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From the Chaplain's Desk

Eventually, We Come Around

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COLLEGE PARK, MD –

Privilege-sharing is back on the docket this morning.

The most common reaction to those that attempt to share their privilege is rejection. Sharing privilege is work – for the giver and the recipient.

As we all know, once work is required most of us will attempt to skirt it. If we were honest about that reality there wouldn’t be much of a problem.

The issue arises when people are not willing to simply admit that they are not up to the huge task of getting to work on improvements for themselves, to admit that they don’t value getting better that much.
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A Lot Better Than Car Sharing

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COLLEGE PARK, MD –

A belated Happy Eid of Sacrifice to all our dear readers. I hope it was a joyous time for everyone and a time of reflection on what the holiday signifies.

I find there to be a poignant nexus between sacrifice and the topic of privilege-sharing we discussed last week. Sharing privilege is certainly a sacrifice, but sacrifices don’t entail our ending up with less.

Please humor me as I take the scenic route in describing what I’m thinking.
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Sharing is Hard

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COLLEGE PARK, MD –

Privilege denial happens for a number of reasons, but most, if not all, of those reasons can be placed under the umbrella of “it’s hard.”

That’s really the bottom line, in my estimation.

Acknowledging the privilege in one’s life compels a person to share what’s been so freely granted to them, but held back from others.

Acknowledging the privilege in one’s life holds a person back from hubris and attributing the good in his or her life to their own accord.

Due to the implications at hand, acknowledging, then sharing, the privilege in one’s life is hard.
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Don’t Deny Privilege

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COLLEGE PARK, MD –

It is a fact of life – some of us are more privileged in particular regards than others.

It seems we get tripped up on how to grapple with this fact regardless of what side of privilege we fall on.

People who have certain privileges often fall into arrogance and delusions that they are privileged out of their own talent and hard work.

This seems, to me, to be a coping mechanism for not being able to make sense of their privilege and others’ lack thereof. It can also, no doubt, be bald-faced ignorance.

On the flip-side, people who lack certain privileges can often get lost in resentment towards those who have the privileges they do not, and give up whatever agency they do have in their lives to this obsession.

For the purpose of this column, however, I’ll focus specifically on situations where we find ourselves among the privileged.
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No Execution Without Vulnerability

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COLLEGE PARK, MD –

We sat with it last week: there is no success without execution. If we take a step back from that one, we can see that there is also no execution without vulnerability.

Most people do not like being vulnerable, but it is in accepting difficult medicine that we heal from the various forms of illness in our lives.

Many try to cope with the discomfort of the idea they are not independent by feigning imperviousness in relationships, including but not limited to: parent to child, child to parent, spouse to spouse, sibling to sibling, friend to friend, and, ultimately, the son of Adam to his Creator.

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