Eric: A Mixed-Faith Home, Divorced Parents, and Loss : Choosing a Faithful Narrative

Raised in a mixed-faith home, Eric shares how he discovered his personal conversion to the Gospel despite the tragedies he experienced in his childhood. As an English Professor, Eric has a unique perspective about the power of narrative and the power of God to influence our stories. He speaks with poetic wisdom about how to find grace—even in a life full of loss.

Further Reading in Faith Is Not Blind:

“When in the depth of struggle to ascend my own Sinais, when the air is think and cold and my energy spent, I have felt His strength—not always, but enough.”

(Faith Is Not Blind, Epilogue, “Descending to Ascend” p. 131)

FULL TEXT:

Faith Is Not Blind: My name is Sarah d’Evegnée and this is the Faith Is Not Blind Podcast. This is actually one of our flagship episodes, and for this episode I thought it would be interesting to interview someone that I know quite well. It’s my husband, Eric d’Evegnée. For this podcast we want to explore issues about faith and about questions and about doubt. Eric, let me just ask you to introduce yourself in terms of what is your background with the Church and with your testimony, related to your childhood?

 

Eric: Well, I was born in Connecticut and my father was a member of the Church. When I was born, he was less active and my mother was Catholic. So we were a part number family for quite a while. Then my dad–around the time that I was about four or five–was wanting to come back to Church. I have an older sister and she would have been about around eight–a little bit before her baptism age. And we started to go back to Church. My mom took a few missionary discussions and we started to get back into Church that way. My grandparents had been active members of the Church. They joined the Church over in Belgium, and they had immigrated to the United States in 1950 or 1952. Growing up, we were in the Newtown Ward in Southwestern Connecticut, and a lot of my early memories are of that Ward. remember quite vividly, we used to meet in what would be my future Junior High.  I remember our little branch met in the choir room. So we met there. At that time, if you wanted to have a Church building, you had to have the land and you had to get enough money to build the building, so our Ward would sell fudge. They would sell fudge at the Danbury Fair, and that’s how they raised enough money. They had donations too, but I remember that we built that chapel in Connecticut. Somebody donated some land and we built a chapel there. So I do have a lot of early memories of that Ward growing up and some of the people there that were just fantastic people. 

 

Faith Is Not Blind: What I think is interesting about that you have that foundation in the Church, but maybe not in the same way that I would or a lot of people would where you have the basic structural foundation in your home with family home evening and with scripture study and other things like that. But you had the literal and figurative foundation of that chapel that you watched people build. At what point did you realize that there was something like a testimony growing? Because I’m your wife I know your background–you wouldn’t have talked about it as a testimony in your home. 

 

Eric: Yes. So I remember early on, I think my first experience–if I can articulate it this way–is I just remember the sense of God. It was the idea that there was someone there and I could feel to some extent His presence or concern for me. And I felt that when I was really young. I can remember we had a Bible Stories record and a record player. It was a Bible Stories book and I remember reading through it–it was almost like a comic book. So they had these little comics and they had little windows with pictures of the stories. And I remember you played the record and it would just talk about the different stories. There was just something about it. I don’t know. I guess it spoke to me and I realized that there was something there. And it was that growth of that feeling of the presence of something bigger than what I could see, and it was connected to that Ward building and tp my experience in the Church. So it was kind of interesting that that sense of the presence of God came before that sort of recognition of, “Oh. It happens when I’m here or when I’m with these people.” People like my grandparents who were wonderful and like some of the ward members–the Duncans and the Proudfoots and the old members of the Newtown Ward. I felt something. And that same feeling I felt it there among those people. 

 

Faith Is Not Blind: So there was a foundation of feeling something like God’s presence, even though maybe you weren’t completely aware of what it was. Will you share a little bit about what happened in your childhood that may have caused a sort of rift in that Spirit or that connection?

 

Eric: Yes. Things were difficult for my parents. The way they are in a lot of part-member families. My mother was interested in the Church and she was baptized and was a member for a short time, but things didn’t go well both in terms of my parents marriage and also my mother’s membership. So my parents were divorced and then my mother had her name taken off the records of the Church. And I don’t know completely what all of those struggles were about. So I was probably about eight or nine around this time period. And I mean I knew the struggles were there, but I don’t know if I was old enough and mature enough to really understand all of the issues. So that was a challenge. My mom didn’t want anything to do with the church anymore–I remember that quite vividly. My dad would come–he was living somewhere else–and pick us up take us to Mutual, so that was another good connection to that Ward building. But things became difficult. Life became difficult.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: And even more complicated was what happened after that.

