Show Notes
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Call (or text) us at ​850-270-3308 and tell us how you're doing. How is it changing your life? How is it changing your daily routines? What silver linings have you seen?
Questions for Reflection
Transcript
Beth (00:03):
Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars podcast. Steph (00:06): Where we have honest conversations about things that make us different. I'm Steph. Beth (00:10): And I'm Beth. Steph (00:10): Today is March 25th, it's around 10:30, 2020. Beth (00:17): It's still 2020. Steph (00:19): 2020. It's been a long week however. Is it still 2020? Beth (00:21): It's still 2020. Steph (00:22): I feel like it's not. The only reason we're time-stamping this is because last week we brought you a episode that was on the fly that we weren't really planning, and this week we are actually doing that again. Because in this time period, we in Tallahassee, Florida are currently in a stay-at-home ... order? Beth (00:41): Order? Recommendation? It's a little bit loosey goosey but yeah. Steph (00:45): Yeah, here in Florida or here in Tallahassee. We thought we would just come and do another episode about what's going on with the virus, what's going on in our lives, how we're feeling about it. Well, first I think you should say you told your husband, just a couple minutes ago, that you were coming to my house. What did he say? Beth (01:04): He said, "Are you sure you should do that?" We have been practicing our own form of extreme social distancing for whatever, a week or so now, ever since our Spring Break Plan B plans got scuttled. Is that the right word? We've been at home limiting our contact, not going out to restaurants, not going to the store other than to just stock up on groceries. It was like, "Yeah, I'm going to leave the house. I'm going to go do this thing with Stephanie." Beth (01:33): But we are sitting six feet apart. We have our microphones six feet apart. We know because we measured to make sure- Steph (01:38): Uncomfortably far apart. Beth (01:40): Yes, awkwardly far apart so we are- Steph (01:44): But we are in the same room. Beth (01:45): We are in the same room and- Steph (01:47): That's not breaking any of the stay-at-home order. We verified that we're not breaking that order. We are two people, if you count Mac that's three, and she's a dog. I think you're allowed to gather with dogs. I do think it's interesting you guys have been staying at home, something you don't typically do. That's been good, nothing's been happening in your home. Beth (02:09): Our house apparently is not liking having us there so much because everything is breaking. It's like our house has #coronavirus or something. Just in this week that we've been home, our ice maker was already giving us trouble in our refrigerator, so now that is really, really on the fritz. Our pool heater broke, our oven in the kitchen broke, our gas grill outside gave it up, it's dead now. Now, one of our air conditioners has gone out. We have a large home, we have three air conditioners, but the biggest unit, the five ton unit is kaputski. Yeah. It's been, in that respect, really fun to be home and just watch things break. Steph (02:51): That's what happens when you actually use your home I guess is it starts breaking. It's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is too much for me." Beth (02:57): "All four of you here at the same time all day long. That's a lot of human contact." Yeah. We're able to get things fixed because people are really responsive right now. I don't know if they don't have other work or they worry that they don't have a good supply of work. But yeah, a while back there was a bad wind storm here in town and it took out some of the screen panels around our pool, so some of them are flapping. We had not been able to get anybody to come out and do it, and then finally this week, somebody was like, "Oh yeah, well now I need the work I'll come do it." Steph (03:30): Now they'll take it. Beth (03:32): They'll be outside our house, they will not be allowed in. Because we're just trying to be careful, we're trying to be smart about this. We don't want to be infected, and even if it were a mild case for us, we just wouldn't want to be people who were passing that on. We're trying to be really respectful. My position personally is just that this is one of the ways that I can love my neighbor right now. When Jesus says love God and love your neighbor, this is one of the ways I can do that, is by not putting myself in a situation where I can be infected and then pass it on. Steph (04:05): Yeah, and I'm really doing the same thing. My mom is in the older demographic with a couple health concerns and so I'm being very cautious as well. I mean, I don't want to get it and I certainly don't want her to get it or to pass it on to her. We are very much working at home, which is not abnormal for us, and I'm just seeing the neighbors around me. I'm interacting with a tiny bit. It's still social distancing, not touching face, all of those things. Steph (04:32): It is interesting because the neighbor I'm interacting with the most is my neighbors that have a greyhound, they have Layla is their greyhound who is really good friends with Mac. I've been interacting with them, but something that we just came to the realization of, they were actually... their whole family was sick a couple of weeks ago in the end of February and- Beth (04:54): With