Exponent II's Blog, page 174

Being a Stay at Home Mom During a Pandemic

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I’ve been a stay at home mom for 13 1/2 years. I wouldn’t exactly say it was a choice, because it honestly never occurred to me there was anything else I could pick to do with my life. Unlike some women, I didn’t look forward to babies or motherhood. Once married, I saw it as a fast approaching deadline that I had no option but to accept when the time came (kind of like death). I was married at age 21, reluctantly went off of birth control two years later at 23, got pregnant at 24, and had my first baby at 25. I quit my job at that point and have stayed at home ever since (and to be fair, it’s turned out that my kids are more fun than not). While I am lucky to make a financial contribution to my family through part time property management of rental properties, I don’t have any colleagues, promotions, or an office to go to with my work. Because of this I have a hard time thinking of my job there as a type of a career, regardless of any income it produces.

 My husband on the other hand, has two careers. He joined the army at age 17 and has consistently worked his way up through the ranks of the military for over two decades. As a reservist, he also holds a regular job as a senior manager at a large international company. He started working for them shortly after his mission and has likewise moved up from an entry level position through an impressive career that has him now overseeing teams in multiple states and countries. I am proud of him and his accomplishments. He is talented and works very hard and every promotion he’s received has been hard earned.  

With the coronavirus outbreak, he’s begun working from home for both his regular job and his military drills. We don’t have any sort of home office set up at our house however, so he’s been working from the corner of our master bedroom, where he’s brought home monitors and a keyboard and created a makeshift work space.

I have likewise found myself home-bound with our three kids during the same time. Homeschooling is hard, but not impossible. My kids and I keep tiptoeing through the bedroom where he is working to get to the bathroom. I’ve tried to stay quiet and not interrupt his work, but I overhear the conversations happening in my bedroom each day. Usually they start with people laughing and joking, catching up, seeing each other’s kids, and eating lunch at the same time to maintain community. An in-person lunch meeting with another boss was canceled last week, and so my husband was sent a $25 gift card for Grubhuh to order himself lunch that day anyway. (He shared with us.) 

Multiple times at the end of these home-bound days, my husband will announce that he must leave the house or he’ll go stir crazy. I usually shrug and ask where he wants to go, but it’s generally something as unexciting as driving to the gas station to fill up his car and going through a drive through for a snack, and I typically say “nah”, and just stay home with the kids.

I was listening to a podcast with a male host who reflected on his past desire to work from home. Staying in his pajamas all day and avoiding traffic hour had always sounded awesome to him, but after just the first week at home he’d already changed his mind. He missed face to face interaction, and staying within the walls of his house was monotonous and depressing. He needed a reason to get dressed each day, and he’d found himself mindlessly snacking out of boredom and loneliness. He expressed concern that this would drag on for weeks and he’d only get out of the house to go to the grocery store between now and then. He’d never before realized how important leaving his home and going to the office actually was for his mental health. 

 For me on the other hand, the quarantine hasn’t changed my life dramatically. I still wake up at home, spend the day here cleaning up, doing laundry and cooking, help with homework, break up sibling fights, and my main outings are still to the stores for errands. I’ve been doing this kind of stuff for many years and it’s the same old story, just with less time to myself because nobody leaves during the day. I’m even more relaxed in some ways, because my usual extracurricular and volunteer stuff has all been put on hold and my Netflix watching time has gone through the roof. 

I have been reflecting on both my husband’s and that podcaster’s reaction to being home all day. They both dislike it. They’re missing the interaction they get of being with other people and leaving their house every day. Am I somehow less social or more of a homebody than those guys? I don’t think so, at least not in the case of my husband. If either of us thrives more in being around other people, I think we’d both agree it’s me. Yet throughout the course of a typical quarantine day, he interacts with multiple co-workers through online meetings while I talk to only our kids and the pets while doing dishes and painting baseboards. If anybody would want out of the house and be craving social interaction, it seems like it would be me. But I’m the only one who is willing to sit at home day after day. I think I’m just accustomed to the monotony after so many years of it.

