Lessons from Baltimore’s Black Mormon Matriarchs on Discovering God’s Compassion | Laura Rutter Strickling, On Fire in Baltimore: Black Mormon Women and Conversion in a Raging City
“Dear God, Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me,” Alice Walker’s main character Celie writes at the start of The Color Purple.Similarly, Georgia, a real-life Black Mormon woman in current-day Baltimore stands up in testimony meeting with a written poem in hand:
Heavenly Father
I don’t understand
why my tears
fall on deaf ears.
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The Intimacy of Fatherhood
I—along with many men of my generation—was brought up believing that men and women are equally equipped to be parents. Many men like me feel a deep desire to be hands-on fathers who claim responsibility for many of the tasks that previous generations assigned principally to mothers; to not perform these duties for us is unacceptable. Despite these personal convictions, I have continually found it a challenge to achieve a fair and equal share of parenting duties; however, it is a goal that I remain committed to attaining. I am not alone in my desire or in the obstacles I face. I feel that a tremendous potential opportunity awaits today’s fathers through seeking and achieving intimacy with our children.
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