by Blakelee Ellis
I’m sure all of us Mormons can vaguely
remember sitting in Primary meetings and being taught about the Holy Ghost. The key bullet points I remember from Primary are: The Holy Ghost is the third member of the God head, He doesn’t have a body, and He is God’s presence on the earth. I figured out that this magical being is the way we feel God. As a kid, I always found the Holy Ghost to be very mystical and unknowable. To be completely transparent, I was a bit trepidatious at the thought of the Holy Ghost. I mean, for Pete sake, there is “ghost” in the very name of this ambiguous thing, but somehow, it’s not supposed to be scary. My teachers told me It can even enter our body and touch our heart like that wasn’t supposed to terrify me. Not only was it not supposed to scare me, it was supposed to be something I wanted.
I pretty much followed the standard Mormon journey, and somewhere along the way, I did discover how to feel Heavenly Father’s spirit. I did all the things: took seminary and then institute, studied scripture, attended church, dated a returned missionary and then married him. I went to the temple regularly, said standard Mormon prayers, not just attended but anxiously engaged in Sunday school lessons and skipped to Relief Society activities.
Then, in what seemed to be an instant, it all came crashing down. Like so many of us who experience faith deconstruction, I looked at all the broken pieces of my spirituality laying around me and I wondered, “Where the hell is God in any of this? How the hell did I feel God before when all I feel now is pain and confusion?” I didn’t feel Him anymore. I mean, God wasn’t even a HIM for me anymore.
I was in a constant state of fear about my standing and worthiness before God. I couldn’t feel God anymore and my Mormon conditioning kicked into overdrive; My doubting had put me in a fallen state (yes, my bishop at the time actually said this to me) and so I must not be worthy to feel the Holy Ghost. But, I couldn’t reconcile this “truth” with the God I had experienced and the deep desire within me. Just like Enos, I wrestled before God. Or maybe a better way to say it is that I wrestled before MY idea of God. My sobbing became a prayer in and of itself. I would mentally yell into the universe, “I have so many good intentions. I am lost and feel all alone, but I want to be found! I have such a desire to know what God wants for me. Surely, a benevolent God that sees my soul reaching out with such earnestness can’t condemn me for changing. I’m evolving and all I want is to understand this new me. How could my God be mad at me and leave me when my desires are so pure?”
The more I sought God, the more distance I felt.
In Luke 5 Jesus encounters his cousin, John’s, disciples and they ask Christ why he isn’t requiring his disciples to fast. He tells them the time will come, but it isn’t yet. And then he tells them this parable:
37 No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.
38 But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
Change was coming—no one understood that yet. The kingdom Jesus ushered in could not fit into the Pharisees’ paradigm or way of living. The status quo would no longer do. Current teachings, even the teachings of John the Baptist, were good, but passing away, since they were part of the Old Covenant which Jesus was fulfilling and renewing.
As my entire paradigm shifted, my old way of experiencing God wasn’t working either. The truth was, none of the standard Mormon stuff worked for me anymore. Okay, I shouldn’t say NONE of it. Very little of it worked for me. As my entire paradigm shifted, my old way of experiencing God wasn’t working either. I was shoving new wine into old wineskins and they had burst. It was like I was standing there, bawling, soaked in metaphorical wine, looking around at the carnage of my burst wineskin with no idea how to get a new one.
At the end of the parable, Jesus throws a little curve ball:
39 And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.”
Jesus basically tells us, “Hey, this “New Kingdom” journey we are on together is going to suck. No one likes new things or being uncomfortable, but hang in there. This higher way of thinking is going to be worth it. I promise.” Turns out, there is a period of adjustment for the followers of old paths who are willing to grow in new ways. I was definitely uncomfortable AND I was willing.
In my countless hours of reading, scrolling, listening to podcasts, I came across this quote:
“Seeking God’s presence means recognizing that while God might inhabit a certain sphere, He is not contained to it. Though he may be found in pots and pans and communion wafers and poetry, He also transcends them. What works for a housewife in North Georgia might not work for a widow in Sub-Saharan Africa. How God is glorified in a single Lutheran girl from New York City might look a little different than how God is glorified in a sprawling Catholic family in Mexico.”
—Rachel Held Evans
So I went searching in new (and some old) places for God and what do you know?
I found God in a group of friends gathering to talk about their own ongoing faith transitions.
I experienced God on evening walks with my dog.
I still connected with God while taking the sacrament, even though I thought about the ordinance in completely new and different ways.
I found God in the reeds and the wind, my kids’ laughter in the background.
I felt God in the pillow that caught my tears as I released my pain.
I found God as I learned from great Christian thinkers, Mormon and non-Mormon alike.
I found God in the eyes of my spouse as he desperately tried to meet me where I was.
I found God as I experienced the deep sorrow of mourning my old self.
I experienced God in death and rebirth.
After all that, I started to understand what Richard Rohr meant when he said:
“The presence of God is infinite, everywhere, always, and forever. You cannot not be in the presence of God. There’s no other place to be.”
