My White Privilege

He felt a pop in his chest as he put extra torque on the screw driver lever putting on the trampoline mat for my grandson's visit. Dad and Jack had a special relationship, even separated by 78 years of age. They read books together, took walks together, went on boat rides and shared ice cream.  Dad had a way of making all his grandchildren feel special because he took time with them when it counted.  He himself was raised in a broken family.  His parents divorced when he was about 9 years old.  He missed his dad fiercely and craved to have that paternal influence in his life.  My grandparents were eventually remarried but there were critical years when my father needed him most and he wasn't there.  Dad vowed to be there for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and he was until the very end.  That pop turned out to be a fractured sternum riddled with metastatic melanoma skin cancer. It was right about a year ago and progressed to his death in September. 

This is my first Father's Day without my dad, my hero.  Was he perfect? Of course not and he would be the first one to tell you that. He was a master of self-deprecation, sarcasm and humor but it was done in such a way that no one ever felt that they were inferior in his presence.  He was a master at making friends and breaking down barriers.  On my knees last night as I said my nightly prayers and thinking of my father, it occurred to me that I have now have two fathers in heaven, my earthly father and my Heavenly Father.  Dad is gone from this world but he is not gone from my life.

This week I watched "The Color Purple."  I hadn't watched this movie for many years.  The acting was phenomenal but it left me feeling quite unsettled.  Set in the generation after slavery, it depicted one of the most shackling legacies that continued past emancipation; that of the cruelty with which men treated women and the children in their lives. Men learned the horrible lessons of aggression taught by the example of the slave owners. Arguments were settled with beatings. Children were raped and their children were ripped from their arms and given to others. In contrast to the home I grew up in where my mother and father may have had their share of disagreements, we children always new that they would work things out peacefully and that no matter what we were loved and prized above anything else. 

The root of this certainty comes from our doctrine that we are all children of Heavenly Parents. That our God, Heavenly Father, has an eternal partner who raised us as spirit children in a heavenly home and that we were sent to this earth to learn how to return.  His is our Eternal King and she our Queen.  The family unit is divinely appointed and critical in our ability to learn those lessons.

In our church we worship in chapels each Sunday but we also have temples where we make promises to God on how we live our life.  We are taught God's plan for our happiness and learn about our first parents, Adam and Eve.  It is very clear that Eve was the first one to understand that in order to have children according to this plan, they would need to leave the garden and so she partook of the fruit. Adam was slower to understand this concept but chose to be with her through thick and thin.  Said Eve of the experience, "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and the joy of our redemption" (Moses 5:11). We believe that our salvation has everything to do with what kind of family member we are.  We also believe that since we are all children of Heavenly Parents, we are literally brothers and sisters, "black and white, male and female...all are alike unto God" (2 Nephi 26:33).

In our temples everyone wears white clothing.  This is a symbol of purity, of being washed clean through the blood of Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with race. In fact, as all who enter the temple wear this same clothing. Distinctions of race and economic station dissolve into a state of equality.  It is a beautiful place to be, truly heaven on earth. During the pandemic and time of quarantine, we have not been able to gather and worship together in our chapels or our temples.  Though this has left a void in our hearts, we have had the sacred experience of worshiping together in our homes. 

So in these days of unrest, confusion and fear, I can still feel peace.  When I consider how fortunate I am for the privileges that I enjoy, I recognize that being Caucasian, I have access to privileges that others of color do not. My greatest privilege, though, is free to all, that of being washed white by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.  This most important of my "white" privileges enables me to one day return to my heavenly home.  There I long to be embraced by both my Heavenly Fathers who I miss so much.