A Guest Blog from my wife, Pam Young

It has taken a lifetime of learning to make up for the history I was never taught in the traditional classroom. Growing up in south Texas, I knew a lot about Cinco de Mayo, Dia de los Muertos and Texas history. I knew a bit about World War II because my father served in it before I was born. I knew about indentured servants and Scottish land clearances because of family history. I knew about Ruby Bridges and the Civil Rights movement because of the evening news and it was all so bewildering to me because in my little town my school was integrated some time before I was born. We all started first grade together and it never occurred to us it had been any other way. It wasn’t talked about.

Eventually I started learning things and each time a dusty door of history opened to me, I began to see without naive blinders. When I took a job teaching music at an inner city school in Houston I learned from the kind and patient elder teachers of color, who gently and openly taught me about inner city poverty, education to promote freedom, and music and literature that had been skipped over in my own education. Can you imagine that a lifelong musician and school of music graduate had never heard “Lift Every Voice and Sing?” It’s true. I learned it at Bowie Elementary along with my students In the eighties.

I had another revelation when I taught in Hempstead in the nineties and I relived that experience today when a conversation on Facebook brought it back to life. I started some elementary choirs in Hempstead and we did some really cool things. There were about 120 kids in my 5th and 6th grade choir and we had so much fun! We did several big concerts every year, performed at the fair and Fiesta Texas and Bobcat football games, and for several years we sang at the Texas Celebration at Liendo Plantation. There weren’t planatations in Beeville, so when we were asked to sing at the historical home of the sculptress Elizabet Ney, I took the kids. We sang Disney songs and Texas our Texas and I remember singing Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World” with sign language. We had a black principal and assistant principal, and I wonder in retrospect how they really felt about it, but they never said anything about how some of the children or their parents might have reservations. Then one day, a dear friend and colleague whom I adored (and still do) just nonchalantly said when asked to go with us, “I don’t do plantations.” Another dusty door creaked open. Here I was, thinking how great it was to take my sweet singers to sing at a big, pretty house while many of them had long family histories of pain and suffering in the community and it was a burden to their parents to decide whether to let them go. Yet they were so kind and loving toward me and didn’t want to say anything to me about it. After Eula Richard gently offered a comment to open a closed door of history to me, we didn’t go back. I never told her how meaningful her candor was to me. History class was the place for them to learn about plantations and I took the time to learn more on my own. Today my sweet choir children (now in their thirties) were gracious to me again and didn’t want me to feel bad about it. That’s the kind of people they are. I wish I had a time machine and could go back and do it all differently.

These were just the first of many eye-opening revelations I have found and the doors have continued to open over the years, the most enlightening of which was the door of adoption. Raising black sons, it was my duty to learn black history, but even if I hadn’t gone looking, the reality of how they were often perceived spoke volumes of truth into my life. Suddenly I saw things in my everyday life that I had naively missed before. It truly felt as if I had been wearing blinders and was seeing the world around me for the first time.

I’m still learning about dusty doors that need to be opened. A really raw video shared by my niece this past week mentioned historical events I hadn’t known. It sounds ridiculous, but I had not read the histories of Tulsa and Black Wall Street. I never heard the hideous history of Rosewood. Now I have and I am going to keep opening the dusty doors that are hard to walk through because knowing the truth sets us free.

People around the country are opening the door to knowledge about Juneteenth today like never before. What has been a glorious celebration in Brenham and other parts of Texas for many years is spreading to the rest of the country. I remember when I first learned that Texas slaves didn’t even know they were free until that day 2000 troops sailed into Galveston with the proclamation. I didn’t learn it in school. We have been passing by these dusty doors too long. I’m asking my black friends to continue to speak truth in love and I’m asking my white friends to walk through the doors of truth. A lack of knowledge and understanding is a form of bondage. We can walk in freedom together if we are willing to do the work.

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.

For many of us, we are not concerned about what the corona virus will do to us as much as what the panic surrounding the corona virus will do to us. Panic in any herd of animals can be devastating but panic among humans is made worse by the fact that, while animals react instinctively, humans react by “thinking” and “reasoning” which is drastically skewed by their fear and irrationality. And then the toilet paper disappears. When no one within a 50 mile radius of us is sick we feel comforted by knowing that we have toilet paper. The Canaanites had Asherah poles to worship and ward off evil and we have stacks of toilet paper rolls to serve the same purpose. So what is a Christian to do in the face of such fear and irrationality?

1. Trust God

Psalm 56:3 – When I am afraid I will trust in You.

Romans 8:35-39 – Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 Peter 5:6-11 – Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

Philippians 4:6-7 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Proverbs 3:5 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Isaiah 26:3 – You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Psalm 94:19 – When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul.

Psalm 91 (The Amplified Bible)

1. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand].

1. 2. I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust!
   3. For [then] He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
   4. [Then] He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings shall you trust and find refuge; His truth and His faithfulness are a shield and a buckler.
   5. You shall not be afraid of the terror of the night, nor of the arrow (the evil plots and slanders of the wicked) that flies by day,
   6. Nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor of the destruction and sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noonday.
   7. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.
   8. Only a spectator shall you be [yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High] as you witness the reward of the wicked.

2. Repeat Step 1

Trusting God won’t stop the craziness around us, but it will provide us with peace in the midst of the storm. And in that peace we can help those around us, meeting their needs as God has commanded us. (Titus 3:14) Of course, we must also do the things that we were taught as children concerning good nutrition and hygiene and health practices, but ultimately our lives rest in the hands of God and not our own hands – no matter how often or how well we wash them.