February 15, 2021

BBBBBYYYYYYUUUUUUUU!!!! What are you thinking about STUDYING? Dad's hip surgery....he's doing so good! So much better than we thought! I thought we'd carry him upstairs and he would just moan for two weeks, but he is up and around, driving, off the heavy meds. It is a Christmas miracle. He really is doing great! Yesterday he wasn't even on Tylenol!! This is a weird thing to include in this letter, but I'm taking a class that deals with race. I've been doing A LOT of interesting readings, and doing a lot of very deep thinking. I know none of us love the fact that black people couldn't have the priesthood from Brigham Young to Spencer W. Kimball. I, like all of us I'm sure, have struggled to understand all of that and the reasons why, and struggled that we don't get to know the reasons why. This BEAUTIFUL black woman, once an anti-mormon TRAINED by the baptists, receiving a CERTIFICATE in anti-mormon studies, who after ten years of "Heavenly Father beating her down", came back to the faith. I'll send you her writings if you're interested. Her personal philosophy is that black skin is not a curse, it's a calling, and that black people chose to respond to that calling rather than be.....well, read this poem. It’s not a curse but a gift t’us, The best path we could seek A place where God can lift us We kneel; our knees is weak And when one of us is kneelin’, We understand his fears. We know what all us is feelin’ We cry each other’s tears. That’s just what Jesus done For all us human folk. He agreed to come get born To feel ever’ pain and poke. So’s he could understand us, What it is to be a slave. So’s he could get beneath us And push us outa the grave Would you rather be the massa Or the Roman with his whip? Would you rather nail the Savior– Put vinegar to his lip? Or learn the lessons of sufferin’– How we nothin’ without grace. Jesus, He give us a callin’ He gifted us our race. Just makes ya wish ya were black, huh?