Privilege

"Privilege" as defined by the Oxford Living Dictionary is "a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people."

I am white. (Privilege) I am a woman (Second class and subject to all sorts of discrimination). I am educated. (Privilege) I am broke. (Profoundly disadvantaged) I live in North America. (Privilege) I am 55. (Disadvantaged when seeking employment)  I am reasonably attractive. (Advantage) I live with mental illness. (Invisible disability.)

And on and on it goes.

Do I know privilege?  Yes!

Do I know discrimination?  Yes!

I completely understand the "Black Lives Matter" movement and find the objections ludicrous. 

I am not black. But I know injustice and discrimination, and stand against it in all its forms. There is absolutely no question that black people in the United States face a terrible disadvantage that is deep and insidious and all-pervasive. To think otherwise is denying the evidence of generations. To point to one's own "rights" as somehow invalidating the outcry for justice for people of colour says more about the denier of the issue than about the legitimacy of the outcry.

Wow. Just, wow. How ridiculously insecure are these privileged people, and what, exactly, do they think they lose by extending compassion and justice to a greater portion of the human race?

As a way to open my heart to seeing my white privilege, I have been meditating on privilege as: "something which supports me but is invisible because I take it for granted."

This has been tremendously helpful in opening my eyes to all the advantages I actually enjoy. I am realizing how quick I have been to see the injustices in my life but blind to all the advantages. This particular lens ("what do I take for granted?") has cracked open a new way to appreciate all the things for which I can be grateful. I have been blind!

I can breathe. (Some people struggle to.) I have readily available clean water. I have a comfy bed in which to sleep with no bug infestation. I have more than enough food and treats and a bunch of body fat off which I ought to be able to live before I starve to death. I have lots of abilities (if I could just find paid employment...). Best and brightest: I have someone to kiss goodnight and who is with me for the long haul, whom I adore.

I am truly blessed. 

I think as humans we can't help but look for how we can improve our lives. But when I do that too much, I lose sight of how many blessings I already have. Instead, I compare what I have to those who have more. I compare my life to what I EXPECTED it should be at this point in my life, (house paid off, freedom to travel) not to how blessed it genuinely is. I still look at what I want rather than what I already have.

Comparison of my life to what I wish it was leads me to dissatisfaction. Comparison of what I have in relation to those who have more leads me to resentment and a narrative of victimhood.

Why do I do that?

It doesn't serve me at all.

Being grateful for what is serves me far better.  It is a new phase of my spiritual practice to look for all the things I get "for free" and to be grateful. That doesn't mean I am not allowed to notice the injustices. It does open me to seeing ways other people suffer things that I don't simply because of being born into a different country or family or skin color or orientation.

I will continue to support the cry of "Black Lives Matter" just as potently as I stand for women in ministry and loving inclusion of different gender presentations.

"Treat others the way you want to be treated" remains my spiritual cornerstone. 

May I grow in gratitude for the privilege of clean air and water and relative health and safety, even as I fight to see such rights extended to everyone on the planet. 

May I grow in recognition that even the ability to fight for these things is a privilege.

Redundancies, Illness, and Spiritual Self Care

Dearest fellow humans,

A few years ago I had my old laptop in the shop due to its increased slowness and occasional freezing sessions.  I asked the technician why a computer slows down, rather than just stops when it is near death. It is a machine.  Why does it go from speedy to sluggish, like a human, rather than just stop working?

The technician explained things this way:  New computers have many redundancies built in.  If the information can't travel by one path, it takes another, or another, until it finishes its journey.

But as computers age, wear and tear on the circuitry begin to eliminate some of the redundancies. There are fewer and fewer paths for the information to travel on, which makes for traffic jams and longer, more complicated journeys.  The circuits get overwhelmed---rather like baristas at high-traffic Starbucks when mobile ordering became a thing.  It takes more time to do the same things it used to do with speed.

Whether this is an accurate metaphor for the inner workings of an old computer or not, it struck me that it serves as a metaphor for human functioning---especially for the functioning of humans with invisible illnesses.  We seek to function as normally as possible, but we have far fewer "redundancies" upon which to rely, and so we get slowed down and overwhelmed far faster than those blessed with robust health.

Then I began to reflect on the probability that a lot of us have found one or another of the demands of our society overwhelming, and have had to find work-arounds to keep on going.  I think of those with dyslexia, or those with brains that refuse to do math (tax time!) or those with PTSD that only surfaces under certain conditions---or any other of the myriad hurdles any one of us might live with on a daily basis. Perhaps ALL of us have some imperfection or another that we don't even realize we have adapted to because we have not been sufficiently blocked by it to pay attention?

