Christi Leman

1. Premortal Life

It’s my second day thru-hiking the John Muir Way (JMW)
from the west coast of Scotland to the east. There are eighteen
miles to walk today before I can stop for the night in a village
called Strathblane. I’m forty-five years old, and my husband and
teenage children are back home in Utah. I’ve never been this
far away from them before, never for this length of time, never
alone; they are worried about my safety, but supportive. It’s my
dream to be here, but being a mother means I worry about them,
too. I’ve brought my worry with me, sure as if I’d nestled it into
my backpack next to my rain jacket and hiking poles.
       Signposts lead me from the village of Balloch down a paved
road through sheep pastures divided by hedgerows into emerald
squares. White tufts of wool litter the grass of one empty enclo-
sure. The sheep beyond the hedge in the next one are clothed
in deep wool not yet shorn, their sweet, familiar musk perfum-
ing the air. A ewe with a black-and-white face looks up at me,
then three more ewes follow her gaze. They seem to consult
with each other before running away, their lambs following as
though tethered by invisible strings.  
       One spring when I was about five years old, my dad took
me to the agricultural research station of the university where
he worked in Northern California. We visited a large stable
where we saw lamb after lamb born onto piles of damp hay. I
was fascinated by the ewes’ patient faces as they clenched and
pushed. Each brand-new sheep got its own neat, translucent
sack, the mothers licking the lambs free as teardrop-shaped af-
terbirth sagged from their behinds. So many ewes laboring at
the same time, one lamb born after another, lightning fast—at
least, that’s how I remember that day.
     During those childhood years, my family held Monday
night Family Home Evenings. My brother and I would gather
with our parents in the living room for a semi-improvised,
child-friendly lesson, after which we’d play a game and, if we
were lucky, have a treat. Dad sometimes brought out the black
vinyl teaching binder he used as a missionary in Ontario and
taught us from its illustrated pages.
     God’s plan of salvation is divided into three basic acts, he
taught. The first act is called the premortal life, when all of God’s
spirit children lived with their Heavenly Parents in a state of
love and ignorance. Our Parents wanted us to fulfill our poten-
tial, but this could only happen if we were given physical bodies
and learned how to use and care for them. We’d need our bodies
and the lessons they’d teach us in order to someday become like
our Heavenly Father and Mother—eternal creators of worlds.
Appreciation for my body as a gift, for my life as a journey to be-
coming an amazing, all-knowing being: Dad’s teachings dissolved
these ideas into my developing sense of self like sugar into milk.
     Each lamb I watched at the research station was born by
water, blood, and spirit, their bodies white and spotless next to
their mothers’ yellowed woolen coats. I was witnessing, in real
time, the lambs fresh from their premortal existence as they
began their important time on Earth. Their bodies were new,
their possibilities (as sheep, anyway) apparently limitless.
    I felt something similar when I became a mother and gazed
at my own babies. What boundless potential in their crease-
less, clear-eyed faces! After watching them all day, I startled to
see what looked like a twenty-something crone staring back at
me in the bathroom mirror. My scars and wrinkles were, possi-
bly, evidence of all the potential I’d already used up. My kids’
lives would contain damage and worry, too—I knew this with
my head, if not my heart. Their faces too would crease, scar,
droop with time and some amount of sorrow. But not yet. Life
was a journey toward knowledge, and knowledge meant pain
and mistakes, but surely not for these babies. Surely I could
protect them from the worst of it.
      My son and daughter did indeed gain their own scars as
they grew. For preschoolers who couldn’t sit still, church could
be a physically dangerous place. Each of them got stitches due
to injuries suffered during sacrament meetings, the church fur-
niture’s sharp edges seeming to belie our culture’s reputation as
baby-loving. Spiritually, my kids seemed to absorb little of the
theology taught in church or at home, since focusing on unin-
teresting, intangible religious ideas seemed temperamentally
out of the question; in their school years, they’d both be diag-
nosed with ADHD. One Sunday, my then six-year-old daugh-
ter flopped across my lap during a meeting and said (she could
never remember to whisper), “Mom, have you ever thought
maybe God and Jesus are not real and we’re just doing this for
nothing? Like the Egyptians?”
      I had no idea what to say. My own faith had developed with
age, and while I clung to that faith—now more complicated
than what I’d held as a child—sometimes thoughts similar to my
daughter’s had crossed my mind. I didn’t reveal these things to
her, believing it best to try to develop in her the strong, child-
like faith I’d been given at her age in my parents’ Family
Home Evening lessons, which I was doing my best to replicate.
I wanted her and her brother to grow up and serve missions,
attend Church universities, and marry in the temple as I had.
It was a recipe for a good life, wasn’t it? What would happen if
she grew up thinking her ancestral faith was outdated, incor-
rect, nothing but a relic, like the dusty pharaohs she’d learned
about in school? If my own doubts were scars I kept hidden,
she seemed terrifyingly young to bear them so openly.

