Chapter 18: Oh 2020
Oh 2020, what do I even say about you? The year started with such hope, looking to the future with “20/20 clarity.
Oh 2020, what do I even say about you? The year started with such hope, looking to the future with “20/20 clarity.” I don’t think anyone could have guessed all that would happen that year. I remember thinking that the terrible fires in Australia were not a great way to start the year, but it couldn’t get worse. Ha!
One of my favorite recaps of 2020 is the video series “Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self” by actor and comedian Julie Nolke
At the beginning of the year, President Nelson encouraged us to study the Restoration along with the Come Follow Me curriculum. So again, I made another effort to start Come Follow Me. I decided to learn more about U.S. history around the time that Joseph Smith was born and the church was founded: The Second Great Awakening. I wanted to get a better understanding of the religious fervor that he talked about.
I didn’t study church history for long because when February came, I decided to learn more about black history for Black History month. I went with a friend to a lecture at Reed College with author Ijioma Oluo. She talked about her book So You Want to Talk About Race1. I saw the musical/play Who I Am Celebrating Me2 at the Firehouse Cultural Center. I attended the Beaverton School District Conversation on Race. There I learned about microaggressions and implicit bias for the first time. I learned a lot that month, but mostly I learned that I was pretty ignorant about systemic racism, white supremacy, and supporting BIPOC people. And my ignorance would become even more apparent that year with the news covering the tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and more.
On February 20-23, I joined about two dozen calligraphers for a weekend at the Menucha Retreat Center in the Columbia Gorge, a yearly retreat sponsored by the Portland Society for Calligraphy. I had a wonderful experience. It was so nice to do something for myself, have quiet practice time, share work and enjoy being around other calligraphers. At my desk I spent my time experimenting with my homemade inks and learning gothicized italic.
One evening in my room, I wrote some thoughts down in my journal.
I’m at a calligraphy retreat at the Menucha Center in the Columbia Gorge. We arrived yesterday afternoon and I am already loving it. Kind and welcoming artists, sharing work, eating good food, taking time for myself and enjoying the beautiful grounds.
I have had a lot on my mind lately. I'm trying to decide if I should try to focus on one thing this weekend, or just see what flows out. I think about:
being present as a mother. Love and gently guide
Supporting Aster as a gay person
Gratitude for all my blessings
God and Christ are with us no matter where we are on our path.
Can I feel content and joy just because?
Lately feeling happy with my life - then I get scared that something bad is going to happen to humble me. (ha ha)
But as always, I had a lot of church trauma on my mind and my list also included:
Dealing with the difference that the church leaders teach about LGBTQ+ and what feels right to me. What does God want me to know?
Can I step back from my frustration with the church and its leaders?
Does criticism mean I have a lack of faith?
Wanting to speak out, but fear church discipline and that it’s not God leading me.
If a person chooses a spiritual path outside of the church, does that mean they are “lost” and must be rescued?
When I returned from Menucha, I was on a spiritual and emotional high and I was really looking forward to a Spring Break trip with my family. We had wanted to go to southern Utah and the Grand Canyon for a long time, and finally we were going. We finalized our travel plans, including staying with family in St. George for a few days.
Of course, I couldn't go a very long time without something with the Church bothering me. In late February a section of BYU’s student honor code that banned “homosexual behavior” on campus was quietly deleted. University officials didn’t give any details about this, so many students were hopeful that public displays of affection between two queer people were now permitted.
Finally, on March 4th, BYU retracted the honor code changes. The honor code ‘led to much discussion and some misinterpretation.” Then they clarified that the standards of the church actually did not change, that affection among gays on campus was in fact, not permitted, and not part of ‘living the Lord’s standard of a chaste and virtuous life.”
Of course, this all pissed me off, and I felt so bad for the queer BYU students that had felt so hopeful. My family and I wrote messages of support for the LGBTQ+ students at BYU-Provo and BYU-Idaho who were affected by this debacle.
The whiplash of events at BYU triggered the familiar pain and confusion about the church’s doctrines and policies about gay people. I needed some support, so I reached out to my Mama Dragons group and met up with a Mama at a local coffee shop to talk and share frustrations. This mama had been through similar frustrations, confusion and anger towards the church. Like several Mama Dragons I had met, she made the tough decision to step away from the church. These women were strong members of the church, had served in the church and raised their kids there. But when their kids came out as gay, they fought that battle of loving the church but opposing the discrimination and policies that degraded their children. At this point, I hadn’t seriously thought about leaving, but I could understand why these women left. It all becomes too much.
