This one is especially gorgeous. I love, "I offer my alternative definition of privilege: a measure of insulation from one’s consequence in the world. As our consequence comes slipping in through the cracks in the house of modernity—maybe in the form of a report describing our ecological complicity or the wretched working conditions in the factories that produce our shoes—what will we do with our feelings of guilt? What will we do when we can no longer turn away from the dent in the world with our names on it?"
"Privilege begets guilt, if we let it in. When guilt turns away from the easy rest stop of grievance, it will eventually deepen into grief, which then opens a doorway into gratitude. This grief-informed gratitude doesn’t sound like laundry list of the things that have worked out for us—almost the opposite. This kind of gratitude says, “I’ve been granted a degree of fortune I didn’t choose. Today I will ask how to levy that fortune to make things work out for others.” I can't help but quote back these potent words. A huge YES and thank you!
Thank you, DJ. This one peels another layer from the onion. Taking this work and these stories to the university cracks it open a bit perhaps. I had a sense that we were leading a grief ritual, really. And the response blew me away.
Guilt can beget shame (a particularly toxic and not useful emotion). Getting to the grief is a good sign. I think it shows up when we're move from the paralysis of moral injury into a more constructive way of being in the world.
Thank you Adam. The guilt-grief-gratitude process you tell about gives me ground to frame my own unfolding with these questions. Feeling so much grief lately, which is giving life to more and more gratitude. And there are still many places of guilt to tend to in my body. Your writing and living inspires me deeply. I’ve tried at times to share my excitement over what you are doing with others in my life and find I stumble when it comes to the privilege question. Your alternative definition plus a recent framing I read in Fruition’s post about transitioning to the gift economy, “the gift of privilege is to take risks and give it away” (Evan Hoyt), are touching me deeply. It takes courage to meet these edges and live the gift accordingly. Your courage and that of others is sustenance for my own. Blessings and gratitude.
Thank you for this note, Ryan. Evan is a companion of mine for years, and so I'm glad to hear him wrestle with this one aloud. It isn't easy to find words suitable to such a silencing subject in a hot-button time. The responsibility to take risks on behalf of the culture or collective makes a helpful framing for privilege. Thank you for sharing it.
Dear Adam, so much to take in with this one. Thank you so much for these gentle, generous and powerful words. Your kind wisdom is beginning to seep into this guilt and grief ridden soul and helping me discover a life of forgiveness, belonging, generosity and gratitude.
The wisdom comes from the woods. I wouldn't have much to say worth listening to if I didn't spend time out there. I'm glad to hear that I did a decent job transcribing here. Best to you, Heather.
Life, to me, seems to be, so far an unending road of, gratitude, grief, bliss, sorrow, compassion, caring, loving, forgiving, etc.
I am here, in my mind, to tend fields, animals, love nature, care for other beings, and enjoy the blessings along the way. The sun, silence, laughter, food, family, friends, the warm earth that give us its bounty.
But we must remember to care for the earth, it is our Mother, teacher, principal, forgives, and friend. Tread softly.
Leah Penniman--author of Farming While Black--gave the keynote address at the conference. She quoted George Washington Carver as crediting all of his many inventions to his morning walks in the woods. He said, "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." Isn't that something?
I had to come back to this newsletter after printing it out and thinking on it for a while...
It seems to me that the idea of food as a human right/life as a human right exist as necessary only in the context of interpersonal human relationship where depriving other humans of what will allow them to live is considered an option (on both an individual and a global scale). No one would pause to assert their right to life or right to food with the ocean, or an avalanche, or a charging elephant seal; these beings and entities simply ARE and beside them we also simply are.
Your reframing of privilege as insulation from one's own consequence in the world is beautiful and clarifying.
I think you've found a way in here. The rights language aims to make a less heinous human civilizational framework, but does little to heal the root separation from the living generosity that reminds us to care for one another. Thank you for digesting and sending thoughts.
