I can see that this is just the beginning. A quiet beginning that does not require approval from anyone. A solo expedition toward all the beauty, grief and mysterious that is still out there waiting. It’s there for you too.

On listening to music that swears

And what my kids have taught me

Last Sunday night we decorated Christmas sugar cookies at the family table with my almost 14-year old son, my almost 12-year old daughter and a little sister who tags along for everything. On the speaker—Tyler the Creator, Mac Miller and our latest favorite, Kneecap, a trio from Ireland who rap in native Irish. What do all these have in common besides being creative, very good music? They all swear, a lot.

I am always surprised by what Mormonism embedded so deeply in me that six years after setting foot in my last Sunday School classroom, I am just discovering the thread that I can pull to examine what is there.

As my kids turn into teenagers, I recognize that parenting is requiring a different set of rules than I had previously ascribed to. Over the past year my two oldest kids, much to my delight, have taken a strong interest in music. Growing up, my dad had a huge record and cassette tape collection and he instilled in me a deep love for good music, “tasty” as he calls it.

From sixth grade on I had my cassette tape player and headphones with me all the time. I was an overly sentimental kid, laying in bed at night crying to The Cranberries, the first Coldplay album, Tom Petty, Belle and Sebastian, and Lauryn Hill. It was a transcendent time for me as I found my favorite bands and songs, and eventually, started going to concerts on the weekends.

There was always a keen awareness though that some music was unacceptable. There was some music I just didn’t listen to or buy because it was the type of music we learned about at youth conference that was “evil”. There were CD’s I just didn’t buy because I knew they’d end up in the bonfire that happened at youth activities where kids brought their favorite albums like sacrificial lambs and threw them into the flames with a renewed hope to “be better”, to rid themselves of the evils of the world.

A few weeks ago, as I drove my son to his soccer game thirty minutes away, he asked to play some songs that he likes. We’ve shared our music with him for years, and I wanted him to know I am interested in what he loves, so he started through his series of current favorite music. I could tell he was a little hesitant, even though we’ve talked about the fact that I’m okay with him making the choices about what he listens to, (though I did tell him I’m not okay with anything violent or diminishing of any other human and their body.)

It felt a little different though as song after song used the full spectrum of swear words and we sat on either side of it. I felt as if it were a sort of test, and I think I’m not wrong. I could see my son watching my reaction, to see if I approved of his music, and ultimately of him. At first, all those lessons from church came rising up in me. All those years of believing that people who experienced the world in very different ways than my Mormon upbringing were “evil”. I let the feelings come, and then instead of speaking them aloud, I just listened with him. I liked his music, genuinely, and the more I was excited about what he was showing me, the more he opened up and showed me more.

Remy is a tender kid, one that tells me he eats with kids who are on their own at lunch. He’s not perfect, of course, but one who is treading into the world trying to figure out who he is and often I see him coming back to this idea that kindness and openness is a tenet of his character. I only write this to remind myself of the lines I drew and the judgments I made about kids who listened to music that swore, and just how untrue they were and are.

I see that the music Remy listens to is just as important to his development as mine was to me. I see the way his voice quickens when he tells me about the way the bass shook his whole body at the first concert he went to a few weeks ago. That is important. That is life. I know the musician he went to see swears in his lyrics. He gave my son that moment of connection to himself and his body.

As a kid, even with my non-judgmental, former surfer hippie parents, I would have never listened to this type of music with them around. I was so adept at policing myself, that I would have thrown the music in the bonfire without them implying that I should. I stepped so far back from any line that I simply was not aware of so much. I was afraid of the people who swore, wary of their culture and way of being. Scared of whatever it was that led them to make music that I believed would not be approved if Jesus himself were in the room listening with me.

I realize now, as a parent, that my kids will enter a diverse world with or without me. My disapproval will not change what they love, it will only make them feel guilty about it.

What I’ve recognized over the past year is just how judgmental and dismissive I had spent most of my life being. It’s a hard pill to swallow. I see how this idea that because someone swears, sings about sex and sexuality (I see you Doja Cat), or simply comes from a culture that is not my own, is so dismissive of humanity in general. It is a tool of separation and piety that actually doesn’t serve us in the ways we believe it is.

Ultimately, I’ve had to sit with the idea that I believed, and am in the process of rooting out this belief still, that I am better than someone else because that is not necessarily how I grew up engaging with the world. I am untangling binaries between good and evil and realizing that neither word is serving me.

I want my kids to grow up knowing that what and who they are does not belong to the camp of “good” or “evil” and in the same way, they don’t have to do the laborious and demeaning work of assigning value to other humans either. I mean, of course I get that there are some real atrocities done by people will terrible motives (like I hope my kids choose not to listen to P Diddy because of what he has done to so many women), and I want them to be aware of that, but that is not the type of people and actions I am talking about in this moment.

I am just in the middle of this uncovering. I am just recently allowing myself to listen to a wider breadth of music than I would have previously. I am just realizing how much I still held on to this idea of my music being “bad or evil” and by extension, my listening to it making me “bad or evil”. So much of this is still living in my subconscious and it is seeing light for the first time. honestly, exciting work!