 

Eric: Yes. My parents were divorced and my mother was struggling in a lot of different ways. And when I was 11, which was in 1987, she and I were going to get some food for dinner and we were hit by a drunk driver and she was killed.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: For me, I know how things ended up and it’s like a good novel. But when I hear that story I wonder. You teach English. You teach literature and so do I. And looking at this story a reader might say, “So this is the climax of the novel? How in the world is this going to have a happy ending?”  Knowing what happened to you and that complete tragic moment you described, there’s a sort of Prodigal Son moment that needed to happen, but you hadn’t caused the tragedy to happen. You hadn’t left your home. Your home had sort of left you. What brought you to yourself?

Eric: This is the thing that I’m glad that we get to talk about. You’re referencing The Prodigal Son and this idea that he “comes to himself.”  We read it in the parable and it feels so quick. We go from verse to verse and his Narrative Arc is really fast. But mine wasn’t. For me, it took a decade. It was hard. I remember quite vividly. I survived the accident, but I was cut up really badly. 

 

Faith Is Not Blind: Both physically and emotionally.

 

Eric: I had lots of lots of stitches. I remember one of the difficult parts of that experience–and this has been helpful dealing with my students and in talking to people who have been in similar places. I remember walking to the bathroom of the hospital when I could finally get up and walk and I see my face in the mirror with all of those stitches. And you start thinking about that Presence you used to feel. And you start wondering, “Where is that Presence now?” And it did feel in that moment that the Presence was gone.

 

Faith is Not Blind: The presence of God?

 

Eric: The presence of God.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: So what brought it back? Do you remember a moment when you felt like either, “I think it’s coming back” or “It might come back.” I like how you said in most real stories that aren’t parables it isn’t like a light that just switches back on.

 

Eric: And I think that’s important in the Prodigal Son, and we can’t just brush that off. When I said a decade, I mean a decade. It was 10 years of just feeling like I had been abandoned.

 

But it wasn’t all bad. And in talking to other people that have experienced similar things, I think it is kind of similar, but you feel it in bits and pieces. I had my grandparents who are Mormon. And I had my grandparents who were Catholic. And their devotion to God in both sets of grandparents was just this wonderful. They were just marvelous people. And then my dad and my sister of course were wonderful. And I had family there. So there were bits and pieces.

 

I remember a quote from CS Lewis. His mother died when he was 10, and he wrote a book about it called Surprised by Joy. And in the first chapter talks about his mother’s death. In the very last part of that chapter he said something really wonderful and I think it captures what it’s like to have your mom die when you’re that age–that kind of pre-adolescent age where you’re old enough to know, but not really old enough to figure things out. He said his mother’s death was like Atlantis–that’s what he compared it to. He said, “It was all sea and Islands now. The great continent had sunk like Atlantis.” And that’s how it felt. That was the predominant feeling. But like I said, there were bits and pieces of things that were beautiful and transcendent.

 

But to finish answering the question, I go off to the University of New Hampshire and I study there. I’m majoring in English and I go to the Cambridge student ward in Boston. That’s where my sister was going to Church. So I drive down from New Hampshire to visit her and it’s not all that far away, about 45 minutes. And the story picks up again. I’m sitting in a Church meeting in Boston and the Bishop says, “Any of you who are thinking of leaving on your mission in the next few months, raise your hand.” And I swear I’m not being melodramatic, but I’m sitting there and I look over and my arm is up. And I was shocked. It was just one of those moments. And it was from that moment on that I began to feel the pull towards that Presence. I began to feel–I’m not sure how to say this–but that Someone was watching over me and that Someone was concerned and that They were pulling me towards Them. 

 

So I got in touch with the Bishop and withdrew from the University and was like, “Well, I guess I’m doing this.” And I did it. I just kind of threw myself into this sort of pull.

 

Faith Is Not Blind:  If this is a novel, I feel like I need to stare at this page for a minute and say, “Okay, wait a minute. How is this happening and how is our protagonist actually following whatever this is?” How did you know what it was and how would you describe why you followed it? Because if we’re talking about how faith isn’t blind, was it just these emotions pulling you? How would you describe how it felt then why did you follow it?

 

Eric: I think it’s because I recognized it.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: From when you were a child?

 

Eric: Yes. Of course it takes reasoning and experience and all those kinds of things. But at the same time it felt like an irresistible pull–in all the best ways. I don’t know how to say something “irresistible” is great when it feels like you don’t have control, but I did have control and I knew it. But there was also something that wouldn’t leave me alone. I could feel it. And, I don’t know, it felt like it was just time to be somewhere else. And that this is where I was supposed to be. And it harkens back to that early Presence that I had felt as a child. And I knew that that’s what it was.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: So when you followed it, when did you realize that it probably wouldn’t be easy? We would want to believe that you could just follow it and things would be easy and you would have your happily-ever-after? But on your mission do you remember a time when you encountered uncertainty and difficulty and had to confront what the consequences of that miraculous experience might be?