a respiratory illness, right? Steph (04:56): Yeah. They thought they had the flu. The two women got it the worst and then the two men in the house didn't have it as bad, but the women were the sickest. Their 19-year-old daughter was sick first and then the mom got it, and then the other two got it. The mom was tested for flu and she didn't have flu but she had all of the symptoms of flu and she had this cough she couldn't get rid of. It was just stuck in her chest and her daughter actually had to get some medication for the cough because it was so bad. I remember at the time when they were all sick in my head I was like, "They might have #coronavirus, stay away." Steph (05:32): I was, and they were all quarantined because her doctor told her, because she thought she probably had flu even though the test came back negative. They were staying away, which was good. But yeah, I interacted with all of them and I've been interacting with them and I've been in their house, I've been in their car, I've been around their dog. But every time I've been around them and with anyone, I am six feet apart, I'm not touching my face, I'm washing my hands. Steph (06:01): When she realized she thinks that that's what they had, and they haven't been tested so I can't say for sure that that's what they had. In my mind I can't think of anything else it could have been. Beth (06:10): Well, can I ask? They've been asymptomatic now for a while. They got over it, whatever it was. Steph (06:15): Yeah. Beth (06:16): If they were tested now would it even come back positive? I don't know how that works. Steph (06:18): As far as I know there is a test that can check for some kind of antibodies in your blood or something. I'm not a doctor, but I know there's some kind of something that they can test after the fact to see if something had been compromised, they can tell. I think there is a way of testing. I don't know if those are available. She hasn't called her doctor to see if that's even possible. I don't even know if those are available here in Florida. But as far as I know there is some kind of something so you can see if you potentially have had it. Steph (06:48): In my mind they had it based on all the information she's been sharing. She had a, it was either 101 or 103 temperature. It was very high for a long time. They're all good. I remember I heard the cough. I remember the cough, which is terrifying that I was... I mean, she didn't cough on me, but I'm just like, "Oh my gosh, the thing that we're all scared of right now. I was literally in her car. I was walking with her and I was with her family." It did bring me a little bit of comfort knowing that I'm outside of the 14 days of when they had it and I don't have symptoms. Steph (07:21): Whether I am asymptomatic or whatever, I don't know. But it gives me a little bit of comfort knowing I was literally around people that had it or had something really contagious and I didn't get it. That shows me that those simple things of washing, not touching, all of those things seem to be working. Steph (07:39): Whether they had it, whether they didn't, whether I have it or not. I was like, it brings me a little comfort knowing that those things are a shield of protection, something I can actually physically do. There's so much unknown with this, and so many things that are scary about it. Knowing that those simple things are something I can do, and staying away from people, those are things I can do and they seem to be working, which helps bring me a little bit of comfort to actually see something tangible. Beth (08:10): In addition to protecting yourself from #coronavirus, from COVID-19, I think also we're going to see huge drops in exposure to flu because we're all being so much more careful that hopefully those viruses... well for sure those viruses won't be passed along either. Steph (08:26): Yeah. I've had a lot of good days recently, but on Friday of last week I wasn't feeling well and I really was like, "Do I have #coronavirus?" And I was like, "Get out of my head." Okay- Beth (08:42): Did you know at that point that your neighbor- Steph (08:44): Mm-mm (negative). Beth (08:44): ... had probably had it? Okay. Steph (08:46): No. Back when she had it, I remember thinking, "What if this is #coronavirus?" In the back of my head, just in the way back, I had been thinking that and it's been stuck in the back of my head. But there's really nothing to be done about it beyond not being around her, which my mom actually was not around them. My mom was so concerned at the time when we didn't know. When they were sick she didn't want to be around them, and I totally respected that. I was really only around them in the sense that we went to the woods and walked our dogs, we weren't stuck inside somewhere. We were mostly outdoors when we were together. Beth (09:21): And they probably weren't in their car very much while they were sick, so there probably was not a lot of surface issues there hopefully. Steph (09:27): Yeah, and they're very cautious. They've been cleaning their house and they're very concerned right now. They're not leaving their house much like... everyone I'm interacting with are at the same level as me of concern and being smart about cleaning and things like that. That's why I thought about having you in the house. I thought about that. I was like, "Oh, do I want to bring Beth into the house?" Which is crazy to have to think about your friends, people you know, to