I was taught throughout my formative years that being a stay at home mom would bring me more personal happiness than anything else I could ever choose. And to be fair, I’m not miserable. I’m fine. It’s okay. I am clearly vital to the function of my household and my husband’s success in his two careers. But would I have loved a career where I left my house five days a week and got promotions, bonuses, awards and recognition? Yes. I think I would have loved all of that very much, and I think that during this quarantine I’d be going just as stir crazy as my husband is right now. I think my soul has possibly gone a little numb after all these years at home with my kids.

Looking back now, I realize that most of these messages about the joy of being a stay at home parent originated with male general authorities (albeit sometimes passed on to me through the female leaders below them). The idea that staying home day in and day out could be fulfilling and soul nourishing came from men who have probably never had to stay at home. 

As a mom with unending childcare and household responsibilities, zero compensation, and no recognition awards or promotions, hearing some men complain about their home-bound work situation after such a short period of time (when it’s been my situation for the majority of my adulthood) is weird. They still have their careers and co-workers and lunches, just over Zoom instead of in person. From here on out, I don’t want to hear another sacrament meeting talk from a non-stay at home parent telling young women in the congregation that the happiest they can ever be in their life is to get married, have babies, and stay home with them – especially if during this quarantine they’ve been using “stir crazy” to describe their mood. Being at home all day is hard, and I’m glad the rest of the world is gaining understanding of what it’s like for stay at home parents, and everything we sacrifice to make the lives of our families run so smoothly. We are indispensable to our families, the economy, and the world – and we have been (and always will be) essential workers. So everybody stuck at home this past month (whatever your gender), go thank a stay at home parent when this all ends. We’re the unpaid support staff behind the scenes that make the entire world function and economies run – and you know, it can be a little isolating sometimes…kind of like a quarantine. 

Guest Post: The Power of One #CopingWithCovid19

[image error]By Cherie Pedersen

For someone who never liked math, I find it ironic that my life focuses so heavily on numbers. Everyone’s does. The number on the scale. The number of candles on the cake. The number of steps taken or miles walked or run or biked or driven. The numbers on a report card. Birth numbers recorded in pounds and ounces and inches. Popularity numbers evidenced by followers on social media platforms. Medical numbers recorded with thermometers and blood pressure cuffs and devices that send out alarms if the numbers aren’t right.

Now there are new numbers to track: the number of COVID-19 cases reported daily and the grim numbers of deaths, the number of missed paychecks and the numbers in dwindling bank accounts, not to mention the numbers in a stock market that rise and plummet like kites on a windy day, causing investors like me to wonder about futures that once seemed secure.

What is it about numbers that make us cling to them, even in the fact of anxiety? Is it that they give us a measure of control over our lives— or at least the perception of it? Yet suddenly we have been catapulted into a time when everything feels out of control. Would now be a good time to step back from the scary numbers and focus instead on another number, a number that might actually bring a measure of peace? I’m talking about the number One. One is manageable. One isn’t overwhelming. One holds out the possibility of not only surviving but thriving when all else is fraught with uncertainty.

What if we offered up one act of kindness each day? What if we extended grace to one person instead of judgment— even if the person is just ourselves? What if we found one thing that made us and others laugh? What if we made one phone call to someone we haven’t talked to in awhile? What is we learned one new thing or honed one new skill that brings us joy? What if we found one new thing to appreciate about those who share our space? What if we spent one minute giving thanks for flowers that still bloom and birds that still sing and a sun that still rises and sets on the gift of another day? What if we spent one hour doing something that enlarges our soul? What if we spent one day unplugged from the devices that feed anxiety and listen to what Heavenly Parents might be telling us instead?

We are all characters in a story that has only begun to be written. The rising action is happening quickly, though we cannot know whether this will be a long story or a short one. The crises that unfold will be both global and personal before we come to some final resolution. And though we cannot shape the overall narrative, we can shape the sub plots— the small stories of our own lives that will reflect how we used this time and these circumstances—whether we acted courageously or not, whether we acted compassionately or not, whether we acted unselfishly or not, whether we acted wisely or not, whether we loved more generously or not— in short, whether we helped to write a story, measured in units of One, that brought catharsis to us all.