I also noticed again how fruitless and ignorant it is to judge someone who is slower than we are---someone who struggles to do what we find easy.  We are such a judgy species!  What does the judging accomplish? Are we trying to shame them into better functioning?

I often judge myself when I am struggling to function.  It is my number-one, go-to response with myself.  "If I am hard on myself, I will try harder."  I use a stick, not a carrot. I know better, yet I still do it.

This capitalistic, "just try harder and go faster and be better" society urges me in more ways than I can count to earn more, strive more, learn more, "succeed" more, WANT more, have more. Though I know better---I truly do---I get caught again and again in this rat race, leaving behind my spiritual practices: meditation, yoga, contemplation, reading, writing, and art, for more shuffling of financial shells, more fear of debt, more running and working and worrying....

Yet I ever must DO THE OPPOSITE THING.

REST.

"But!  But!  But!"

REST.

My redundancies have been removed and removed until I can do very little BUT rest these days, despite the urgent inner voices clamouring about all the ways I am not enough.  My lack of redundancies are forcing me to face my most fearsome of demons: my own imperfection.  Though I know with my whole head that I am lovable just for existing, the message absorbed deep into my being (and that of many others, including, I suspect, a certain 5 year old that is running the country) is that I am not good enough, and must keep doing and achieving MORE to ...

...what?

Finally be lovable?  Finally be worthy?

Perhaps ... finally to escape the cruel and relentless voices of that inner demon.

That inner demon is the stick, the CLUB, the BASEBALL BAT WITH SPIKES behind us.

Meditation and compassion and the intentional side-stepping of fear and worry in order to see clearly is the carrot, the platter, the BANQUET calling us forward.

When I practice spiritual self care, the whole world changes.  My perspective changes.  My sense of ease expands.  My creativity in problem solving multiplies. My ability to transcend and find work-arounds for spiritual barriers grows and unfolds.

An abundance of paths to my heart's true desire are unveiled where before there had only been great walls. The spiritual "redundancies" abound.

But keeping my eyes clear requires continuously returning to my spiritual practices, even when the demon behind is screaming at me.  Simply getting onto my yoga mat or picking up my pen has become part of my spiritual practice, for it feels like work!  Why do I forget and resist so persistently?

For today, I remember.  For today I am grateful for the illnesses---or lack of worldly redundancies---that point me to my spiritual practices.  I forgive my forgetting.  I rejoice when I find myself again.

"No matter how much I get done, or is left undone, at the end of the day
I AM ENOUGH."

-Brene Brown

I'll see you on the mat.

Spoons

The "Spoons" Metaphor or "Spoon Theory"

Recently, a darling young woman-friend said to me, "I can't.  I don't have enough spoons."  (She lives with depression.)

At my puzzled look she told me with delight about the helpful "meme" that is spreading through the collective conversation.  It all began with Christine Miserandino's attempt to explain to a friend what it is like to live with invisible illness---about the tough decisions one has to make every day with one's limited energy.

The concreteness of the spoon imagery has managed to effectively illustrate what invisibly ill people have been saying for years:  Those who live with illness have far fewer resources than the healthy.

Being judged for low functioning or being guilted into more activity is NOT helpful.  Even still I struggle to remember that I often have fewer spoons in a day than regular people do.  I don't need outside help in feeling like I am not doing enough or producing enough.  I manage to feel shitty all by myself. (It is part of being depressed).  Patience and compassion are needed, not more shaming and shoulds,

When I think in terms of my "spoons," however, I tend to get practical and pragmatic, rather than getting bogged down in shame.  I am hearing the metaphor of the spoons increasingly in the conversations around me now too, which makes my heart glad for all the other good people I know who live with invisible illness. (Illnesses such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, depression, anxiety disorder, and a so many more.)

It is too easy to judge others, and too frequently unjust.  The simple act of trying to explain or defend oneself  from others' judgments and "advice" and attempts to "fix" takes even more spoons from an already meager supply.

The world already is overly short on compassion and respect.  How about we hand around more of that and less of suspicion and judgment and ill-informed assumptions?

Let's start handing out free spoons.  A kind word; a smile; a helping hand; an anonymous act of kindness: these are the things that help everyone.  It is so much easier to give a spoon than take one.  Why are we so quick to assume that someone who is short on spoons deserves to be so?

Please, take excellent care of yourself if you are short on spoons!  Please accept help with grace, not shame!  And many thanks to all those blessed enough to have spoons to share, who share them.

"Love one another as I have loved you."

Find the original spoon theory story by Christine Miserandino here.