even have to have that go through your brain. But it is, it's this time. Steph (09:56): But I knew how concerned you were. I knew that if you had it, you're going to do your very best on staying clean, which you know me as well. Yeah, and we're a group of two so I felt like it was safe. We have no audience here today. Beth (10:12): We're not coughing, we're not sneezing. Steph (10:15): Although go outside for two seconds with the pollen. Beth (10:19): There is a lot of pollen. It's definitely pollen season. Steph (10:21): It's crazy. I blow my leaves every day, blow the pollen away, and then there's a fine layer of it just constantly on everything. Beth (10:30): Being able to have people over is an additional complication just for me personally because I do have teenagers and there's a limit to how much time any family can be together in a healthy way without any outside interaction. They've been great. They've been using their devices, they've got all sorts of ways to be connected digitally. But I know that there's going to come a time between now and whenever school starts back up, if it does start back up, where it'll be like, "Okay, well can we have friends over?" "Oh gosh, I don't know. Where have your friends been? Who have your friends been with and where have those people been?" How do we continue to be smart about this without overreacting? Beth (11:17): That's one of the things that I'm starting to see in my social media interactions and my social media channels is... I mean, obviously the president said, I guess was it yesterday, that he thinks this will all be over by Easter. I'm starting to see an impatience with this and an assumption that if you say this is going to go on longer, that you are overreacting in some way. I'm a little bit worried that we'll continue to take these precautions and so we will flatten the curve and then people will be like, "See, we told you, you didn't even need to do that." Beth (11:52): But no, we created the solution. I don't know what's going to happen in the weeks to come. That's all we have to keep checking in. Steph (11:59): Yeah. It's so tough because there are so many layers to this. There's the layer of the people that have been tested, the people that have been positive, the people that... the death toll. I mean, those are clear numbers. But to me they are facts. I mean, they are actual facts, but those aren't the things that are driving me. The thing that's driving me is this is a virus that we've never been exposed to. None of us has been exposed to. We don't have the data to tell us what's going to happen. We don't have the data to say that these people are more affected than these people. I think you just saw a news article that a two-year-old in North Florida was diagnosed with #coronavirus, a two-year-old. Beth (12:37): Yeah, and is now in the hospital. Steph (12:38): Yeah, and we're saying older people be concerned, younger people protect your older people. We all need to be protecting ourselves. We need to be protecting everyone. I can't think of anything else in history, in my lifetime that... this doesn't know class, this doesn't know race. This is affecting everyone in some way and can infect everyone. It has nothing to do with anything beyond just... you're a person, you can get this. You've never been exposed to this and if and when you get this, we don't know what that's going to do to you. Steph (13:13): To me, people that are not caring or are like, "It's fine. It's the flu. I'll get over it." You have no idea what it's going to do to you and what could happen. What's the harm in staying home? Yeah, it's not great. Yeah, I want to be with people. But all we have to do is stay home. You're not active asking me to go dig a huge ditch for 10 hours a day. You're asking me to stay at home. I can do that. Beth (13:41): Yeah. But we don't seem to be that good at it actually. Steph (13:43): Yeah, well that's because our society is built on, "You must be busy 24/7," so it's counterintuitive to the message we're always saying. Beth (13:51): Yeah, and you must be consuming. You must be buying, shopping- Steph (13:57): Contributing. Beth (13:58): ... contributing in that way. I think that's why we're seeing such a big hit on the economy. Just looking, I've been taking daily screenshots of the Florida Department of Health numbers just to... I just want to document it for myself to be able to go back and look. On Friday we broke the 1,000 mark, we had 1,000 cases in Florida while by yesterday we had 1,500 cases. In three days there was this 50% increase in the total number of cases. Now, 1,500 cases out of 21.3 million people. I get it, that's a small percentage of people who have been tested and who are affected, but that's how this works. That's why we have to be careful because we don't want to go from 1,500 infected to 21 million infected. Steph (14:50): There's no number telling us people that might have it but have no symptoms, that are carriers and could give to other people. I mean, there's no facts on them. There's no history on this. I mean, next year if this comes back around we'll have a year of data on it. But to me, the numbers are just that, they're part of this puzzle but they aren't the be all end all. Beth (15:14): I just think a week in, I guess at this point for my family we are eight or nine days in to our extreme social distancing, quarantine, whatever you want to call it. The fatigue is already setting in, and