Personal Essay: "Greenland"

From left to right: my dad Jeff, my two brothers Tanner and Tate, and me in Iceland 5 years ago almost to the day.

I look like a homeless Russian hitman. I definitely don’t want to attend church this Sunday morning in my current state, having not showered for days and with a bad haircut––but especially because I won’t know anyone there and the congregation only speaks Icelandic. Oh, and I can’t forget about my current faith crisis seeded with shame.

For the past five days, I’ve been camping in Iceland with my brothers and my dad, traveling in an Enterprise rental minivan and living off a supply of Costco food (thank goodness there’s a Costco in Iceland). We wanted to experience as much as we could during our week in Iceland, so we kept to a strict itinerary during the day and only rested during the drives between locations or at day’s end in our tents. I brought my favorite film camera and only four rolls of film, so every shot counted.

For a nature photographer, Iceland was a feast. Iceland really should be named Greenland; the amount of green scenery reflecting through my camera viewfinder could alter my brown eyes green if I stared long enough. The diverse Icelandic landscapes were just sublime. Inhaling Iceland air would make you feel whole. The smell of ocean rain permeated everywhere. On the beaches, you could wash your hands clean just by running your hands along the dampened volcanic pebbles. A baseline of light rain fell every day. The diverse island sounds of waterfalls, waves and rivers could comfort any racing mind. For someone who wrestles with anxiety and depression, Iceland was a sanctuary, and it thoroughly excited me as a photographer to try and capture how Iceland made me feel.

My Christian faith used to be a sanctuary, but recently this sanctuary became a source of great anxiety. A month before this Iceland trip, I was a missionary sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Pittsburgh. I was expected to serve as a missionary for two years, but I only served two months before my intense anxiety broke me down and I then decided to come home early back to Utah and forgo serving the remaining 22 months. I knew I needed to come home, and I believed God knew the same.

The irony of returning home was that home no longer felt like home––it felt foreign. Friends and family treated me differently and I felt a sad distance between everyone. What wasn’t said often hurt more than what was said. In the silence, a shameful narrative relentlessly plagued me inside: You could have stayed in Pittsburgh if you had more faith... You have disqualified yourself from blessings that could have been given to you... You let down your family, your friends, your Heavenly Father, and your Savior... God is disappointed in you... in my despair, I impulsively buzzed my head (hence the Russian hitman look). It was rather symbolic of how cut-off I felt from my loved ones and my faith.

I hear my dad switch the minivan’s gear into park. We’ve arrived at a gloomy block of apartments. I look out my window and see a sign hanging over one of the apartment’s entrances: “Kirkja Jesú Krists Hinna Sídari Daga Heilögu”––Which translated to “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. My brothers, dad and I step out of the minivan and make our way to the entrance. My head hangs low while my hiking boots timidly scrape against the damp parking lot gravel.

We walk up some stairs to a small room populated with foldable chairs and a makeshift pulpit at the front. We sit down and are given yellow headphones attached to a cassette-tape looking device. When the bishop stood behind the pulpit and began speaking his native tongue, our yellow headphones transmitted an English translation. Hallelujah, I might actually hear something I need to hear in my own language. The translation was coming from one of the two missionaries sitting behind the pulpit––but I recognized this voice. My eyes widened as I discovered who this missionary was.

The missionary was Jonathan Shipp––now “Elder Shipp”. I’ve known Jon since elementary school and we sang in our high school chamber choir together. We were never super close, but I remember him always being a light to others. He had a corny sense of humor and was always smiling.

I was simply awestruck. I was in a foreign country, but I felt a sense of being home.

After we as a congregation took the sacrament, a middle-aged woman began giving a sermon at the pulpit. Her topic was about God’s grace. As she spoke, Elder Shipp translated her heart-felt words into English. These particular words from Elder Shipp’s translation pierced my heart:

“Grace is not the reward for righteousness. Grace is the origin of righteousness.”

At the conclusion of the meeting, my dad, brothers and I shook hands with the bishopric and the companion missionaries. I excitedly greeted Elder Shipp and we both remarked how small of a world we live in. Yet, my world felt so monumental and grandiose at this moment. If this moment was divinely orchestrated, it was certainly beyond my comprehension––but it gives me joy to believe it was.

My brothers, dad and I exited the makeshift sanctuary, down the stairs back to our minivan. Driving to our next destination, we all shared what we learned from church. All four of us were spellbound by the statement about grace being the origin of righteousness. None of us ever heard the concept of God’s grace framed that way before. God’s grace was not something we needed to earn, but something we already had, and have always had––and that infinite grace we feel from God can become our greatest motivation to live righteously. I generally understood that doctrine about God before today, but at this moment, I felt it.

I peered out my window, watching fields and mountains race by. The sun shone brighter through the blanket of clouds. The green land seemed greener. The rain fell softer on the windshield. Even though I was in a car, I could take a deep breath and feel that same wholeness as inhaling the cool Iceland air outside. The impulse to obsessively photograph the beauty out my window subsided into a new sensation of peace––I didn’t mind leaving my camera in my lap and watching the scenery out my window. This moment was already photographed in my heart.