Cherie is a retired teacher, fundraiser, editor, reporter and occasional freelance writer who lives in rural south central Pennsylvania and relies on daily eBike rides to maintain her sanity.

Finding Family with DNA Testing

There was a new face at my step-grandmother’s funeral—another Nordic face, like my step-grandma and her children and grandchildren. He had never met my step-grandmother, but in the few days after her death and before her funeral, he had taken a DNA test through one of those testing websites and discovered the identity of his biological father. His father was one of my step-Grandma’s sons, who had dated the young man’s mother about two decades before. He was just in time to learn all about his biological grandmother by attending her funeral, although, unfortunately, just too late to actually meet her. The family flocked around this charming young man and the big, playful dog he brought with him to the family picnic after the funeral, thrilled to bring this unexpected new cousin into the fold.

Last summer, I met another stranger at a family reunion of another branch of my big family tree. This older man had also found us through DNA testing. The story uncovered by the DNA was a bit messier this go-around; his father was the family patriarch, my husband’s grandpa, who had been married to my husband’s grandma at the time this man was conceived. Did she know that he had cheated on her? Did he know that his infidelity resulted in a son? We can never know what they knew; they are long since deceased. “Ask your parents all your questions while they are alive,” one of my husband’s aunts told me with a shrug. The backstory may have been awkward, but family is a gift, and most of my husband’s aunts and uncles embraced their newly discovered biological half-brother.

I attended another family reunion last summer, for another branch of in-laws. There were no newly uncovered relatives present at this one. Several of them had taken DNA tests, and unsurprisingly, the app had grouped them together as biological relatives. But there was one extra person included in the mix, a profile for someone they hadn’t met who identified himself as an adoptee. They mulled over theories about how this one stranger was connected to their family and debated whether they should reach out to him. They weren’t sure if they should give him information that could lead to uncovering the identity of the man’s mother, who had apparently chosen to remain anonymous through a closed adoption.

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Yawn.

Shortly after that reunion, I had my own DNA tested. The results were boring to the extreme. I learned that my ancestors were homogeneous white people who spoke English (one Viking invader excepted). In equally boring but reassuring news, the biological relatives identified for me by the app were the family I had always known. No surprises.

Yet.

Grief and Gratitude, #CopingwithCOVID19

By Emily Larson

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Photo by Samartha J V on Unsplash

As part of my calling, I was asked to read through the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet and pick a standard that I’d like to present on to send to the youth in my ward.  When I read the request, I audibly groaned.  I have detested that little pamphlet ever since my own youth, when a fellow Mormon in our school would hand them out to other students and my friends would approach me and ask if I really believed and lived by everything in that book (reader, I did not).

So I read through the pamphlet and rolled my eyes at both the vague language as well as the absurdity of some of the standards.  Like, in Music and Dancing, “do not use positions or moves that are suggestive of sexual or violent behavior.”  Are people doing suggestive violence in their dancing?  Are there new dance moves mimicking a guillotine?  Are we doing punch-dancing now?  And, most importantly, does this mean I can’t use finger guns anymore?!

After going through the whole pamphlet, I eventually settled on the standard of Gratitude.  I can always get behind Gratitude.  I have kept gratitude journals, I have had months where I purposefully have only said prayers of gratitude. Ultimately, I think keeping a spirit of gratitude in my heart and liberally expressing gratitude to others makes me happier.

