The Dark Night of the Soul

Coming Out in Mormonism

When I was at Brigham Young University, I decided to take the last few Spanish classes that were required for a minor in Spanish. I took AP Spanish in high school. I was the only one in my year to pass the test; I got a 5. My freshman year at BYU, I signed up for Spanish 321, the Spanish class for returned missionaries. It was a hard class. I was one of two non-RMs in the class. But I didn’t have enough confidence in my abilities. I did well in the class, so I decided to finish that minor in Spanish even though I always had imposter syndrome in those Spanish classes. The classes were incredibly demanding, with copious amounts of homework.

My junior year at BYU, I took a survey of the literature of Spain. I was entranced by the class, especially our discussions on Spanish mysticism in the 16th and 17th century in Spain. Reading St. Teresa of Ávila, I felt a stirring in my soul. There was something about her poetry and her words that simply comforted me. I remember sitting in my class with my professor and reading a poem about God in Spanish by the Doctor of the Church. The translation almost captures the meaning.

Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

Over the years of being gay at BYU, I had so many dark moments, but God alone always sufficed. It was almost impossible some days to imagine how I would make it out of BYU intact with my mental health, good grades, and a healthy relationship with my sense of self. But deep down, I knew that I needed to take the path of staying at BYU. People close to me often questioned this decision: Why would a gay man stay at a school like BYU? Maybe it was a trauma bond. Maybe it was something else. God was always there in my darkest moments of prayer, even when I couldn’t kneel or say something formal

After a somewhat healing, somewhat traumatic visit to LDS Family Services right after my mission, I knew I needed a lot of therapy to unbox what I had experienced in Thailand. As I was forced to come out to myself in highly unlikely ways, I never knew if I would make it to the next day. But I went to a lot of therapy while I was at BYU and many kind, competent Mormon men saved me from what I can now label as the Dark Night of the Soul: exquisite ecstasy and connection to God in the midst of profound trauma.

O guiding dark of night!
O dark of night more darling than the dawn!
O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
Lover and loved one moved in unison.

But I never talked about how bad Thailand really was on some days. Some days I would wake up and try to put on a happy face and work as hard as I could. But when I became senior companion, I almost constantly wondered why my shameful desires for men were being thrust on me during what was supposed to be the most sacred experience of my Mormon life. I had deeply repressed, unexplored sexuality that finally bubbled to the surface in the Missionary Training Center.

We were in the temple on Preparation Day when I first came out to myself. Then I felt intense, crippling shame. The temple always made me a little nervous. The temple is simply different from the rest of Mormonism. Rather than carpet on the walls and barren chapels, the temple was truly a sacred, beautiful space of contemplation. From the art work and the clothing to the comfort of the ritual, I tried to find peace in a religion that would never accept me as an openly gay man.

The endowment was highly ritualistic and deep with metaphor and symbolism. I never took the temple literally. I couldn’t abide that level of literalism when it seemed to be a sacred, ritualistic, and symbolic drama. We were supposed to see ourselves as Adam and Eve and focus on the symbolism of each layer of the temple. But I was surrounded by literalistic Mormons who saw the temple as the pinnacle of a literalistic experience. We had to pass the angels who stood as sentinels who guarded the gates to heaven.

I noticed a missionary who was in my Thai-speaking district in the temple that Preparation Day. And a voice or a feeling whispered to me, “Jacob, you are gay.”

How on earth could I have come out to myself on my mission (in the MTC!) in what was supposed to be the most sacred experience for Mormon men? I was told over and over again that my mission was supposed to be the best two years of my life. And here I was, realizing that I was deeply attracted to a man in the temple. I hadn’t wished this upon myself. I hadn’t chosen to be gay. God had whispered it to me in the temple of all places.

But the shame of that day lived with me my entire mission. I tried to put the shame in a box and close the box. But eventually the shame couldn’t be contained. It burst out and made me weep on the floor of many apartments in Thailand. But God alone sufficed. I made it through it all because God was watching over me in my suffering. God saw my deepest burdens and begged me to lay down these burdens. I wasn’t ready in Thailand, but I came home, and I was so ready to lay down so much shame. And God knew I was ready for that message in the temple. It would one day be not a moment of shame, but exquisite connection with God.

When I came out to Mormons, they almost always made it about themselves. They would tell me that they knew that I was gay all along. They would ask why I hadn’t told them earlier. Coming out to Mormons was so emotionally taxing. It was always a huge discussion of how I would navigate my relationship with the LDS Church and maintain obedience to authority. It felt like spiritual death by a thousand cuts: you cannot be openly gay and love God, Jesus, or the Gospel. You have to pick a side. I refused. I wanted both God and a husband.

I don’t think many Mormons understood until I got married why I left Mormonism. I didn’t leave because I wanted to sin; I left because I wanted to live. I couldn’t survive in Mormonism. There was no theological path laid out for the openly gay man who adored the historical Jesus: the man who flipped over tables, staged protests, and ultimately died for what He believed in. Mormons had built a myth of Jesus that I couldn’t accept. I couldn’t buy that Jesus wasn’t just like me on some level: a deeply traumatized man who wanted to make the world a better place. I never claimed to be Jesus, but I surely identified with a poor Jewish boy born under Roman occupation in the 1st Century. s

In my dark night of the soul, so many people had made it abundantly clear that they were never safe to come out to. If I couldn’t come out to myself until I was a 20-year-old missionary crying on the floor of an apartment built specifically for the missionaries in rural northeastern Thailand, how could others not know that they never cultivated an environment safe enough for me to come out?

Mormons never showed symbols of Pride at Church. They never built a vulnerable relationship with me because we were all too afraid to say what we were all thinking. They never challenged the Family Proclamation. In fact, they demanded musket fire from the temple of learning that I attended. I tried so hard to be a good Mormon. I tried to seek out the vulnerable, the poor, the other. But Mormons never liked that I stood up and spoke out. I embarrassed them with my op-eds. I embarrassed them when I walked out of offensive meetings in tears. And I most certainly embarrassed them when I stood in an Episcopal Church and married the love of my life. I married a man who dedicated his edited essay collection on the temple to me.

In 2016, God again whispered to me (perhaps not in a voice but in a self-realization) as we stood before our friends, our family, and our new-found community and said,

“Jacob, you made it. You passed through that dark night of the soul. And I was with you the entire time. You were brave. You were bold. You were kind. You weren’t perfect, but you tried as hard as you were able. I never gave you anything you weren’t able to bear. Now it’s time for you to rest. You may have to revisit that dark night of the soul again, but it will be how you finally heal. You deserve the peace that only I can offer. It will take lots of therapy, medicine, and good friendships. Sometimes you will return to that dark night of the soul, but you will always make it.”

Mormons don’t get that I didn’t leave Mormonism because I didn’t believe in God or Jesus or the Universe. I left because it was never safe enough for me. And on that August day in 2016, I was finally safe enough to be the whole me. God embraced me. Mormons rejected God.

You can make it safer for people like me, if you’re ready. It’s just a Pride pin, a Pride flag, a sacrament meeting talk, or a comment in class away. So many Mormons tried. And those who did? They got the whole me. They got to see the vulnerable mess that I am. They got to see how much I will love and embrace them if they will simply love the whole me.

It’s time for Mormons to stand up, speak out, and show up for the little boys, girls, and non-binary children who simply want to have a safe space. It’s not about you. It’s about queer safety.