 

Eric: It’s hard because there were lots of moments.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: Those “bits and pieces.”

 

Eric: Yes. Lots of moments of feeling the Spirit about the Book of Mormon and the Prophet Joseph. I could feel those things. And I think every missionary sort of encounters that. You think, “I’ve got this message. I can feel that this is where I’m supposed to be.” And then you get there and you say something in French and they don’t want to listen to you or they don’t understand you. So that was a constant difficulty, I had this message that I feel is important, but nothing I’m doing is working–and that’s a little bit of an overstatement of course. But it wasn’t as successful as one would hope–you know if you wanted to define success by the number of baptisms you have. That was difficult. And then I end up having emergency surgery on my mission.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: If I didn’t already know about these details, I would be thinking right now, “That just not fair. That’s too much opposition for one person.” And I remember I actually did think that at the time. But how did you deal with that, especially because you had relatively little experience in the Church, relatively little experience with the Spirit? What kept you there instead of just running back home to Connecticut?

 

Eric: Well, it was the same thing. I remember it quite vividly. I was just terrified. Emergency surgery is probably never fun, but in a different language it’s even harder. And I just remember my Mission President coming in to talk to me and he just said, “Look. I don’t want to send you home for this.” And that was great. You know, he was going to always tell me what he thought and I really appreciated that. And I thought in my head, “Here’s my moment. The get-out-of-jail-free card that no one would blame me for.” But there was something about being in the hospital again. You know, I hadn’t been in the hospital since the accident. And there was something about being there. I think I felt like it was time for me to choose to sacrifice. And to say, “I’m going to do this. I’ve got the chance to go home, but I won’t.” I had felt those stirrings of God’s love. I think I wanted to say to God, “This is what I’m willing to do.” And in that moment this is what happened. It was my moment. 

 

So I have the surgery and everything is fine. But then because of my surgery, I have to rehabilitate at the Mission President’s home, so they put me in the Mission Office. They put me in the office with some of the best Elders–just some of the best people. And it was being with them that changed my entire life. And I think it taught me something about trusting in God because I was with them. What I felt like I learned from them was how to be me and how to be a member of the Church. Because I always kind of felt like a square peg in a round hole a little bit with the Church. You know, our family was different. We did things a little bit differently than the way the families in the Mormon commercials do things. It always felt like I had to be someone entirely different than who I was growing up. 

 

Faith Is Not Blind: I think a lot of people feel like that, Like in the Faith Is Not Blind book–where we feel like we have to be this ideal–whatever that means. This ideal in the Mormon ads. And if I’m not that somehow, then I don’t belong. 

 

Eric: And to try to be the ideal as a Connecticut Yankee in a part-member family who grew up around more Catholics than he did Mormons, you always feel sort of on the outside. I always felt that way anytime anybody would say anything negative about the Catholics. Like at the MTC if one of the Elders said anything negative about Catholics, I would just lose my cool because was always seeing things differently. 

 

But getting back to that experience after my surgery and getting back to that trust in God, I elect to have that surgery in France. And it opens up. And suddenly I feel like, “I can be me in the Gospel.” And I have these wonderful friends–these other missionaries. And they were just fantastic. And we loved the work and we loved each other and we had a lot of fun in an otherwise–to be honest–difficult circumstance. Southwestern France just wasn’t easy. But I loved those men like brothers, and it meant a lot to me. And what it did is, it ended up teaching me something about that trust in God and trusting in that Presence that I feel like has been with me ever since I was little. 

 

Faith Is Not Blind: We’ve talked a lot about foundations. And this particular foundational experience was an upheaval in many ways, but it laid the foundation for you to come home and to live the rest of your life. How did that experience on your mission help to shape who you are now?

 

Eric: I think my level of trust was high enough that I didn’t feel fear or apprehension. I didn’t feel like God was going to harm me in any way or that something bad was going to happen. So it really comes down to that level of trust. I was like, “Oh. So this is how this works when we choose to sacrifice for God.” And I don’t quite know how to say this, but when we choose to sacrifice to Him, He blesses us for that sacrifice. And it’s not to say that I did things for blessings and it’s not to say that we’re blessed in ways that we always know or see. But that’s the trust that we need to have in Him. And now I feel like–years later after my mission–I sacrifice only now out of gratitude because I have been blessed with so much that I feel like I have to sacrifice and sacrifice to try and make up for everything He’s given me. 