But right now, I admit that I’m having a hard time feeling grateful.  I live outside the US (my home country), and we are under very strict lockdown conditions because of COVID-19.  I feel like, little by little, my freedoms have been taken away, and now I’m stuck in my home, unable to go outside or even take a walk.  Our borders are closed – we can’t fly back to the US even if we want to.  Intellectually, I know that I have so much to feel grateful for.  I am here together with my husband and children, and we are healthy.  We have all the temporal things we need to stay hunkered down, safe, and well-fed.  Nobody in my house is a front-line worker, so our likelihood of being exposed to this disease is low.  We have access to medical care if we need it.  I know I should feel grateful for those things, but instead of gratitude, all I feel is grief. I wish I could go outside.  I wish I could wave to my neighbors from the sidewalk.  I wish I could run to the grocery store to grab that one thing I forgot.  I wish I could check in on my family members.  I’m worried that I will miss weddings and funerals, and that I won’t be able to see family in the US this summer as we had planned.  Everything feels so uncertain, and I am grieving.

I’ve come to believe that grief is not in opposition to gratitude; in fact, grief is a bedfellow of gratitude.  Expressing grief can actually be a form of expressing gratitude.  When we grieve something, it’s because we are grateful we had it in the first place.  I am sad that I lost time to be with friends, and I am grateful that I have had the time I’ve spent with them.  I’m sad that I can’t go outside, and I am grateful for nature and the peace I feel in it.  I’m sad that I can’t travel to see my family, and I’m grateful that I have the means to travel to see my family when restrictions are lifted.

I also think that recognizing the gratitude in our grief can move us toward hope.  Feeling grateful doesn’t negate the grief, but it can help us process why the things we grieve are important to us, and help us hope for a day when they are restored.  I found this a lot when my dad died a few years ago – I didn’t know whether I really believed in an afterlife, or whether I would see my dad again.  It was really hard to grapple with the idea that I wouldn’t see him again, and I deeply grieved his passing.  But now, years later, I hope for it.  I still don’t know if I believe that I’ll see him, but I hope that I will.  And that hope, born of both grief and gratitude for the time I had with him before he died, lifts me and sustains me.

So when I present to the youth about gratitude in this time of uncertainty, I plan to tell them about grief.  I want them to know that they can hold two seemingly conflicting feelings together – that grief is an expression of gratitude, and that exploring that gratitude can move us to a place of hope.  This doesn’t mean that we should minimize our losses and tell people they should be grateful instead of grieving.  Quite the opposite – we should help each other realize that when we feel grief, it’s because we had something worth grieving, and recognizing the impact and significance of our loss and grieving it is an expression of gratitude.  No loss is too small to mourn, we are all experiencing some form of loss, and just because somebody has a bigger loss or a harder circumstance doesn’t mean that our losses aren’t worth grieving, too.  And that grieving might take a long time, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and it doesn’t make us unfaithful or ungrateful to grieve our losses.  And I will tell them that eventually, out of grief and gratitude, hope can spring up and carry us through.

 

Hymns in the Key of Corona

Perhaps, like me, your ward is meeting via Zoom or on a similar platform. Our ward doesn’t sing hymns together anymore and I miss it. However, none of the songs really capture the flavor of our present predicament, which is why I’m submitting a few entries that you can employ in your home-centered church-supported spiral into madness.

To the tune of “Count Your Blessings”

Are you ever stuck inside with tots to spare?
Do they kick and fight and just refuse to share?
Count the days of quarantine, they won’t seem to fly
And you will be slumping as the days ooze by.

Count the quarantine (one, two three)
Count the quarantine folks not with me
Count the quarantine, it will not be fun
Count the many days you’ve been stuck with no one.

When you are all trying to work in one room
When your only contact comes to you through zoom
Count the days of Covid
Why not call a friend
You can count together days that will not end.

Count your isolation, you must shun
In your isolation all your friends and fun
Count on Covid!
Name days one by one…
You can only go outside to walk or run.

So amid the virus spread that is not small
Do not be discouraged nor visit the mall
Watch your hair grow shaggy
But don’t watch the news
You’ll be broken hearted to see doctor crews.

To the tune of “Did You Think To Pray”

Do not leave your room this morning
Folks, just stay at home.
Infection from disease is ragin’
So stop spreading the contagion
And play on your phone.

Chorus:
The CDC has rigid guidelines
By which all people should abide
To stop death and human suffering
Please just stay inside.