      Clouds roll over the green pastures outside of the village of
Balloch. The narrow roads are empty save the occasional car or
cyclist. Walking on blacktop is more difficult than I thought it
would be, and my hips and knees begin to ache. As I head up-
hill onto a pasture road on higher ground, I stop to pull out my
walking sticks, feeling a bit—er—sheepish to be using them on
paved road. They help a little. I wish I’d brought city-walking
shoes instead of trail shoes. I try walking on the road’s shoulder
next to the hedgerows, but the ground is lumpy and the grass
hides holes. I don't want to twist an ankle.
      A herd of black Hebridean sheep grazes on the other side
of a fence. These don’t run when they see me. One with curl-
ing horns and horizontal pupils stares unafraid from behind the
wire, sizing me up. If I reached through, I could touch its
stringy black wool. I don’t. The creature isn’t huge, but it looks
at me so boldly I’m reminded of a film I once saw, in which a
black goat turns out to be the devil himself. The fence makes
me feel safe, though I’m sure the road is more of a danger to
the sheep than the sheep is to me. Does it resent its enclosure
for the protection it provides?

     As a child, I imagined the war in heaven: all those spirit
children fighting Satan for the opportunity to visit the beauti-
ful world to learn how to become like their kind, smart parents.
I must have been among them, even if I couldn’t remember. I
wanted to be like my mom, who could fix anything and whose
strong arms could whip cookie batter faster than my eyes could
track. Like my gentle dad who knew everything about animals
and trees, who on Monday nights held a binder full of Truth in
his hands. My birth to them proved I’d chosen the right path
once, and I intended to do it again.
      So I have tried, even with my imperfect faith, to stay on
the path I was taught. Like my parents, I did well in school, was
generally kind to my neighbors, turned the other cheek when I
could, married in the temple, had children. As an adult, I go to
church and fulfill my callings. I had hoped my kids would fol-
low my example.
      But my son and daughter have gone in different directions.
As they aged, they endured church lessons that never really
sank in, parental missteps and misunderstandings (my fault, my
husband’s fault), betrayals by LDS friends, the trials of inherited
depression and occasional suicidality. In 2020, while isolated
from their friends due to COVID-19 and my cancer diagnosis,
their Grandpa Jerry—my father, my family’s faith anchor—
passed away. Meanwhile, their perceptions of homophobia and
racism among local church members grew, and ultimately the
little they’d internalized about Christianity’s virtues evaporated
in their thirst for freedom, fairness, and justice.
     One day, they told my husband and me they had decided
not to come with us to church anymore. They’ve held to their
decision for the past eighteen months. Some might call them
lost sheep, but lost implies an accidental misdirection, so I’m
not sure the metaphor is quite right. And knowing them as I
do, how could I blame them for going their own way?

I’ve traveled only about a third of today’s distance between
Balloch and Strathblane, but my aching body is begging to stop.
I sit on the moss-covered edge of a stone bridge and eat some
peanut M&Ms even though I don’t feel hungry, only tired. The
calories, together with the view of a shining brook through
grassland, make me feel a bit better, and I check my guidebook
to see where I am.

