D. Anthony Alvarez ’21, a member of the Harvard Latter-day Saints Student Association, has attended religious services at the same congregation off campus since he arrived at Harvard as a freshman.
This semester, Alvarez said he still attends services at that same congregation. Amid Covid-19, though, he must sign up to attend ahead of time, don a mask, and eschew singing, which can spread infectious particles.
Brent Beavers, a Buddhist hospital chaplain in the San Francisco Bay Area, had been on the job for less than a year when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The virus upended routines at the intensive care unit where he was completing his residency, even as restrictions on visitors, meanwhile, changed how he did his job.
Unable to be together, patients and families needed more help with the heightened anxiety, sorrow and grief that come with illness and death. He was often a patient’s only human contact besides the busy doctors and nurses.
Thai Viet Phan, who was recently elected to the Santa Ana City Council, was stunned when she received the advisory notice from the Buddhist temple she attended growing up.
Huong Tich Temple had been vandalized and Santa Ana police had deemed it a hate crime. It was the sixth temple to be vandalized in the area in the last month.
At the saw-toothed edge of autumn, violent forest fires obscured the noonday sun at Green Gulch Farm. Ominous clouds of charcoal soot and thick, vermilion smoke darkened the Pacific Northwest, covering the last rows of butter lettuce with ghost-gray ash.
A major New York Jewish organization co-hosted an event in New York this week to debate a subject that most in the city assume has long been settled — whether the swastika is good or bad.
While the notorious hooked-cross symbol has long been associated with the evil of Nazism and hate, it has for even longer been revered by Hindus and Buddhists, who argued Monday that swastika was misused by Hitler and its image should be rehabilitated.
(RNS) — When the pandemic hit the U.S. in March, Heather Hopkins suddenly had fewer things to do and nowhere to go. Dealing with feelings of stress and uncertainty, she began to reflect on her life.
“It gave me the time and space to think about what’s important in my life, what do I want out of life, what do I want my routine to be like, how do I want to spend my time,” said Hopkins, 37, who lives in San Diego.
Lord Ganesha greets visitors to the home of Jagdish and Shobha Patel in Holland.
A figurine of the deity is positioned prominently in an altar set into a wall just off the kitchen, depicted as is traditional with the body of a man and the head of an elephant. One of several such depictions that the couple displays in their home, this one in porcelain and in the characteristic style of Lladró, it serves a purpose both spiritual and artistic.
Earlier this month, the North Texas Thai community gathered in unity, many wearing traditional national costumes but all wearing protective masks, at Wat Dallas for an annual fundraising event that had special significance this year. Despite changes forced by COVID-19, including fewer people (around 100 instead of the usual 500-plus), the ceremony generated more donations for the Buddhist Temple of Dallas than in years past.
“The Royal Kathina is the highest honor one can get to present the...
A lot of people turn to their religious communities for support through tough times. That sense of connection is different as people are navigating through the unprecedented time of 2020, but it’s not lost.
Emily Garforth, president of the Association of Jewish Students at Hillel, has felt the challenges of getting students involved in the organization this semester. She mentioned that less people are showing up to weekly Shabbat services because the dinner portion was pulled.