When sore trials came upon you
Did you stay at home?
When your soul was full of sorrow
A pass to Netflix did you borrow?
To feel less alone.

Chorus

If you leave your room this morning
You should don your mask
Fashion mavens will admire us
If we can cut off the virus
It’s not that big an ask

Chorus

A bonus worldly song for you contrary souls who sing secular music on the Sabbath (Imitate Elvis if possible):

To the tune of: Can’t Help Falling In Love With You

Wise men say
Only fools rush in
Just wait in line
To get inside the store

Six feet back
That is two cart lengths
And do not pass
We will get through this chore

Like a virus flows
Surely when we sneeze
Stranger I just ask
Please stay six feet from me

Don’t touch my hand
This is not the flu
I do not want
To get Covid from you.

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Come Let’s Anew! Eradicating the virus of deceit,distrust and disillusion .

Over the last few months , a pandemic has swept throughout the world altering our life forever. For as many lives that have been lost,many have been altered and are hanging in a pendulum of uncertainty. Without a moment’s notice, they can  become another statistic ,a headline in the nightly news , a victim of humanity porn. In due time, another person will take the limelight leaving the other person locked away in yesterday’s news. It has dawned on me that many of us view life much the same way. We live in the moment,but seldom does the moment live in us. 

           We as a people are succumbing to a virus even greater than Covid-19/Novel CoronaVirus. This mental pandemic has been around for decades with no sign of a vaccine or a cure.  We have been infected with deceit ,distrust and delusion for so long we no longer recognize that we are sick. Nevertheless,we continue to spread this internal virus to others with via prejudice, racism, anti-semitism, islamophobia , sexism,homophobia and transphobia.

No matter how it is spread, the infection rate is large and has a lifetime of effects.In addition, We have been groomed to believe that our happiness lies only in a cisgender,heteronormative, white construct.  As a result ,we as a society are continuing to infect the vulnerable, the marginalized and the disability communities. Quality of life has continued to diminish and there have been many,many,many lives lost in the process.

       As queer ,disabled, person of color I beg of you to not only stop spreading this letal virus ,but to aid in eradicating it.  Quarantine yourself from the mentality that we all must be the same,do the same and act the same in order to be happy. Let me be clear -giving someone a voice  is good but it is not enough. Giving someone a platform is better,but it is not enough. Giving someone the space to find their own voice and build their own platform,is best but it is still not enough. In order to end this virus that is plaguing our nation,we must stop thinking that a few crumbs at the table, is equal to the meal that others get partake in.

           Many of you in the arena of privilege may be wondering or asking how to do more when you too feel hopeless,helpless and don’t know what to do. I don’t claim to know all the answers to the question ,but the best place to start is with our own complacency. Please do not settle in your tide of gratifying ideals while there are others around you who are suffering  . Please do not sit by as others drown in the distance. Now is the time to go full force into uncharted waters and towards lands unknown. It is only when you are willing and able to do this that true and genuine change will occur.

         I am also calling for the major religions in the world to focus more on love,acceptance and broadening community  in their chapels.It is my hope that they will embrace that more than rebranding, new symbols, isolating policies and life-threatening procedures. In other words, our goal is not to look good,not just be good but to increase in our greatness. Irregardless if  we are members of religion ,of society ,our community or in our home we must be willing to speak out against injustice no matter where it is found.

          I have been infected by the deceit,distrust and disillusion virus multiple times but yet I am still not immune . I have fallen prey to the deception that if I try hard enough to blend in my differences will fade away. I learned to distrust my own inner feelings in order show my devotion to societal norms and  for that I have paid a great price.I was disillusioned for many years believing that my life was not my own and that I owe the privileged an explanation. Virus DDD has impacted my self-esteem, my relationships and altered the picture I saw in the mirror.

While we are a long way from finding a cure, I have come to realize that it was never me all along.  I was never broken,confused or without a purpose. I never needed to change because the only person I needed to make happy was myself. I was never lost in the storm ,just abandoned while others took shelter.

