For all his genius and achievement — John F. Kennedy once quipped to a dinner gathering of Nobel laureates in the White House that there hadn’t been so much brilliance in that room since Thomas Jefferson used to dine there alone — there was a well-concealed but deep sadness in Jefferson’s heart, a sadness to which Easter supplies the unspeakably wonderful cure.
My Deseret News Easter column for 2017 has appeared:
Incidentally, there was a very kind letter to the editor published about me yesterday in the Deseret News. I hadn’t seen it, but a friend told me about it last night after Royal Skousen’s (superb) lecture.
And, while I’m at it, I might as well call attention to a similarly very kind comment that was posted to Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture from Mario S. DePillis, Sr., a couple of months ago. Dr. DePillis, a Roman Catholic and an emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is a former president of the Mormon History Association.
Why do I call attention to these two letters?
It’s simple. I do it to demonstrate that I’m really not the nice guy that they say I am. After all, knowing that the sentiments expressed in them will cause some of my critics’ heads to explode, I call attention to them anyway. Yes, I’m that mean-spirited, callous, and hateful — just as those critics have long insisted.
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