Renewing faith, or losing it, in the time of COVID-19

LOS ANGELES — One roamed for hours through an oak preserve asking God to speak to her through the silence.

Another spent her days in meditation, using each exhale to send relief to her son, who had, by then, slipped out of consciousness. Not long before, a third woman had awakened in the middle of the night to what became a terrifying, recurring dream about descending into hell.

Each woman — members of three generations — went through a spiritual journey that had been sparked, sped up or heightened by the pandemic.

The last two years have transformed the stability of our families, our jobs and our collective understanding of science and sacrifice. But, for many of us, COVID-19's reach also rewired something more elemental: our faith.

A Pew survey conducted early in the pandemic, found that nearly 3 in 10 Americans said their religious faith had become stronger since the coronavirus outbreak.

For others, this time has fundamentally changed their place within their religious traditions or led them to question long-held beliefs altogether — processes of introspection and transfiguration that can be, at once, painful and deeply fruitful.

"Suffering," one of the women said, "sometimes forces us to look at the gold mine we're sitting on."

The pastor

During the first fall of the pandemic, as she was clawing her way through a blinding depression, Esther Loewen told her wife, Paige, something she'd long feared would end both