 I do not for one moment regret the experiences I have been given and the life I have lived.  For each step in the rocky,thorny places I have taken ,I have grown strength beyond measure and no longer accept the  crumbs society has tried to offer me. I have grown to realize that there are so many that have endured the same journey and so many that will follow after me.It is my hope that while I cannot cure the virus, I can build a path to healing for myself and those who will come after.

It is my hope that after this physical pandemic has passed,that things will not go back to normal. 

It is my hope that we take this time away from each other to reflect on how we can return to society a stronger, more loving and more uplifting people. It is my hope that those with privilege will take down their blinders and find ways to support those who are marginalized. 

It is my hope that we do not look forward to normal ever again,but instead an exceptional version of the life we are currently living. Let us continue to quarantine our minds with peace and compassion.  Let us continue to go beyond mending broken fences, building bridges, and longer tables . Let us mend our thinking,open our hearts and recommit ourselves to becoming our best self. It is then and only then will we be able to eradicate the DDD virus . Are you ready for a cure?

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Holiness in Emptiness #CopingWithCOVID19

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Resurrection Eggs; My Grandma Jessie in the 1920s, and with me in 1968.

I teach primary and my #1 job is to make those kids feel loved. Which is tough right now. We cannot meet, they are too young to Zoom or text, and thus I have had to stretch to find ways to connect. Last week I turned to my old Easter standby, Resurrection Eggs. If you’ve never heard of these, you takes 12 plastic eggs and put items in them that are symbolic of the last week of the Savior’s life (along with an accompanying scripture reference). Items might include a piece of bread to represent the Last Supper, a nail to symbolize crucifixion, white fabric as the symbol of His body being wrapped and placed in the tomb. You can do whatever you want in eggs 1-11. But the last egg, #12, is special because it represents the resurrection. I make sure that final egg is the prettiest one. You can’t really overstate the importance of Life Eternal. One needs glitter for that. The whole exercise is a perfect blend of Valley Girl and English major.

I remember the first time I shared Resurrection Eggs with my own kids. I was so excited for my youngest to open #12, which has nothing inside. I stared at her face, eager to see her make the connection between an empty egg and an empty tomb. She opened it. Nothing. She shook it. The little strip of paper with Matthew 28:5-8 on it fell to the floor. Still nothing. She held two pieces of sparkly plastic in her hands and looked so confused. “Get it? It’s empty because Jesus left the tomb. He conquered death!” one of my older kids explained. But that child holding the hollow egg was in a state of deep anticappointment, where you have built something up, believe something wonderful is coming, and then are totally let down (my sister coined this phrase after several sucky New Years Eves in the 80s).  My 8 year old smiled tentatively and I probably assuaged her with a Peep, eager for her to be happy and for me to feel like a Good Mormon Mom.

This year as I put the items and scripture strips in the eggs, I thought about the darkness and pain associated with the time leading up to Easter as I never have before. With the corona pandemic, there are days I feel I am living in a dystopian YA novel where we have all volunteered as tributes. My high school senior will have no prom, no graduation, and will be lucky to attend college in person by fall. My husband and I have both had work disappear and are scrambling to piece things together. My 87-year-old mother can’t seem to grasp that social distancing means you can’t invite your neighbor in, even if that seems “terribly rude,” and going to the post office to buy commemorative stamps is not essential. She thinks I’m being overprotective, but I feel like I am stationed on the front lines for her life. Daily I battle a combination of restlessness, hyper vigilance, and dread. I know this cannot go on forever, and yet that knowledge does little to comfort my heart.

When placing the small piece of paper into the shimmering egg, I grasped that while emptiness is a symbol of the empty tomb, of resurrection and life, there is so much pain in its hollowness. I reread John 20:11-13 and I know why Mary wept when she found the Lord’s body gone. Even a dead Jesus was better than no Jesus. Emptiness is loss and heartbreak. Emptiness is despair and uncertainty. I have miscarried four times. And even when I saw no heartbeat on the ultrasounds, as long as there was a body inside my womb, I somehow had hope of a child. Sealing each egg, I know I have been cavalier in my love of that last, most beautiful egg.  I have only seen it as hallowed, instead of hollowed.