 

I think it was in this kind of moment where I learned that sacrifice is really a kind of way to cleanse your perception of what’s happening. It allows you to let go of some of the things you think that you need and to just trust in Him. And I think that’s why sacrifice exists.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: On a day-to-day basis, how do you maintain that feeling of sacrifice? If you break down the word sacrifice, the root “sacra” means making something holy. How do you still do that now? We have seven kids and a busy life. You’re teaching students. What does that look like now?

 

Eric: I think a lot of it has to do with the reason, it has to do with the motivation. The reason why I do things–those interactions with our children, or those interactions with the students, and it’s part of the reason why I’m an English Professor. I feel like stories and narrative and language have given me things that have helped me not only professionally, but also spiritually. What I try to do in my classes is try to think of what my motivation is for teaching my students. A lot of it is that I want to give them something that can help them later in their lives. And I think about that with our own children–that motivation to want to help people so that they won’t have to be where I was when I was struggling so much. I try to give them tools and ideas that can help them in their future and help them in their relationship with God. And that’s a way that I sacrifice and it’s the way that I honor Him because of the things He’s given me.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: One of the reasons that I love your story–and this is why this is one of the first stories I wanted to tell on our podcast– is because obviously I love you and your story, but it’s not an ideal story. It’s not an easy story. But it’s a story that recognizes the value of just placing God in our story. Maybe the last question I would ask is: what would you say to people who might feel like their story is broken and they don’t know how to keep going or they don’t know how to get that ideal story? I know you talk about it a lot with your students, but what’s the main thing that we could end on?

 

Eric: You know, it’s interesting as you were talking about people that feel broken or their stories feel broken. I mean, in some ways it may explain my love of 20th century American literature, with the modernist and postmodernist tradition. It’s not well known for its neat and tidy plots. It has open-ended endings and lots of questions. 

 

Faith Is Not Blind: My students always say, “Why do we have to read such depressing stories?” And your story could be viewed that way: “Oh, what a depressing story.” But you don’t see it that way. Why not?

 

Eric: I haven’t thought about these two things being related before, but it connects to the interpretive process in 20th Century American literature. For example, you read a story and sometimes my students are like, “What just happened?” There is no apparent meaning. There is no “and thus we see” at the end of it. And I think that’s the moment when we can apply our interpretive skills to it and say, “Okay. So out of this experience, what could we learn from it?” And I think you can see maybe a little bit of a biographical connection to those stories for me. My students are always a little bit like, “Why do you like stories like this?” And I always tell them, “It’s because they’re all really good stories.” But I also know there’s a biographical connection. That’s how I lived for half of my life and more. But I think it’s a great skill to say, “Here is this story and here is this thing you see happening. We need to ask ourselves the question: “What could this mean?”

 

Faith Is Not Blind: Well, because so often as a student or even as a reader of our own story or other people’s stories, we want to say, “Tell me what it means.” Or even in the temple, we want to say, “Tell me exactly what this means.” Why do you think that that’s a better question?

 

Eric: I actually say this to my students. I tell them that “What does it mean?” is the wrong question, which shocks them. And then I say to them that the better question is “What could it mean?” The question “What could it mean?” suggests that there are possibilities. Then what we need to figure out is what are those possibilities and out of those possibilities which interpretation is best. In literature, we talk about textual evidence. We talk about form and content and all those types of things, but I think there’s something to be said about that question when it comes to faith, and especially when it comes to faith and perplexing experiences that we have. We have experiences that are downright brutal. I mean, my mother’s story doesn’t have some neat and tidy ending to it. And I think about this: now I’m 43 and my mother died at 38. I’m five years older than she ever was. And I keep thinking she never got a chance to revise her story. And I look back on that and I think, “Wow. There’s a lack of a denouement, a lack of resolution to her story.” But that being said, you can still go back with an experience like or with a life like that and ask the question, “What could it mean?”

Faith Is Not Blind: Well, I like that because it not only gives it analytical depth, but potential. What could it mean in the future?

 

Eric: And that’s what Christ’s redemption does to all of our stories. It gives us that potential in the future–the kind of ending that we would like. We may not see that kind of ending until way off in the eternities, but Christ’s redemption can redeem us from anything that happens to us in our lives–any of the things that interrupt the story. 

 

Faith Is Not Blind: If we choose to make him a part of the story. And that’s what I love so much about your story. I appreciate you sharing it with me and with whoever gets to listen to it because I have faith in your happily-ever-after because. . . 

 

Eric: Because you’re it.

 

Faith Is Not Blind: Yes. And your happily-ever-after is mine too. Thank you for sharing. And thank you for listening. This was Eric d’Evegnée and this is the Faith Is Not Blind Podcast. Thank you for joining us.