A PRIVILEGED LIFE [R, 1-15-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Personal Reminiscences of an Old God Botherer in Winter—A PRIVILEGED LIFE [R, 1-15-26]

 

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Now this column is only the personal reminiscences of the author. If you get anything worthwhile, it is either by accident, or because you have a special ability to discern wheat in chaff.

As I enter this year, I think how richly I am blessed. I got to live in the last 63 years of the 20^th century, and, so far, the first 25 of the 21^st century—the best time to be alive, ever…

…at least, for a tall, straight, intelligent, English-speaking, decent-looking white man, with a deep voice and good genes.

For a man like that, the America of the modern era has been a land of hope, of promise, of the dream.

For colored folks, or gay or female folks, or people with learning disabilities, or brain or body problems…not so much so.

Is it wrong for me to give thanks for my privileged life, to count my blessings? Are we not supposed to enjoy all the good life brings to us? After all, I did not choose the givens of my life—race and gender and intelligence and such—anymore than anyone else did.

In a Call the Midwife episode, Nonnatus House nurse, Jenny Lee, is upset when a baby is taken away from a sixteen-year-old, exploited, “feeble minded” girl, and given to adoptive parents. Jenny protests to the priest who runs the adoption agency. He explains to her that the girl has no prospects, no family, no one to support her, no job, no education, no place to live, a low level of intelligence even to care for herself, no way to care for her baby. Furthermore, even though she does not want to give up the baby, she is underage. She has no rights in 1950s London.

Jenny has herself lived a privileged and sheltered life before coming to Poplar, London’s poverty-stricken east end. She says to the priest, “You must think me extremely naive.”

He says, “I think you fortunate. There is no need to apologize for that.”

Okay. I’ve lived a privileged life. I won’t apologize for it.

The problem with inherited privilege is when we who are privileged think that such advantage makes us better than others, rather than just different. Jesus constantly excoriated the rich and privileged not because they had more, but because they considered it as a birthright rather than a gift, because they thought it made them more a child of God than any of their brothers and sisters.

A privileged life takes you in one of two ways. Either you think that you are privileged because you deserve it, and that others do not deserve privilege…or you realize that privilege is just a fortunate accident.

If you know privilege is just an accident of birth—race, gender, intelligence, culture, etc—then you can give thanks and use your privilege in service to all.

I have lived a privileged life, and I’m thankful for it.

John Robert McFarland

“My experience has taught me that the future does end up better, even if it seems a bit delayed.” Lauren Jackson, the host of “Believing,” writing in “The NY Times.”