I have sat with that hollowness for the past month and allowed myself to grieve the things I have lost. I have taken the advice of a friend and refused to let anyone “Easter the crap out of my Lent.” It is easy to tell ourselves that our pain is somehow lesser or not valid because “it could be worse.” But life is not a suffering contest where only those with the most dire circumstances are entitled to their pain. Pain is pain. Loss is loss. When Jesus finally gets to Mary and Martha after Lazarus has died, they are devastated. Does Jesus try to console them by saying, “Dry your eyes, sisters! His death doesn’t matter because I’m about to reverse all that!” No. Jesus wept. He wept because they wept and that is what our baptismal covenants require of us.

When the empty tomb feels like more like a promise and less like a breach, I take solace in the communal nature of this pain. I am not alone in my suffering. Every mask I see is a sign of solidarity. When the neighbors turn their backs to each other as they pass in the grocery aisle we are protecting each other and I am grateful. The Passover teaches us there is power in our communal suffering.  I try to remember that empty things can be filled with hope and life. That Easter’s promise is not being spared death, but an assurance of rebirth in some form.  That in Matthew 25:8 the Marys leave the empty “sepulchre with fear and great joy;” the two feelings can occupy the same space: holiness in emptiness.

On Thursday I went to my mother’s and we spent 8 hours working on a book about her mother’s life that, a project that has languished for a few years. Grandma Jessie was born on Easter Sunday in 1903 and would be 117 today. Something about the Easter birthday ignited a fire in my mom and her sister. This good woman died when I was two and I don’t know much about her. The few photos we have together have faded beyond repair. My Grandpa Oscar however, was the Sun, eclipsing everyone in his orbit. His stories are burned into my soul like a brand. But Jessie was a Star, whose light must be sought in the dark night sky.

On Friday we worked for 10 hours, breaking our Good Friday fast with chile verde burritos and Diet Cherry Cokes, apparently two of Jessie’s favorite things. My mother tells me to go home, to rest. But I cannot stop weaving together the disparate pieces of her life. Each story brings new understanding, new dimensions. At midnight, exhausted and wired, we agree we have a version we can live with. My mother holds the printed pages to her chest and starts to cry. “I never thought we’d finish,” she confesses. “Now when I die, I can face Mother. This book will keep her alive for her posterity.” Then I start to cry, because this ephemeral ancestor is real to me now, made of flesh and blood.

Our work has resurrected my grandmother. A hollow part of my heart fills with love and hope.

Happy birthday, Jessie. And Happy Easter to all.

Easter and Passover #CopingWithCOVID19

This week, my son told his virtual preschool class:

“Easter is for us to remember that Jesus died and came back to life. So we celebrate Easter to remember that when we die, after we’re done dying, we won’t ever die again.” 

[image error]The First Blooms of Spring

My son, he worries about death. Since he was much smaller than he is now, he has asked me with urgency and pleading if death is the end. And I tell him that we hope not – that we don’t really know, that none of us can really know, but we hope for something better. Already he has learned to rush past the pain – “But Mama, Jesus will make us alive again, right??” 

We hope so, Baby. 

I do not find comfort in the language of certainty. All I can do is hope. Nor does the Jesus story make up a core tenant of my faith; as a myth, it does not often speak to my soul. But it’s one I know well, and it is the faith of my family and my people, and so I observe Lent and Easter and Christmas. When I pray, I end in Jesus’ name. 

This year Easter comes on the eve of the biggest wave of death in our generation. My Jewish neighbors are observing Passover; they are remembering the destroying angel that passed them by, and the plagues that did not. This is a story that feels more relevant. I am praying, too, that we will be delivered. We are in hiding, protecting instead of our beloved firstborn son, our long-awaited unborn daughter. 

When I was young, I thought that faith was a fire in my belly that made me untouchable. I would walk into school like I was going to Carthage, and faith would protect me from all the things there that were familiar and threatening. But I don’t think faith protects us anymore. 

