The problem is privelege

The problem is privilege

I am thinking about Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday and the luxury of being "fat" in the first place. The problem is privilege. I think of how distressed people are about the fact that Lent begins on the day before Valentine's Day and they are upset that they cannot have the chocolate to which they feel entitled on the day of "love" and I want to scream, "My love is worth so much more than Chocolate!!" and if I feel that way, then what must God feel about my whining? The problem is privilege. I am privileged to be able to give up something. I have so very much to be thankful for and so perhaps this lenten season, I shall give up my sense of entitlement. My sense that my doing right earns some tangible reward. My sense that spending innumerable years earning degrees makes me somehow entitled to a job that pays something like an heiress' ransom for my hard work. (which, by the way, I will claim that I did for the love and value of the education itself). Perhaps I will give up my sense of entitlement to a healthy relationship with a perfect man who will love me enough to compensate for the ways in which I fail to love myself. Yes, perhaps I will give up lies and false notions and embrace the truth not just for 40 days but for every day. Perhaps I will give up my American identity as one who is deserving and at the same time dis-serving and I will remember to put on my God-given identity and serve...period. The problem is privilege. We are too fat already. We are too comfortable already. I have no need to scarf down donuts and coffee and drink hurricanes tonight in preparation for tomorrow. The problem is privilege - thinking that tomorrow will come and with it, the opportunity to give up that which others would love to have access to. The problem is privilege. I will give up my entitlement and I will begin today. I may choose to avoid sweets, luxuries, indulgences, but none of that puts food in the mouths of the hungry. None of that puts salve on the wounds of the downtrodden. None of that will serve to release any of the captives and that, I believe, is part of the call. The call this year is to recognize that the problem is privilege and the solution also lies in the privilege. I am privileged to be able to do something about the problem. It is a blessing to have the problem of privilege. It is a return on the investment to use that privilege for the good of those who are by any standard, the least (privileged) of them. Refusing coffee, chocolate and sugary drinks will strengthen the body and will possibly call some to a new degree of awareness of who God is but as for me and my privileged middle class house, we will renounce our entitlement and exercise our privilege to serve those who need to see the hands of God moving in their direction. I am privileged to be the hands of God. Privilege can be a problem - but it can also be its own solution!