All the while, we were all learning about this mysterious and highly contagious new virus going around.
The COVID-19 virus was on a rapid spread across the world. First we heard about the spread in China, then Italy, and then in the U.S. On March 8th, the governor of Oregon declared a state of emergency, but schools and businesses remained open.
A week later, President 45 declared a national state of emergency. Maybe he was downplaying the seriousness of the virus so that people wouldn’t panic, but I thought his response to the pandemic was ridiculously terrible - - mocking people who wear masks, holding rallies and not requiring masks, telling the country that the virus spread isn’t that bad when he knew it was, dismissing scientific facts, saying we’ll do less testing so we don’t find out about more cases, etc…
On March 16th, Oregon’s governor directed schools to close and told everyone to stay home.
We had to cancel our Spring Break plans and I was so bummed.
I was pretty stressed about Covid. My immune system can be weak at times so I was absolutely terrified of getting the virus. We sanitized all the major surfaces in our house. We got masks. We stayed home and tried to stay busy. Gabe even taught me to play Minecraft. I’m not sure when the hoarding of toilet paper started, but when Josh went grocery shopping, the pasta and rice aisle was almost bare.
We started using these new terms like “social distancing”, “quarantine”, “shelter in place”, “pandemic”, and “Zoom calls.”
After spring break, school was back in session - online, otherwise known as distance learning. I don’t even know how to describe school then. It’s all a blur. I can't imagine the intense stress that teachers were under - Scrambling to learn to teach online and adjust expectations, worrying about the students’ progress. My kids struggled.
The pandemic took a toll on everyone around the world: anxiety, stress, job loss, educational stress, fear, sickness, loved ones dying. By April 20, the US had 1.04 million confirmed cases and 60,000 deaths.
Ironically, earlier in the year I began reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön3. Ha!
Through the stress of that time, it was also a time of growth, learning and finding ways to connect with loved ones. In April, my parents and siblings and the grandkids started having a weekly Sunday Zoom call. We still continue that tradition now. I love that it gives us a chance to check in, laugh at each other and stay up to date on each other’s lives.
Also in April, I started attending and participating in Zoom church with good friends. I really treasured that time, having a time for a spiritual check-in and support. We got through all the typical technical difficulties and managed to give talks, sing and pray together.
My ministering brothers began bringing the sacrament to me at home most Sundays, and Josh sometimes joined me. They would walk behind the house to our back porch, where I set a small piece of bread and cup of water on a table. We usually spent a few minutes visiting and checking in with how we were all holding up. The ministering brothers would then sanitize their hands, bless the bread and water, pass it to us, and we would have a few minutes of quiet time to reflect on the atonement. It was a sacred time together.
Like a lot of people, I felt like I was losing my marbles during that time, so I tried to do things that took my mind of the stress. I called several friends that I hadn’t talked to in a long time. It was nice to get up to date on their lives and reconnect. I really missed seeing my local friends in person, so I invited several of them over for lunch on the back porch.
For a while I had been planning on setting up my own art website, and since we were all isolated, it was a good time to do it. In April I started taking photos of my artwork, designing my website and getting my shop all set up for transactions with customers. It was a lot of work, but I was really proud of myself.
My spiritual questions continued to pile up. In March and April, I wrote down a bunch of gospel questions that were on my mind, including:
What does God want me to be focusing on during quarantine?
Why do we need a one true church? Other churches also claim to be the only true church.
Why do so few get to be a part of it?
Does that concept demean other churches?
What are the miracles in my life that I haven’t noticed?
Joseph Smith - is it possible that even though he seemed like a sexual predator and was overly charismatic that the Lord needed him as prophet? And why all the sex stuff?
What do I do when it’s hard to share the gospel with people when I’m in conflict with so much church crap?
What are the philosophies of men?
And my perpetual question: What is Elizabeth doing?
We got through the first few months of the pandemic okay. Things were already so bad in the world, there was no way it could get much worse…
Oluo, Ijeoma. So You Want to Talk about Race. Seal Press, 2019.
Sims, Shalanda. Who I Am Celebrating Me. World Stage Theater, 2006.
Chödrön, Pema. When Things Fall Apart. Shambhala, 2016.
I am always so impressed with the things you accomplish with your art and the questions you ask about your spirituality.