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2022-04-29
Religion and COVID-19: Effects on Public Life
At the start of the pandemic, I became hyper-aware of the changes happening around me, specifically regarding religion. Unfortunately, many of the changes I witnessed were regarding death. Death is a concept most often associated religiously, for example, someone's soul or spirit going to some otherworldy peaceful place, or reincarnation. On a personal level, there is a catholic church across the street from my house. I had a front-row seat to the trauma and sadness the pandemic brought forth. In recent years, the church was fairly lonely, with only large crowds during big holidays or religious events. During the pandemic, not once did I see the church unoccupied. Whether for a funeral service, blessed sacrament adoration, prayer, liturgy, or confession. The image of the coffin and funeral service serves the purpose of relating to this specific effect on a personal level. When my family lost a child during the pandemic, I experienced how even my non-religious family members or friends offered to join in prayer with my family. Not only the catholic community, as well as other religious communities sought to spread the importance of prayer to the public during the difficult times. With services becoming more widely accessible such as live-streamed on TV for the public. Overall I realized how the pandemic may have affected the public sphere by connecting more identities together, no matter race, religion, or gender. -
2020-07
Covid-19 and my Experience with High School + Religion
I remember when I received the news that we would be taking 2 weeks off of school due to covid-19. I thought that the world would quarantine, and life would proceed to normal. I was a sophomore in high school and very religious at the time. Soon enough the 2 weeks passed by, but now we had to spend even more time at home. After a month or two, and the grocery store shelves started to empty, that's when I finally realized how much of an impact covid-19 was going to have on my life. I realized that my now temporarily online school was going to remain that way in the foreseeable future. My weekly Sunday church services were canceled as well. School quickly became an unbearable chore for me. My high school was not efficient in the slightest at conducting school online. Their idea of an ‘improved’ online course was simply to assign more work. I had had enough. I decided I was going to be in control of my education, not covid-19. During junior year, I decided to get high school over with and graduate early. It was not easy, but I buckled down and completed two years of school all during my 3rd year of high school. Because I was not attending church or in-person school anymore, I was able to dedicate more time to complete high school early. By the time my church was open again to the public, I had other priorities in my life. I no longer had the time or motivation to keep attending these meetings. Even when I officially graduated high school, I found religion to no longer be an interest of mine. I had become accustomed to life without church. Now that I am almost done with my first year of college as a 17-year-old, I find that covid-19 is not much of a stressor in my life anymore. I am also glad that quarantine allowed me the opportunity to see what my life is like without religion. If it weren't for the pandemic, I’m almost certain I would still go to my church services and dread it every single time. As hard as the pandemic was for me, and as difficult as it was to get through quarantine, I’m grateful that it changed my life in the ways it did. I grew a lot during this time period and it made me grateful for the freedoms I already have every day. -
2021-01-06
My Christmas Corona Virus Story
This year's Christmas was pretty similar to a regular year Christmas. We always spend Christmas Eve with my mom's mom, sister, and her husband and daughter so my aunt, uncle, and cousins are Sam who is 19 years old, and Sarah who is 17. Every year we switch off whos house we have Christmas Eve at this year we had it at my aunt's house. We always get all dressed up and eat prime rib for dinner then open our presents from each other but not our presents from our immediate family. We also always bring our dogs so this year we had 4 dogs on Christmas eve my dog Elli, my cousin's dog Sadie, my nanas dog Max, and Snorkel who was a dog my cousins were puppy sitting. We also always go to the Christmas Eve church service which we did not go to because the churches were closed because of the virus. We did not social distance or wear masks and we have been with each other a lot over the quarantine. Then we left at around 1:00 am and went home. Next on Christmas morning we woke up at about 9:45 and went downstairs to open presents and eat breakfast. Halfway through opening presents, we stopped for Breakfast and we always eat cinnamon rolls and bacon. Then we continue to open presents and chilled until 5:00 when my nana, cousins, aunt, and uncle came over with the dogs. My nana made her clam chowder like she does every year and we ate dinner and hanged out. They left around 10:00 and we went to bed. This year's Christmas was very similar to a normal year's Christmas. -
2020-04-27
Church signs in Elizabethtown, KY
I have contributed a collage of three church signs where I live. The church boards are inviting the public and its members to attend services via Facebook Live since our governor, Gov. Beshear has restricted mass gatherings during Kentucky's stay at home policy.