Being Fully
Awake
“I feel
like there is always something pulling us back into sleep, that there
is this sort of seductive quality in all the hedonistic pleasures
that pull on on us...The capacity to love is tied to being awake...”
bell hooks
Most of the spiritual
leaders I have encountered, whether in books or in person, have said
much the same thing as bell hooks' quote above—it's all about being
awake, being conscious. We (speaking for myself here) go through so
much of our lives unconscious; sedated by our comforts as people of
privilege. It's similar to when someone told Marie Antoinette that
the people were protesting that they didn't have bread to eat, and
she responded, “They let them eat cake.” Most of us who
are privileged to be white in an affluent society, do not have a
single clue about how people in our own culture, much less other
cultures, live. We don't have to know, because it doesn't touch us.
It's like Dorothy in the field of poppies, we just sleep-walk through
our days, enjoying the pleasures of life.
Just this week, our own
president tweeted congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on their
Super Bowl win, and placed Kansas City in “great state of Kansas,”
rather than Missouri, where it belongs. He doesn't know because it
wasn't important enough for him to look up. He's only concerned with
things that impact him directly. I can't slam Trump, though, because
most of us are like that. We live from our ego-self; we like what
pleases us, and the rest is just window dressing, or a pain in the
neck. Perhaps it's human, or more likely, mammalian. That black cat
that lives on my porch reclines on his bed all day, and gives me the
skinny-eye if I dare to disturb him. That's what it's like to be
privileged.
To be sure, it's not just
white people who are privileged in our culture these days. Just ask
Lebron, or Jay-Z, or Beyonce, or Alice Walker, or, Lord have mercy,
Oprah! They're famous and privileged, and rich and influential. So
it's not simply the color of our skin, though for ordinary people
that unfortunately makes a huge difference in America, especially in
these days of White Nationalists and Nazi gangs marching in the
streets. Privilege is a matter of wealth and access, education and ambition,
and most of all, hard work and opportunity.
What makes privilege
somewhat palatable to those who don't have it is consciousness.
Awareness that, as Winston Churchill and Spider Man said, “With
great power comes great responsibility.” Or, as scripture tells
us, to whom much is given, much is expected. We're not meant to rest
on our laurels.
bell hooks (which is, by
the way, a nom de plume) goes on to say: “The capacity to love
is tied to being awake, to being able to move out of yourself and be
with someone else that is not about your desire to possess them, but
to be with them, to be in union and communion.” We who have
advantages simply because life has dealt us a particularly fine hand,
or because we've worked hard to get there, are especially tasked with
consciousness—we must wake up, reach out, and pull someone else up
beside us. That's the major responsibility that comes with privilege.
Kobe Bryant knew that. Oprah knows that. Apparently, our president
does not. Do you? Who gave you a hand up? Who are you reaching out
to?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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