We stand at the edge of a storm; around us, healthy people will soon be sick and dying. On my counter, the dough is rising for the hot cross buns. Outside, the sun is shining and the crocuses are blooming. Spring is here, and death awaits. The Destroying Angel is riding in the wind, and we don’t know where she will strike next. But Jesus is risen, and there is lamb’s blood above our doors and hand sanitizer just inside. We hope; we are diligent and we hope. 

He is Risen, indeed. Next year, in Jerusalem. 

Guest Post: Groanings Which Cannot Be Uttered #CopingWithCOVID19

[image error]by Amy Grigg

Petitionary prayer is such a theological puzzle to me. I have trouble understanding why it should work, why God should need to be asked for things his children clearly need. I have trouble understanding why some prayers seem to be answered, and why others continue to suffer.

And yet.

In the 8th chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul talks about hope. And I can’t think of a time when I have needed hope more than I do now. He says: “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

Admittedly, I don’t have much patience. Since this whole thing started, I’ve been fighting a rising sense of panic, and existential dread, a sense of powerlessness against an engulfing darkness. And in that darkness, Paul’s words have resonated: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

I hardly know what to pray for. I identify so strongly with the idea of groanings that cannot be uttered, with the hope that the spirit will make intercession for us, because I just don’t know what to say anymore. I still don’t understand petitionary prayer, or why we fast, but those seem like the only things I can do in the face of overwhelming darkness. Well, that, and sew lots of masks.

Mormons are spending this Friday, Good Friday, as a day of fasting and prayer for relief from this pandemic. We’re praying for caregivers and front line workers, for those working on treatments, cures, and vaccines, for the sick and the elderly and the marginalized, for leaders of nations and local governments to make good decisions, for inspiration for each of us, for economic survival and a return to normalcy, and for each of our hearts’ groanings that cannot be uttered. And if you’re a person of faith, any faith, or even no faith at all, would you join us in fasting and prayer this Friday? Would you link your faith with mine, hesitant as it is, and plead for God to stay this plague, and to heal our land? Would you pray for God to show us a way through this darkness? Can you tell me how you’ve been interacting with God, how this crisis has shaped your faith, and the ways you need support?

Because, when it comes right down to it, I believe in the power of prayer, even though I don’t understand it. I believe in the sacredness of community, in the strength of voices united in common purpose. And it would be a blessing to have my voice united with yours.

Amy is an aircraft engineer, Sunday School teacher, and mother of two living in Maryland.

The Hymnal Revised

[image error]The church is currently working on a new, revised hymnal.  Some of the clear and pure doctrine that we hear from the pulpit was not represented musically in the old version.  This is my humble offering, which will also be very helpful for the month we spend teaching the Young Women about the priesthood.  Sung to “Ye Elders of Israel” — it is still intended for a male only chorus, which is fully inclusive if you only understood.

 

Ye sisters of Israel, who wish they could be                                                                        Ordained to the priesthood, at pulpits be seen —                                                              Aaronic, Melchezidek, to serve and to lead                                                                               Now cease from your moaning, for you are a Queen.

Chorus: O heretics, O heretics we bid thee farewell;                                                  Outspoken critiques are a ticket to Hell.

You don’t need the priesthood, but you can be sure                                                               That men would be evil if not pushed to abjure                                                                      Their carnal deeds and devilish thoughts always impure                                                    They need to make decisions and lead to endure.

(Chorus)

Motherhood is kind of the same thing as control                                                                           Of administration and ward leadership roles                                                                       Women wield the priesthood through husbands that we extol                                        You’re single? Or childless? Well, there’s a loophole.

(Chorus)

All women are mothers, so really they all                                                                                    Have the same status and privilege as the men that we call                                                    You don’t need the priesthood (which you already hold)                                                          So don’t be resentful we’ve left you in the cold.

If you need me I’ll be skulking within the shadow of the everlasting hills, being snarky this day, and always.