2. The Lone and Dreary World

       The JMW leads down more roads edged with hedgerows,
over a red sandstone bridge, past farmhouses and more sheep
pastures. I come at last to what looks like a dead end in a farm-
yard surrounded by silent outbuildings. Though Scotland has
laws protecting hillwalkers’ rights to travel through various
types of private land, I still feel as though I might be trespass-
ing. But there’s a cattle guard and gate on the far end, and I spy
the JMW’s waymark on a post. My guidebook tells me to go
straight through.
       The path is set with primitive tarmac that becomes gravel,
then dirt, ascending toward a stand of tall pines some distance
away. I’ve finally left behind hard pavement, and my joints are
thanking me already. I’m leaving civilization behind as well,
going alone into the hills. The sun finally shows its face through
the clouds, and I feel “lone” but not actually “dreary” at all.
       I worry that without a church family, my children’s lives will
be more Lone and Dreary than they might have otherwise been.
Who in their neighborhoods will help unload their moving
boxes, if not their ward families? Who will bring them meals
when they’re home with new babies? Who will drive them to
the doctor when they’re old and sick? In my faith and locality,
leaving God behind to strike out on your own means leaving lots
of people behind as well. They’ll need to find their own commu-
nities where they can; I don’t know how to teach them where.
       The JMW abandons pastures and their safely-kept sheep.
Instead, it skirts a logging plantation of pine trees, possibly
Sitka spruce, a common logging species in Scotland, easy to
grow, easy to harvest, and therefore very useful. These trees are
tall, maybe 50 feet. The monoculture’s individuals grow so
close together they look difficult to walk through. The under-
story is spooky and dim, almost dark. I feel more alone and
vulnerable than I have at any other point on the trail. A for-
est’s doppelganger, planted for killing. Scotland’s large wild
predators were hunted to extinction long ago, but there are
dangerous people in all nations. I tell myself none of them are
hiding here, lying in wait for me.
       After a while, I reach a clear-cut area where nothing is re-
growing yet, and I can't help thinking this barren, ruined place
feels like death. Disposability. I want to hate this plantation,
but I know that humans need wood. I’m familiar with opportu-
nity cost. I know that having one thing means giving up some-
thing else.
       I think of my children and their friends. The cliques they
run around with are as far away from monoculture as they can
get, at least in our neighborhood—motley groups of teenagers
with varying backgrounds, beliefs, and languages. If they won’t
gain the kind of personal tolerance and spiritual resilience they
might have learned within the safety of ward families, I can
only hope the diversity they’ve chosen will give them other
kinds of tolerance and resilience in their adult lives.
       There are other values I want them to hold, too: the impor-
tance of a personal connection to the divine, the importance of
service, of forgiveness, temperance, kindness, unconditional
love. There are many people outside my faith who hold these
values, but will my kids be able to become those people with-
out the kind of spiritual guidance that’s familiar to me? Will
they remember what they’ve been taught at home? If they don’t
want to serve missions or marry in the temple, will they follow
our examples in other ways?
       Obviously, I have complex feelings about my kids’ decisions
to step away. I recognize they shouldn’t have to be part of some-
thing they don’t believe. They are here to use their agency. But
it hurts at times to see them leave behind ideas I believe are
worthwhile in favor of forging their own, sometimes treacher-
ous, paths.
        Time has gradually softened my anger at the situation and
eased my grief. In the end, compelling my son and daughter into
church activity was both repugnant and impossible. As a result,
my husband and I enjoy loving communication with our teens
that is about as open and honest as one can hope for with young
adults. While they don’t always tell us what we want to hear, I
treasure this openness. Knowing what they’re up to helps us keep
them safe as they journey, and trusting us makes them more
likely to listen to our advice when it’s most important.
       So it’s been better, I think, to trust our children to learn as
they find their own ways. It’s the same choice our Heavenly
Parents are said to have made for us. I try to let go of what
might have happened in another timeline, another dimension.

3. Afterlife

       I pass through a large double gate, and the pine plantations
are behind me at last. Heathery, hummocky moors stretch to
the summit and across the valley to my left. The brimming wa-
ters of Burncrooks Reservoir shine in the late afternoon sun. A
peacock butterfly, symbol of resurrection, flits and lands on the
shore trail in front of me, its orange and blue wings like stained
glass. This creature is like a psychopomp, a guide from Greek
mythology leading me to a new plane of existence—in this case,
to the miles of the final act of today’s path. The sun on the
water, the descent, the endorphin rush: I feel reborn, having
climbed solo through the beautiful, lonely wreckage of the
plantations, thinking hard thoughts and emerging with a feel-
ing of joy. A hero’s journey.
       Maybe my children aren’t lost sheep after all, but heroes
spending necessary time in the wilderness. Only they can stum-
ble through their own existence, learning as they go, seeking
wisdom where they can find it. Summiting their own hills of
tribulation, feeling the rush of making it onto the other side,
where home is safely in sight, whatever that looks like to them.
Maybe thinking of them this way will help me worry about
them less.
       I pass a little farm compound on the way down the hill into
the village of Strathblane, where I will stay tonight. The com-
pound features a modest dwelling, a greenhouse, and a swing
for two on top of a hill overlooking the Campsie Fells across
the valley. A little girl plays in the yard next to a wooden kiosk
advertising fresh eggs. The smell of pine trees and charcoal bar-
becue drifts through the air.
       These hill farmers seem to have attained their heavenly
mansion early, without having to die to get it, and I’m envious.
If my husband were on the trail with me, I would tell him that if
he and I somehow—beyond reason and deserving—are given a
mansion together after we die, this is the kind we should choose:
a little house with a view, evening sunlight on the hills, flowers
and vegetables in the garden. Somewhere familiar, a place our
parents and siblings and children would like to visit over the
stretching eternities. I hope such a place really exists, such an
eternity.
       But as I descend the forest path into the golden valley, look-
ing forward to the dinner and soft bed waiting for me at the vil-
lage inn, I think about the home I’m blessed to have now. Our
simple house in a neighborhood on the side of a mountain. The
white bookshelves my husband built for the piano room. My
yellow dog rolling in the grass. “Burning bushes” out front that
turn bright red in the fall, whose berries feed the birds all win-
ter. Windows in back that look toward Utah Lake, a flat mirror
in the center of the valley. The apple trees we love and hate.
And the people inside the house—people my body made, peo-
ple who made me, body or soul. Sometimes we go far afield in
Balloch to Strathblane order to know what home is and what it 
means. Maybe that’s why we’re sent Earthward in the first place.