so I think that that is... I don't think that's true of just my family, I think I'm seeing that on social media too. I think we're going to start to see people looking for reasons why they can relax their self quarantine, relax their social distancing. Which is why it was probably good timing that our local government has now said, "No, this is the time when you need to be sheltering in place as much as you can. Go to work if you need to, if you can't work from home. We get that, we're not going to shut you down." I think that the timing of that is good because I think that the fatigue is starting to set in already. If we're in to this for months, I think we're really going to have a problem. Steph (16:03): Yeah. I mean, the mental toll this is taking is indescribable. We have no idea what this is ultimately going to do even to our psyche of, I've been hiking in the woods and when I see people I'm making a big circle around them. I'm waving at a distance, but I see people and I'm like, "Potentially they have corona." There's a danger almost feeling of interacting with other people, and that's something that I've never had. Beth (16:31): I saw that in the grocery store. I went to the grocery store as soon as it opened on Monday morning. I wanted to be there first because I knew they had sanitized overnight and so I wanted to get there early. I mean, I really did take precautions. I put on gloves before I went into the store and when I got back to my car, before I touched anything in my car, I took the gloves off. Beth (16:49): As I was walking through the store there were some people, you could tell it was very important to them to be socially distanced. We were very careful about how we passed in the aisles, and there were some people who were completely oblivious to it. I found myself being frustrated with them, being frustrated with these strangers for not taking this as seriously as I'm taking it. That's an additional thing that I have to consider going forward about how do I... If I'm saying, well loving my neighbor is my bottom line, this is how I'm going to interact in the world, then how do I love my neighbor who's not taking this as seriously as I'm taking it? Steph (17:21): Yeah, on Sunday we were in drive through for Starbucks and we saw Trader Joe's and there was a line in front of Trader Joe's and they were limiting the amount of people that was there. I mean, Trader Joe's are small in general, but there was a significant line of people on Sunday and my mom's like, "Take a picture, take a picture." I'm like, "No, it's awkward. They would see me take a picture," so I don't have a picture of it, but it happened. Steph (17:41): I know it's like, I've seen this in California. I've seen video of California doing that. But I guess Trader Joe's there's just so many people, especially on Sundays, that want to go. Beth (17:51): Did they have it marked out for people to be able to stay in six feet apart- Steph (17:53): It wasn't marked out, and people were standing at a distance but not six feet between. There's not a ton of space there. I mean, now I do wish I had a picture, but yeah, there- Beth (18:02): Yeah, there's another store right next to it so [crosstalk 00:18:04] - Steph (18:03): Yeah, there's a store close by, so I don't know. We did watch one lady not go in the line and go to the front and the employee was like... we couldn't overhear, but we could see the lady was like, "What's going on?" And the employee is telling the story like, "You have to get in line," and she looks at the line and she just goes to her car. She's like, "No, I don't want my cookie butter that much." Beth (18:23): What's cookie butter? Steph (18:24): You don't know what cookie butter is? That's Trader- Beth (18:28): I wouldn't have asked you if I knew what it was. I'm not setting you up for a softball question. I don't know what cookie butter is. Steph (18:34): It's a big thing Trader Joe's has. It's like peanut butter but made with their cookies. Beth (18:40): They have that at the grocery store I go to, too. Steph (18:43): I'm pretty sure it's a big thing in Trader Joe's. Call in and let us know, is cookie butter a big thing at your Trader Joe's or everywhere? I feel like that's their thing. Beth (18:51): Or can you just buy the Justin's brand at Publix, which is what we buy. Steph (18:55): I don't know. I don't even know if I've ever had the Trader Joe's cookie butter, because it seems like a bad idea to have [crosstalk 00:19:01]- Beth (19:01): I thought that people went to Trader Joe's for good but inexpensive wine. I thought that was the Trader Joe's [crosstalk 00:19:06]- Steph (19:06): I've never gotten their wine. Beth (19:08): I think [crosstalk 00:19:08]- Steph (19:08): I go there for... I get eggs, which you can get anywhere, but they're super inexpensive. Beth (19:13): Publix right now you can only buy two of any single egg product. Steph (19:18): Yeah, the same thing at Target. Target had limits on a lot of stuff, but I will tell you in the last podcast I said me and my mom were eating very healthy because we want to keep our immune system up and we still are. But I do want to reassure you we have gotten some snacks. We got some snacks stuff from Trader Joe's. I did get some chocolate meringue cookies from Trader Joe's and they have chocolate chips in them and they're really good. Beth (19:41): I like meringue cookies. That sounds good. Steph (19:42): I do have to say. They taste like ice cream