I went camping a few weekends ago, away most notably from all the light pollution in the city. It’s almost my favorite part of camping, star gazing. I got all my kids to bed, and sat out alone looking up at the stars. I tried to empty my brain of thought, breathe deep and just be. I let my gaze linger on the mistiness of the Milky Way. I felt confident that I would encounter God. Nature is the place I go most often when I’m trying to find God and I was sure there was no way the sheer immensity of space would let me down. I gazed and admired. Tilted my head this way and that. Called out to God with my soul. More like, politely inquired if God was there. Ya know when you have to knock on your boss’ door to interrupt them and you are 100% sure the interruption is going to be received poorly? The knock is timid and you peek your head around the door with a grimace on your face, already anticipating the angry look your boss will throw your way? That was me as I looked up at the expanse above me.
Then my human messiness took over and my internal tone shifted to something like, “Hey Bruh. What are you doing? I showed up. I took 5 minutes to myself to sneak away from my kids, quiet down and be intentional and where the hell are you? Too good to show up? I believed you would be here. I’m doing the work, so why aren’t you showing up? Aren’t you the God that meets me where I am?”
I thought perhaps I’d called God out enough to show up just to spite me.
After another breath or two, I conceded.
“Well, this is pointless. But the stars are gorgeous and I’m glad I got to see the arm of the milky way tonight. Just wish I’d felt more.”
It seems as though after a few years of general contentment, I’m finding myself back to searching for God. I still frequently close my eyes, breath deep and envision my heart expanding. I imagine my soul cracking open and letting the God of my current understanding penetrate my psyche. Sometimes, I feel a rush of refreshment. But more often than not, I don’t feel a damn thing. Old habits die hard and I’ve started asking, “Where is God now?”
A large part of me worries that I no longer feel moved by God because I’m not as desperate and broken as I was five years ago. I’m much more at home and at peace with my deconstruction and because of that I no longer live, eat and breathe spiritual matters like I did at the beginning of my journey. Has time made me complacent? Again, I’m back in new territory and fighting the urge not to panic.
Last month, Susan published her August Worthy Stuff, and her words allowed me to connect with God as I was reading. I was so grateful for how I felt after I was done that I sent her this message:
Ah, Susan. Your “Worthy Stuff” was so wonderful. Funny, vulnerable, very tender. I just loved it. It was a gift to read about the dichotomy that was (probably still is) your life those few days: all you wanted to do was grieve, yet life went on. You did it because what else could you do? You are doing it beautifully even though I’m sure it feels like an impossible mess.
You sharing the ordinary, lovely moments that stood out to you during those days—the lipstick, our joke while we were shooting, your MIL holding your hand, the women showing up to the quilt show, the roadshow and cake, texts from friends—touched me deeply. Reading this was my spiritual practice for the day.
It was such a tragic, beautiful reminder that God is everywhere in this shit storm of life and if we can somehow figure out how to calm our hearts and see our God, even for just a split second—the time it takes to put on lipstick in a mirror, or hold someone’s hand—then we are learning something in life. I think, because I no longer experience HUGE waves of “feeling the spirit,” that I chase after the small connections I find with God. I chase the times when my heart is open enough to feel the presence that’s all around, if I can just get out of my own damn way for two seconds. So, long story short, for you to share those small moments of presence in some of the worst days of your life was so valuable to me. Thank you for writing it and opening your heart in that way. It’s an example of the kind of living I want to do.
*BTW, if you haven’t read Susan’s post, go read it IMMEDIATELY. 12/10 stars. Highly recommend.
I’ve recently thought that maybe I’m not encountering God because I’ve ONCE AGAIN started to limit where I’m looking or even supposing I can find God. Or maybe it’s because my understanding of God is changing yet again.
To me, God can still appear as a resounding feeling that whatever I happen to be experiencing, learning or hearing is profoundly good, ever expansive and can lead me towards my highest self. If we believe that every good thing comes from God, then surely that means not just temporal things, but feelings and emotions as well. If that’s the case, there are so many new names I have for the God of my ongoing understanding.
Relaxation
Contentment
Fulfillment
Conviction
Satisfaction
Awe
New wine, new wineskins.
With this new definition I start to wonder: did I actually miss God that night a few weeks ago as I looked at the stars? Could God have been in the simple acknowledgment of the beauty I was seeing? If so, finding God can be a lot simpler than I ever supposed it to be.
For now, I’m trying to relax and remember that if I want it, God will show up. I just can’t limit where I’m looking or how I’m connecting. I’ll just keep breathing deep and etch this quote from Richard Rohr into the lining of my heart:
“Be encouraged, and offer up your simple naked being to the joyful being of God, which is both in you and yet greater than you. Hold the soft, warm compress of these loving words against your bodily self. Bypass the mind and even the affections of the heart, and forego any analysis of what you are, or are not. Simply that you are. This will be enough to launch you into the sacrament of the present moment where God is always hiding in plain sight.”
Blakelee Ellis
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