Martha Beck - Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith

Leaving the Saints

How I Lost the Mormons
and Found My Faith

Martha Beck

CROWN PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

They say that religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people whove been there. If youre in the second category, this book is dedicated to you.

Acknowledgments

To write any sort of book, I need the support of many forgiving and generous people. To write this sort of book, I needed the kind of maintenance an emergency medical team might give the survivor of a plane crashfor years on end. My gratitude to the people listed below far exceeds anything words can convey, but since words are the tools Im using, theyll have to do for now. One caveat: I suspect that some of the individuals mentioned in these acknowledgments may feel less than thrilled to be associated with the book. Accordingly, I will refer to them by pseudonyms I have invented myself. Others I wont specify even cryptically, but yall know who you are.

First, I would like to thank my clients and readers, the reason I bother to keep typing at all. The fact that you are willing to read my stories, and sometimes tell me yours, lets me know that I am not living in the hell my childhood teachers called outer darkness. Even if weve never met, your support buoys me up every moment.

Huge thanks to the people at Crown Books who agreed to this project and urged me to be as honest and straightforward as possible, especially Chip Gibson, Steve Ross, Jenny Frost, Phillip Patrick, and Kristin Kiser.

Betsy Rapoport is both the most brilliant editor Ive ever met, as well as a loyal, dauntless friend. She is a light to me and to the world, one of the main reasons I believe that Something is taking care of us all.

My agent, Beth Vesel, has been willing to jump into white water with my on many occasions, in many ways. Her openness, generosity, and incisive feedback have made me a better writer and a better person.

My magazine editors, including Jeanie Pyun at Mademoiselle, Marcia Menter at Redbook, and Carol Kramer at Real Simple, helped me develop as a writer until I worked up the courage to tell this story. Many thanks to all of them.

More recently, and in particular, the wonderful people at O, the Oprah Magazine have given me the opportunity and encouragement to speak in my real voice, to both discover and convey what I believe to be most true. Im inspired by the leadership of the great O herself and editor-at-large Gayle King. Im honored and incredibly fortunate to receive feedback from my editor Mamie Healey, and especially from the peerless Amy Gross. None of these people will ever know how much I owe them as an author and as a human being.

Along with the folks who helped me write this book, I want to thank those who helped me live it. I cannot express my gratitude to the Utah friends who helped me negotiate the events described in this book. Some I met at church, some at BYU, some in my amazing therapy group. I wont blow your cover here, but Ill never forget the priceless gift of your compassion.

Speaking of Utah, the good people at the R & R Ski Lodge have given me sanctuary for body and soul more times than I can count. Their intelligent and enthusiastic support are part of the foundation on which my right life is built.

My beautiful, hilarious, and ever-shapely cousins, Diane and Miranda Nom-de-Plume, make me proud to wear the tartan of our clan. They saved my soul and my hide when no one else could have done it.

Steve and Mary Ann Benson, my first friends in Arizona, are also the two best models of courage and integrity anyone is ever likely to meet. I am so grateful to know them.

My work with Stacey Shively, Kim Barber, and Al Preble has given me major infusions of strength, courage, and audacity. I owe them the singular gratitude a prisoner feels to those who have helped out in a jailbreak.

The pseudonymous Reilly Max, great writer and even greater friend, combines the traits of a war buddy, a poet, a therapist, and a stand-up comic. Again, words cannot express my thanks.

The Princess of Pink (not her real name) has donated generous infusions of her trademark genius, humor, and defiance, giving me the strength to tell my truth. Friends like her make me glad I survived the things I sometimes didnt want to survive.

To all those whose lives intersected with mine during the particular time I recount in these pages, please know that I have tried my best to make it as fully accurate and honest as possible. This was the most difficult truth Ive ever had to tell.

John Beck was my staunch ally and companion through all the events recorded in this book. I hope that anyone who reads it will recognize what an extraordinary gift that was, and how deeply grateful I am for it. After the events I discuss in this book, John and I decided to live our lives separately but continue to raise our children together.

My children, Katie, Adam, and Elizabeth, were my motivation and inspiration for both living and writing this story. I am in constant awe that such beings could have spent their childhoods helping me learn how to be happy. The goal of my life is to return that favor.

Finally, Karen Gerdes is the gentle force that put me back together after the events of my life tore me apart, and the one that has kept me whole. Whenever I slip back into the world of shadows, she is the one who leads me back into the light.

To all these people, and to many more I havent mentioned, I offer all the love and thanks my soul contains. They deserve none of the blame for this book, but all of the credit for anything worthwhile that may have strayed onto its pages. Having been blessed to cross paths with them, I can never doubt that we all have guardian angels.

CHAPTER 1

Room at the Inn

So there he stands, not five feet away from me. He looks almost unchanged since the last time I saw him, ten years agofabulous, for a man now in his nineties. His features are still sharply cut, his sardonic smile and turquoise eyes as bright as ever. The only difference I notice is that both his hair and his wiry body have thinned a bit. His trousers (probably the same ones he was wearing a decade ago) are now so baggy hes switched from a belt to suspenders.

A Shakespearean phrase pops into my mind:... a world too wide / For his shrunk shank. From As You Like It, I think. Thats something I seem to have inherited from this little old man in his shabby pants: a tendency to produce random literary quotations, from memory, to fit almost any situation. I dont do this on purpose; it just happens to me. The same way it happens to him. Despite the fact that weve rarely had a significant conversation, I know that my father understands the way I think, probably better than anyone on earth.

Well, well, well, he says heartily, opening his arms. Hmm. This is new. Back when I knew him, my father wasnt the open-arms type. But, then, neither was I. I go forward and hug him. It does feel odd, but Ive been practicing hugging the people I love for years now, and I get through it.

Hello, I say, and stop there, at a loss for words. I cant bring myself to say Hello, Daddy, but I dont know what else to call him. Daddy is the only title by which I and my seven siblings ever addressed him. Dad would sound disrespectfully casual, Father too formal, his given name completely bizarre. I settle for repeating Hello, then gesture toward the easy chair by the door. Please, sit down.

He sits, and Im startled by another eerie jolt of familiarity: This man moves just like I do. Nervous as I am, scared to death as I am, there is something unspeakably poignant about the fact that my posture and carriage are echoes of his. Its been a long time since I encountered so many of my own chromosomes in anyone besides my own children.