but hydrated- Beth (19:49): Dehydrated? Steph (19:49): Yeah. It tastes like dehydrated ice cream, it's very good. We've been talking about our daily lives, but you are a pastor and you are a pastor of a local church here in Tallahassee. Beth (19:59): I am and we are not currently meeting in person, we're meeting online, and that's been a whole shift and we're trying to create more online content. This is not a complaint but it is more work. Steph (20:10): I bet. Beth (20:11): If you are a church person and your church is trying to create more online content and make more opportunities for you, just know that it's more work for the staff. We're happy to do it. We feel disconnected, we miss being together as a team. We really miss being with the people we serve, so we're happy to create the online content, but it is different. Steph (20:32): Why do you feel that it's important to be online and not be meeting in person with your congregation? Beth (20:39): Well, the reason the church exists is that we together as a community are a form of the incarnation of Christ. That there's something incarnational about when we're all together. That God is present in and through that and we don't want to lose that. That is important. That is a foundational idea for us, and so we don't want to give up our community. Steph (21:01): But why aren't you meeting in person? Beth (21:03): Oh, we're not meeting in person because we don't want to spread the virus and we don't want anyone to get sick. The CDC says that you shouldn't be gathering in groups of more than, whether it's 10 people or 50 people- Steph (21:15): In groups. Beth (21:15): Yeah. Our church would be more than any of those numbers that they would put out, and so we shouldn't be meeting. Steph (21:21): It's irresponsible. Beth (21:22): Irresponsible, that's the word. Steph (21:23): I've been hearing though some people that are "Christian," I guess saying that God will protect us and that's why we're over-concerned about this. Knowing that your church is meeting from home, is taking all the precautions, what would you say to someone that say, "God will protect us from this." Beth (21:43): I would say that, "God is trying to protect us," and I'm sure that those people are Christians. I would say, no air quotes, they're Christians. [crosstalk 00:21:53]-" Steph (21:53): I take my air quotes away, sorry. Beth (21:54): ... they're allowed to self-identify. There's this old joke. I know that it's been used in a million different ways, but there's this person who is in the middle of a big storm, there's a flood or something. He ends up on the top of his roof because his house floods. It's always a man when I hear it too, I don't know why. There was this warning, "You should evacuate," and he doesn't evacuate, "I'm going to stay here. God's going to protect me." The water comes into the house and, "Oh, it's okay. God's going to protect me." Beth (22:22): He moves to the roof, the waters continue to rise. Somebody comes by in a boat and says, "I've come here to rescue you," and he says, "Oh, I'm going to say here, God's going to protect me." They send somebody with a helicopter to lift him up, "Oh, I'm going to stay here, God's going to protect me." He gets swept away in the flood and dies, goes to heaven and says, "God, I thought you were protecting me." God's like, "I sent an evacuation order. I sent a boat. I sent a helicopter." Beth (22:44): The parallel here is, we have hand sanitizer, we have ways to clean our surfaces, we have the opportunity to be socially distant. We have ways to still be connected through technology while still practicing social distancing. We have medicine that tells us that this virus is spreading, we have news reports that tell us this virus is spreading. We have access to all of the information that we need. Beth (23:07): The way that God is protecting you it may be in one of those forms and continuing to ignore all of that and meet, I mean, I think the counter-argument would be are you testing God? Because guess what friends. Friends of that persuasion who read the Bible the way that you read it, the Bible says don't test God. I feel like saying we don't have to take any of this seriously and we can just continue to meet and God will protect us. I actually feel like it's a form of denial and a form of deflection. Beth (23:37): One of the things that I have been trying to tell myself at least, and I actually preached about it on Sunday, but these times when we're given an opportunity slow down, you can either deflect or you can reflect in saying, "Well, none of this is going to happen to me. I'm young, or I'm healthy, or I don't care if I get a little bit sick, I'll get sick and get over it." Those can be forms of deflection. It can also be a form of deflection to binge on the news like what I've been doing, or to sanitize the same surface 10 times, or to overreact. Deflection can come in a lot of forms. Beth (24:14): Maybe instead we could use this as a time to reflect on what really matters to us and how connected we all are, and how we could probably live at a slower pace and still be successful and happy. I think there are a lot of things that we could learn from using this time as a time of reflection. In terms of the church calendar, we're in the season of Lent, which should be a time of reflection anyway. Steph (24:44): Yeah. Even though I work from home, I've noticed that my mom and I have just been sitting in my porch