New artwork: I Am a Child of God.
Blog
Last night Esther Hi’ilani Candari posted The Body of Christ, a good article about race in our religious art. Hear, hear. (Disclaimer: I’m included in the long list of artists at the bottom, but I would recommend the article regardless.)
Father’s Blessing
A metaphorical representation of Heavenly Father giving a priesthood father’s blessing to his children on the earth.
My Soul Delighteth II
A reference to 2 Nephi 4:15–16. The white part of the background represents revelation and comfort poured down from heaven as the person reads the scriptures.
Let the Lower Lights Be Burning
A reference to the hymn “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy.” The top white light represents both the lighthouse light and God’s light; the bottom yellow lights represent both the shore lights and our own light shared with others.
The Angels of God Were There
A reference to Francis Webster’s testimony about his experience in the Martin Handcart Company (as quoted in Gerald Lund’s book Divine Signatures, p. 90–91):
I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it… I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. And I knew then that the angels of God were there.
Their Work and Glory II
The two triangles represent Heavenly Father (left) and Heavenly Mother (right). The brown circle represents the earth, and the smaller triangles represent us, their children.
The Third Day
A reference to Matthew 20:19. The light circles represent the stone in front of the tomb, and the dark rectangle represents the empty tomb.
Accidentally spent a couple hours working on my Italian-side genealogy (late 1700s and early 1800s in Morrone del Sannio). It had been a while since I’d done much family history — long enough that I’d forgotten how easy it is to get sucked in and completely lose track of time. Whoops. Sorry, contemporary family. For the sake of the fourteen new (or rather old) direct ancestors I found, though, it seems worth it.
Our stake has thankfully decided that given Utah’s current COVID-19 numbers, it’s too early to start church meetings up again. Which seems wise to me. Prudence and patience are what we need here.
Over the past week or so, by the way, I’ve come to realize that we as a family are probably going to need to self-isolate for another year or so while we wait for a vaccine. It’s a long time, but also not that long. Someday this will all be safely tucked in the past. (I should add that I don’t for one second think that COVID-19 isn’t going to leave a permanent mark on the world. The pre-COVID world is surely dead; the world in its wake can’t possibly look the same. But I feel confident that the need to self-isolate will eventually end, at least until the next pandemic.)
This may not comfort others the way it comforts me, but I occasionally think about World War II (I was reading Anne Frank’s diary before the pandemic), more particularly how people wanted the war to end but had no idea in the moment how long it was going to last. It took six years and so many lives, but it did end. As did the 1918 pandemic. This too shall pass.