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Sabbath Devotional :: Concentric Circles and Self-Care
“… and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death…” (Mosiah 18: 8-9). These are the covenants we make when we are baptized as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They can seem overwhelming, especially in this…
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Are You Aware? An Effort to Hear
This is part VI in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. As the daughter and sister of physicians on the COVID-19 front lines, I’m a dutiful adherent of social distancing and mask wearing these days. But, as a person with total hearing loss, these strategies are hard. Social distancing means sound is farther from me. Mask wearing makes speechreading nearly impossible and further muffles the sound. As Roberta Cordano, the president of Gallaudet University, said in a recent New York Times article entitled “For the Deaf, Social Distancing Can Mean Social Isolation,” “The ‘two adults, six feet apart’ standard carries its own inherent…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Just and True
As I was contemplating the past week or so about my devotional message, I was reading my scriptures. Alma 18:12 jumped out: “Ammon . . . went in unto the king, and he saw that the countenance of the king was changed.” Ammon proceeded by the power of the Holy Ghost to ask King Lamoni inspired questions. Lamoni then asked, “Art thou sent from God?” (verse 33). In the next verse Ammon answered: “I am called by his Holy Spirit to teach these things unto this people, that they may be brought to a knowledge of that which is just and true.” It struck me, aren’t we here as members…
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Are You Aware? Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Fight Ableism
This is part V in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. 1. Learn about the history of disability. In order to understand current experiences of disability, we need some information about how disability has been experienced. Because disability history is not covered in schools, most people have very little (if any) exposure to it, leaving it up to disabled people to do much of the educating on this topic. Given that disabled people have been around just as long as anybody else, it’s impossible for me to recommend resources that cover all of disability history. But I’ll recommend three resources that I believe…
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We Are Witnesses
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020, MWEG hosted its inaugural Town Hall: “If All Lives Matter, then Black Lives Matter: Turning Frustration into Productive Interpersonal Action.” After inspiring words by featured presenter Dr. LaShawn Williams, MWEG’s anti-racism committee lead, Charlotte Mountain, shared these thoughts. “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15). What this is telling us is that it is righteous and good that there be corroboration to any prosecution. We should not be convicted on…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Embracing the Period of Great Humbling
Many years ago, in the mythical days just before the internet sped up communication, I was a student studying abroad in London. General Conference had happened somewhere, but it hadn’t happened yet for us, and just as we left to head out on a month-long trip in Europe, a friend got a package containing homemade conference cassette tapes. Because of this, a few days later I found myself on a train, struggling to get discernible words out of a small portable cassette player. Suddenly, a voice came through clearly. Gordon B. Hinkley was reading a talk that President Benson felt too unwell to give himself, and for some reason it…
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“This Can’t Be Forgotten”
These are the words of Charlotte Mountain, MWEG’s anti-racism committee lead. Charlotte is a black woman living in America, and her oldest son is a police officer. The video she refers to is that of the murder of George Floyd. A simple internet search for Darnella Frazier, the woman who shot the film, will help you find it. I watched the video twice, because the first time I was absolutely in shock. The second watch was to make sense of what I saw. The video I watched was attached to a news article that claimed George Floyd (unnamed at that time) had later died, and I did not believe that.…
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MWEG Member Op-Ed :: “An Epidemiologist’s View on Personal Liberty and Mask-Wearing”
“The tricky part is that we can’t eliminate COVID-19 by focusing only on our individual liberty — we have to exercise a kind of generous, communal commitment to liberty as a principle. We have to believe in protecting the liberty of another as much as protecting the liberty of ourselves, and that belief has to drive us to make some necessary personal sacrifices.” MWEG member Chantel Sloan is an infectious disease epidemiologist who has a front-row seat to COVID-19. Read more of her thoughts on the pandemic, mask-wearing, and freedom in this Deseret News opinion piece. “An Epidemiologist’s View on Personal Liberty and Mask-Wearing” • May 27, 2020 • Deseret…
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Are You Aware? How to Be an Advocate
This is part IV in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. My third child, a daughter named Marisa, was born in 1991. The pregnancy and delivery went well, but after she was born, we began to see behavior that was much different than our first two children. She would tantrum (screaming at the top of her lungs) frequently as a baby, and a toddler. Because of the intensity of her crying, I kept thinking she must be ill. So she was taken to many doctors and was poked and prodded, so very many times. All her medical tests came back normal. But she…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Prayer of the Peacemaker
As a kid, I had kind of a love/hate relationship with the story of Abinadi. I loved the example he set of testifying of truth but, honestly, was a little terrified by how things ended for him. I was also fairly shy, and extremely conflict-averse, so the thought of standing up in front of a group of people and telling them a whole bunch of things that made them angry was nearly as terrifying as Abinadi’s untimely death. And yet, I knew it was important to follow the example of people like Abinadi, to use my voice to “stand for truth and righteousness.” At the Mormon Women for Ethical Government…