just for an hour or two just sitting there and just chatting or just on our phones. But just being in the fresh air. I'm someone that's like, I have my list and I'm like, "These are the things you need to get done." I still have my list, but if they don't get done, move it to tomorrow. There's time that we're spending just breathing. Steph (25:16): I have a subscription to this mental health box and- Beth (25:19): Oh yeah, you just got one. Steph (25:20): Yes- Beth (25:21): [crosstalk 00:25:21] just came in. Steph (25:22): It was the perfect timing. I opened it and it came with this cube game and I would never buy a game for myself, never. I just don't really play games. I started playing it and I was like, "I've been like playing with that for so long and it's so much fun, it's like a mental game too so it keeps your brain thinking. It's super fun. My mom started playing with it too, she really likes it. It also came with this jar with blank paper inside and is a gratitude jar. Steph (25:52): Me and my mom spent like 20 minutes the other day just writing things we were grateful for, put them in the jar and then we read them out loud and it was so cool. We would never ever do that. We would never even think to do that. But with all this that's going on, there's still things we're grateful for and there was still so much that we had to write on those cards sitting in my dining room table and we'll probably keep adding to it. Things like that. I was really grateful that I got that box. What a crazy timing for that. Steph (26:21): It comes with this little magazine that they make and on the front cover is the cutest dog ever. It looks like a stuffed animal. I've just been laying that on my table too just kind of, I catch my eye and I'm like, "Oh, it's so cute." Just simple things like that that I wouldn't normally stop and do and spend time with. It's really helping me to just reflect and I'm allowing myself to not just work all day but just to have time to breathe and just... Steph (26:47): I wanted to just be active yesterday and so I blew the leaves in my backyard. Just something easy, accomplishable, but can get me active and moving. I'm trying to do those things during this time and I'm still watching Gilmore Girls. I'm like, "What am I going to do when it's over?" I have to watch The Year in the Life, which is not my favorite, but... Beth (27:07): But the thing about the gratitude jar, two weeks ago you might have looked at your schedule and been like, "Oh, I've got too much to do. I've got this to-do list." You wouldn't have paused to do that activity, right? Steph (27:18): Mm-hmm (affirmative). Beth (27:18): Your to-do list hasn't really changed, has it? Steph (27:22): Yeah. We still have a lot to do. Beth (27:23): Your to-do list is still what it was, but there's a new priority that comes with this invitation to pause. Steph (27:31): Well, and I have to pause because if I don't pause and just fill up with work the anxiety is going to get me. It's like, I'm having to do this and by having to do it because of all the anxiety, all the things happening around me, it could easily get me into a more reflective mode in general when all this is over. It could remind me to do these things more often because I feel good after I do them and I'm like, "Wow, we just spent 20 minutes being grateful for things. That felt really good." Beth (27:58): And everything on the to-do list that needs to get done is still getting done. Steph (28:01): It will get done, yes. Beth, back to the original question I had asked you. I thought you had a brilliant answer for it. God will protect us, I thought that was great. I'm hearing some people say, well, if you get the virus, then that's some kind of like, God is mad at you or... What- Beth (28:20): Oh, good gravy. No. Steph (28:22): I'm hearing these ridiculous things that, "Well, if you get the virus you obviously aren't right with God." What do you say to that? Beth (28:29): I say, I don't know that God. I don't know what God they're talking about. I would describe that as a little g, god. The God that I know is the God who says, "I want you to have life and have it abundantly." The God that I know is the God of creation and creativity and diversity, not the God who is waiting to smite you. A God who went to such incredible length to say to humanity, "I want to be in relationship with you for your own good. I only want good for you. I'm going to do this incredible thing. I'm going to limit myself in this really unbelievable way, so unbelievable that some people will never be able to believe it. Because I just want to be in relationship with you and I want you to know that nothing separates us." Beth (29:19): That's inconsistent with a God who is waiting for you to do something wrong so that you can get COVID-19. I don't know that God. Steph (29:31): I'm curious- Beth (29:32): Because we were talking about your schedule and how you have been able to intentionally pause. What I'm finding, and I don't think that I'm the only one who is experiencing this, but suddenly everybody I've ever met wants to do a Zoom call with me, which is fine. I like being with people. This is feeding my need as an extrovert, but never have I had so many calls in one week. Is that just me and the circles that I'm in? Has that happened to you at all? Steph (29:58): I have not been on Zoom one bit. I have not. I guess my circles are very... we're all... I have been texting some of my