I am letting myself listen to so much music without guilt that I previously had listened to with still a twinge of guilt buried in there. Again, I see you Doja Cat.

My kids are widening my horizons and asking me to engage with hard questions and l love them for that. It is a joy to know what they love and to love it alongside them.

On the Spirit

Chapter 21: Letters to a Leaving Mormon

When my friend Annie was sick with cancer and could hardly eat anything, I had a feeling to offer to get her some Thai food one night. It seemed like a dumb offer because she mostly lived on a diet of orange juice and broth at that point, but I texted her and she said yes. I left the drunken noodles in a styrofoam container on her porch and later that night she texted me and said that she was, in miracle form, able to eat and keep down the food I’d brought. I joked with her that I was prompted by the spirit, I told her it was weirdly comforting to know that I was still capable of feeling that. She said, “That’s your intuition. I feel mine now more than ever.” That was the last conversation we had before she was too sick to talk, too sick to respond to messages or sit with us on the outside patio six feet apart. 

The simple gift of her assurance and belief in my intuition has, in turn, comforted me in the year after her death. When I joked with her about being prompted by the spirit, I had been out of the church for a couple of years, but I still doubted my own ability to recognize and respond to my intuition, even when intuition has always been one of my most prominent characteristics. 

Looking back, I recognize that I had credited my ability to intuitively know and respond to the needs of others to someone or something entirely outside of my body. I had allowed myself to believe that I was not worthy of that intuition unless I was doing everything just as I had been told—daily scripture reading, prayers, the law of chastity, the word of wisdom, temple attendance, not gossiping, not having uncharitable thoughts. The list was long and consuming. I held the list inside my head, and it took up so much room that I hardly had time to consider anything else. I was so dedicated to making sure everything on the list was completed in the correct order that my intuition wavered at the end of it, hoping to get a turn. 

If you are moving away from Mormonism, know that your intuition is and always was yours. Know that as you let go of so much that you felt you were supposed to do in order to have access to it, it will come back to you. It will fill up every lonely part of your heart. Your intuition, like a system of trees, connects you to not only the people, but the world around you. 

I used to credit my propensity for crying at beauty entirely to the spirit, as if I’d received a particular dose of it that made me sensitive to feeling things. I know now that beauty itself was what I was feeling. It was not necessary to have an intermediary to bestow feelings and inspiration. The relationships I have with the mountains that watch over my city, the lake to the west, the cottonwood in my backyard, the lizard we accidentally squished up the canyon, my dog laying at the foot of my children’s bed, my children wading out into a lake in summer—they exist unto themselves. I feel an abiding love for the mountains and the lake because they hold the stories of the past. They are wise and full. These relationships do not exist because the mountains and lake belong to a religion. They do not exist for Mormonism's purposes. When I am moved by the tenderness of my parents, or the kindness of my husband, or the creativity of my children, I do not have to credit the Holy Ghost for what I feel. Those feelings of awe, hope, and belief belong to me. 

On my mission, I was moved to tears almost every day as we met other humans, passed families on the street, and stepped into the home of a widow. At the time, I attributed many of these feelings to the intense desire I had to share the gospel with all of them. I wanted them to feel the spirit in the same ways I did. I thought I had access to something they did not, and believed my crying was a sign from the spirit to share it with them. 

I now see that what I felt was simply love for my flawed, imperfect, striving human experience. What I felt for these people was made possible because I had the privilege to pause and see them. I will always be grateful that my mission gave me time to witness people. 

In my last months as an active Mormon, there was a Relief Society lesson on the Holy Ghost. I had been grappling with the lack of feminine presence and authority in my Mormon spiritual life, so I raised my hand and asked if we were positive that the Holy Ghost is male. The response in the room–a room full of women–, was that yes, the Holy Ghost was undoubtedly male, and that, according to God and the scriptures, to believe otherwise was a form of blasphemy. I sat in my padded chair feeling confused, overwhelmed, and a little distraught to know that the source of my inspiration, my internal guidance, was required to be male. 

If you are learning to trust your intuition, if you find yourself listening to the wind to see if you hear anything, if you find yourself questioning your ability to love, to moor yourself in life’s sea, to make decisions without the familiar companionship of the Holy Ghost—know that it has not left you. No spirit has departed from you. It was you all along. It was your connection to the world around you. Your courage and belief and hope were your guideposts from the beginning. 

Your intuition never belonged to the church, even when it tried claiming ownership. It may take some time to find your footing again, and that’s okay. Your intuition is not going to leave you. Your intuition, your own spiritual guidepost, is invested in you, loves you, is your  teacher. 

What you are made of, your actual elements, are as ancient as the earth. It’s possible some part of you witnessed miracles, and destruction, and pain throughout the world’s history. The spirit with which you understand the world is probably much wiser than we ever give it credit for. 

Purchase a physcial copy of “Letters to a Leaving Mormon” here.