Keep listening, Benson Boone
Just because you haven't experienced something yet, doesn't mean it isn't real.
April, 2025 cover of Rolling Stone
Benson Boone is a “big deal” by at least two important metrics. First, this Grammy-nominated musician had the most-streamed song in the world in 2024, with 2 billion total streams by early 2025.
Second, every girl in my wife’s church group knows his music. What these 8-10-year-old girls may now know is Benson used to identify as Latter-day Saint, just like they do.
But something made him step away … or rather, a perceived lack of something. In a March 2025 interview, Benson Boone told Brian Hiatt with Rolling Stone, “Growing up, a lot of people at church would talk about these experiences that they’ve had and these personal revelations and feelings.”
But he then explained that, as a young teenager, he hadn’t had spiritual experiences like the ones others described - at least none he recognized: “I never felt it as physically present as they did, and so I was always confused and frustrated,” he said.
Then, Boone added: “I was always scared to bring that up to people because I just didn’t want to accept that, like, I wasn’t feeling what everyone else was feeling.”
Not ‘feeling what everyone else was feeling…’
I asked my boys the other day at dinner, “what would happen if you were praying and reading your scriptures regularly, but started thinking ‘hey, I’m not feeling a whole lot?’ What would you do next?”
It’s probably pretty typical for people to take a moment like this as some definitive indicator of reality - maybe a natural way anyone responds to a particular emotional state:
“I’m feeling horribly sad … that means my life and the world are just so dreary.”
“I’m so scared inside … so obviously my life and the world are intolerably fearful.”
“I’m feeling drawn to that person or experience or substance … so therefore my happiness depends on getting it.”
“I’m not feeling the attraction in this relationship … so I think maybe we’re just not good for each other?”
In every case, of course, we could respond differently - seeing each state as something we are experiencing - and not as a definitive representation of “who we are” or our reality as a whole.
From that stance, we could then work with our unsatisfying or uncomfortable experiences in creative and patient ways: watching, waiting and nourishing a new kind of experience to emerge.
In simpler terms, this is what came out of our conversation as a family:
“I’d keep praying,” one of my sons said, in response to my question about hypothetically facing the same experience as Benson.
A cloud of witnesses
My son’s simple faith represents well the wisdom of Christian believers across ages. For instance, a beloved Spanish priest from the 16th century, Ignatius of Loyola taught, “Seek God in dryness. Faithfulness in prayer when you feel nothing is more pleasing to God than prayer in consolation.”
And St. John of the Cross wrote, “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.”
More recently, Catholic contemplative Thomas Merton writes, “the soul that is faithful to God will go on believing even when God seems absent.”
And in our tradition, former President Russell M. Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ encouraged us to “exercise faith and trust in the Lord even when heaven seems silent.”
“If you are doing your best and still feel nothing, do not be discouraged,” likewise taught Elder Neal A. Maxwell. “God honors faith that persists in the absence of immediate evidence.”
“Even when God seems distant,” said Elder David A. Bednar more recently, “He is closer than we think.”
And one of my favorites comes from President Jeffrey R. Holland: “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.”
Feelings, and words, and experiences
It’s true that Latter-day Saints relish the sweetness of spiritual communion, especially the “fruits” Paul taught the Galatians help us identify God’s presence: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
In one of my favorite Book of Mormon passages, a people in a state of great fear hear the voice of God: “And it came to pass when they heard this voice, and beheld that it was not a voice of thunder, neither was it a voice of a great tumultuous noise, but behold, it was a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it did pierce even to the very soul.”
But our basis for God’s reality certainly go beyond feelings. “Feelings come and go,” Martin Luther famously said, before encouraging attention to the actual text of scripture: “My warrant is the Word of God.”
Words and feelings eventually translate into actual experiences that we can identify as further evidence - including, yes, experiences saturated with unexpected emotion. For instance, a peace that goes beyond our normal understanding - or a joy that takes our breath away - these have been signs of higher realities in my life.
Yet rather than trying to “figure it out” or forcing an experience through extreme religiosity, this is also about patience, gentleness and space. “The quieter you become, the more you can hear,” taught spiritual teacher Ram Dass.
Staying and seeking
In practice, this might simply mean sticking with it - and not just running off when you’re not “feeling what you’re supposed to” in a marriage, or a friendship - or a faith. “Sometimes the most powerful prayer is simply staying,” says American author Anne Lamott.
All this is what I hope for my boys. That they will keep digging deeper when their well of faith seems dry. Rather than an experience Christians have, I would say this kind of faith test is fairly universal across anyone seeking to follow Christ. (I can’t help but think my friends of other faiths would say something similar).
For us, the end result of all this is captured beautifully in a divine message given to Jeremiah: “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
Seeking. Staying. Quieting. Studying. Persisting. Hoping. Trusting. Seeking. Believing.
All this is a wise and wonderful way to respond to a “lack of feeling” - whether in a family or a faith.
But it’s not what Benson did.
Instead, according to the Rolling Stone interview, he eventually shared his disappointment in not feeling more spiritually with a friend, who replied, “Thank goodness. I feel the same way.”
And just like that, further opportunities to go deeper can get short-circuited - e.g., “well, this isn’t working for me. I’m done.”
But that’s not how it has to go. In a moment, you can be digging deeper spiritually again - and reaching higher.
As Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz both say in a movie I’ve never seen: “Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.”
That’s true for my boys - and for world-famous musicians.
Keep listening, Benson Boone.