friends. I actually have a friend that works for the state and she's in a mission critical job and I can't explain her job. It's something with weights. It's very important, but it's something with balancing weights and making sure that the weight of things is accurate with the actual weight. There's an actual weight somewhere in the world that is what all of their weights are based on. It's very interesting. We'll have her on one day to explain it and we still will not understand what she does. But anyway- Beth (30:34): Honestly, hopefully she can make it sound more interesting. Steph (30:36): She can. Beth (30:36): Because what you just described does not sound interesting at all. Steph (30:40): I think it is interesting and she's the first woman in Florida, I think, to hold this position, which is very cool. Beth (30:45): That's very cool. If she's the actual keeper of the weight- Steph (30:49): No. Beth (30:49): ... that would be pretty amazing. Steph (30:50): I think it's in another country. I don't know if it's in our country. It's interesting. Every time she explains it's interesting, but then I can never explain it again. It's like you can't explain your husband what he does. Beth (31:01): Well right now he does nothing. Steph (31:03): Well. Yeah, there's a lot of us in that boat. But anyway, she's still having to go to work and some people in her office can work from home, but she's needing to go to work. I mean, there's people that are still having their daily lives. They haven't been able to stay at home, and I think that's part of because they haven't done a full official like Florida stay-at-home warrant. She's still in limbo needing to go to work. I'm thankful people like that are still going to work. Beth (31:36): Same. Steph (31:37): I do hope that they're taking care of their safety as much as possible. But she sent me an article the other day where state workers are concerned because they're still told they need to go to work, but then there's so many things you have to interact with. Even if you're not seeing a lot of people at work, there are so many things you're interacting with that you could get the virus from. Beth (31:59): I just touched my face everyone, you should know- Steph (32:01): And I pointed at her. Beth (32:02): I just touched my face and Stephanie scolded me. Thank you. Steph (32:06): Me and my mom touched our face in our latest video at the same time and I scolded... I put a clip of it on our Instagram just so everyone can scold us too. But we had no idea. Neither of us knew we touched our face until I watched the footage and I was like, "Oh my gosh. Literally at the same time." Beth (32:20): Okay, I'm now cupping my hands so that I'm not tempted to touch my face. Anyway, I would think that if you were home with little ones, you would start to look for reasons why it's okay to not be quite so isolated because isolation is just going to get harder. But I want to offer this encouragement. Keep doing it, don't give up now. I believe we can still flatten the curve and hopefully someone will tell us when we've flattened it enough. Steph (32:50): I know. Please keep us informed. That's what I'm not seeing on the news is, where is the curve now? If you don't know what we mean, you can watch a little bit more news. Because I hope everyone knows what flatten the curve means. Beth (33:02): Yeah. I heard a statistic the other day that I can't remember now who did the survey. It might have been the New York Times. They periodically will survey to see how news is penetrating. They did a survey to see, have you heard of COVID-19, have you heard of #coronavirus? It was something like 99% of respondents had heard of it and they said that the last time they saw that kind of penetration of the news was 9/11. Steph (33:28): Wow. Yeah. See, to me yeah, the news is covering it 24/7 and I do think there... I think it's necessary. We as consumers can choose when we watch it and when we don't, but I think we need all these stories available for us to watch and consume if we want to, but we have that choice of whether we're going to watch it 24/7. I don't think there's anything... I'm not against news channels for reporting what they're reporting because I can choose to watch them or not. Steph (34:00): For me, I watch the news mostly on YouTube. I watch little clips from the different stations. I'll read the title and if it looks like something that I want to read about I'll watch it. If it's something that I'm... I haven't really been wanting to watch too much of people with symptoms because it makes me too nervous to like see all the horrible stuff they're going through. Oh, do you... you probably didn't watch this, but Rosie O'Donnell did her... you remember her show? It was on years ago. Beth (34:28): I do. I went and saw it in person. Steph (34:30): Did you? Beth (34:30): I did when she was at Islands of Adventure. In fact, I think we got in early because we had tickets to the show. The guy who sang Rico Suave, Ricky somebody. Steph (34:40): Ricky Martin? Beth (34:40): Ricky Martin was her guest, and so we got to see him perform live. It was the whole thing. So yes, I remember Rosie's show. Steph (34:47): When she came to Animal Kingdom when it first opened, we saw three of the shows, me and my mom. That was in 97 I think, or 98. Beth (34:57): This would have been later than that, yeah. Steph (34:58): Later? Beth (34:59): I was practicing law full-time, so it had to be in the