Episode 31 Roots deeper than the golden rule…

Despite my protest, Dad refused to reshuffle the order of cars in the driveway, so we rolled up in an old farm truck, with a huge dent in the bed and non-functioning air horns across the cab. I was a ninth grader, new to my school and heading to my first party with the popular crowd.  Dad turned off the main road onto a gravel road and stopped in front of a big bonfire.  He looked out and saw 50 teenagers he did not know and said. “Paul… Remember who you are. A lot of things may happen tonight. Remember who you are.” In her book, In My Grandmother’s House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit, Dean Yolanda Pierce writes. “A child cannot fully know how they are being cared for and blessed, fed, and nurtured. I simply trusted that my grandmother and the church mothers wanted the best for me, wanted more for me than they wanted for themselves. I had no way to express my gratitude when I was a child because I was unaware of the gifts of love, mercy, and grace that were extended to me. It was only on the way to my own adult life that I began to grasp the profound wisdom I learned around dinner tables, in small Sunday-school classrooms, and in church basements.”