early 2000s. Steph (35:01): Interesting. Oh, so we saw her before you. Okay. Yeah, my mom let me take a week off of school and we went down there. I mean, my mom never let me do that, but I loved that show. Anyway, she came back for a night on Sunday, she had a three and a half hour stream and she had all these Broadway stars on because I love Broadway, and so I knew all the people she had on. They were raising money for the actors fund for basically actors and ticket takers and crew members that are off of work right now. This fund helps them stay afloat and gives them money where they need. It was so good, it was so interesting. Steph (35:39): But what was really shocking is, she was interviewing all these actors and one of them actually had the virus. Yeah, and he's like, "I don't know if this is appropriate but I think I have the virus. I had been tested but having got my results back yet." He's just been self-isolating. He was saying how he has no taste, his taste had been affected. That's a new study coming out is your smell and your taste are affected. He's eating asparagus he said, "This tastes like nothing." It was like- Beth (36:05): So everything about how she did the show was streamed, so she was- Steph (36:07): Everything was streamed, yeah. It was so cool. You could probably find it somewhere. But it was three and a half hours. She had so many people on and I knew all of them and I was so excited. Idina Menzel was on, because I love Idina Menzel. Beth (36:17): [crosstalk 00:00:36:18]. Steph (36:18): Kristin Chenoweth was on who just came to Tallahassee a couple weeks ago. Beth (36:21): I couldn't get tickets but yeah. Steph (36:23): Oh I got, I had tickets. Yeah, it was great. Beth (36:26): Well I saw Ryan Hamilton when he came into town. He's not on Broadway, but he's very funny. Steph (36:30): Oh yeah. I mean, that's cool. That was recently though, wasn't it? Beth (36:35): It was very recent. In fact, he made jokes about ##coronavirus because he's from New York City. He was saying things like, "Hey, while I'm here I'm just going to stock up on some hand sanitizer-" Steph (36:43): Yeah, [crosstalk 00:36:43]. Beth (36:44): I thought, "Where do you find hand sanitizer? I would love to be able to stock up on hand sanitizer. It's already gone everywhere." Anyway, your point I think was that you're careful about how you consume the news. Steph (36:54): Yes, and then I talked about Rosie because just this virus is affecting all different types of people and I thought it was so interesting this show that was raising money and we got to see all these different kinds of people and an actor, somebody that was... he was actually in the touring show for Waitress in London and someone on the crew tested positive for it and he thinks he has it too based on his symptoms. Steph (37:18): It's just like, "Whoa. I wasn't expecting that. I was watching this cool, fun show," although, I mean, they were still talking about corona and everything because that's what's going on, but it was just like whoa, it can happen to anyone. It can happen anywhere. Beth (37:32): It can happen to anyone. Prince Charles has it, they said today, so it can happen to anyone. This continues to be something that is developing every day and something that we just have to consume enough news to know what precautions to take for our own selves. Steph (37:50): Thank you for joining us today. Beth (37:52): We are all in this ##coronavirus thing together and so we are glad that we can reach out to you in this way. We want to invite you to reach back towards us as well. We want to know how you're doing with this, how it's changing your life, how it's changing your daily routines. What are the silver linings that you're seeing? We want to know all that so we want to invite you to call into our voicemail line. Steph (38:15): The number is (850) 270-3308 and you can leave a voicemail or you can text that number. When Beth said we're all in this together, I do want to let you guys know that there is a song called We're All in this Together and it's from the High School Musical. I encourage you to ask your Alexa device to play you that song because it's a peppy, fun song. I'm not going to sing it for you today because I can't sing and I don't like when people that can't sing sing. It's really cringey and I don't want to be that person. Steph (38:50): At the end of each episode we end with questions for reflection. These are questions based on today's episode and Beth will leave a little pause between each and you can answer them in your head or you can find a PDF of them on our website. Beth (39:01): Number one, what are your thoughts on God during this time? Is your faith changing at all? Number two, are you reflecting or deflecting ? As you reflect, what positive things are you noticing? Number three, what has been your experience with shopping for supplies? Number four, think about social distancing interactions and also about what supplies have been unavailable. How does this make you feel? Steph (39:32): This has been the Discovering Our Scars podcast. Thanks for joining us. Quotable
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Meet StephMental Health Advocate. Author. Podcast Host. DIYer. Greyhound Mom. 
Meet BethI'm a mom who laughs a lot, mainly at myself. #UMC Pastor, recent Seminary grad, public speaker, blogger, and sometimes lawyer. Learning to #LiveLoved. 
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