A very thought-provoking piece. I'm familiar with the guilt that comes with privilege but tend not to go from guilt to grief. Instead, I go from guilt to freedom, unaffected by the opinions of others. I will have to ponder this. Perhaps I fear what effect grief will have if I move in that direction.
This reminds me of Wendell Berry's Life is a Miracle essay. Recently someone very dear to me struggled with anorexia. As we would talk I kept coming back to telling this person, "your life is a gift!". A sense of not deserving was tied up in the dark thoughts. Countering the dark with gratitude and awe was one of the essential sanity-saving ways of seeing for her. It has to be deeply believed, known in the bones, to effectively counteract this culture's craziness.
And this was a spiritual struggle for her. When a person doesn't know/realize/believe that food, life, our bodies are gifts there is a spiritual struggle. I believe it involves a surrender to God, though others use different words for that.
This one is especially gorgeous. I love, "I offer my alternative definition of privilege: a measure of insulation from one’s consequence in the world. As our consequence comes slipping in through the cracks in the house of modernity—maybe in the form of a report describing our ecological complicity or the wretched working conditions in the factories that produce our shoes—what will we do with our feelings of guilt? What will we do when we can no longer turn away from the dent in the world with our names on it?"
"Privilege begets guilt, if we let it in. When guilt turns away from the easy rest stop of grievance, it will eventually deepen into grief, which then opens a doorway into gratitude. This grief-informed gratitude doesn’t sound like laundry list of the things that have worked out for us—almost the opposite. This kind of gratitude says, “I’ve been granted a degree of fortune I didn’t choose. Today I will ask how to levy that fortune to make things work out for others.” I can't help but quote back these potent words. A huge YES and thank you!
Thank you, DJ. This one peels another layer from the onion. Taking this work and these stories to the university cracks it open a bit perhaps. I had a sense that we were leading a grief ritual, really. And the response blew me away.
Guilt can beget shame (a particularly toxic and not useful emotion). Getting to the grief is a good sign. I think it shows up when we're move from the paralysis of moral injury into a more constructive way of being in the world.
Thank you Adam. The guilt-grief-gratitude process you tell about gives me ground to frame my own unfolding with these questions. Feeling so much grief lately, which is giving life to more and more gratitude. And there are still many places of guilt to tend to in my body. Your writing and living inspires me deeply. I’ve tried at times to share my excitement over what you are doing with others in my life and find I stumble when it comes to the privilege question. Your alternative definition plus a recent framing I read in Fruition’s post about transitioning to the gift economy, “the gift of privilege is to take risks and give it away” (Evan Hoyt), are touching me deeply. It takes courage to meet these edges and live the gift accordingly. Your courage and that of others is sustenance for my own. Blessings and gratitude.
Thank you for this note, Ryan. Evan is a companion of mine for years, and so I'm glad to hear him wrestle with this one aloud. It isn't easy to find words suitable to such a silencing subject in a hot-button time. The responsibility to take risks on behalf of the culture or collective makes a helpful framing for privilege. Thank you for sharing it.
Dear Adam, so much to take in with this one. Thank you so much for these gentle, generous and powerful words. Your kind wisdom is beginning to seep into this guilt and grief ridden soul and helping me discover a life of forgiveness, belonging, generosity and gratitude.
The wisdom comes from the woods. I wouldn't have much to say worth listening to if I didn't spend time out there. I'm glad to hear that I did a decent job transcribing here. Best to you, Heather.
Life, to me, seems to be, so far an unending road of, gratitude, grief, bliss, sorrow, compassion, caring, loving, forgiving, etc.
I am here, in my mind, to tend fields, animals, love nature, care for other beings, and enjoy the blessings along the way. The sun, silence, laughter, food, family, friends, the warm earth that give us its bounty.
But we must remember to care for the earth, it is our Mother, teacher, principal, forgives, and friend. Tread softly.
Hi Linda,
Leah Penniman--author of Farming While Black--gave the keynote address at the conference. She quoted George Washington Carver as crediting all of his many inventions to his morning walks in the woods. He said, "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." Isn't that something?
"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."
Wowsers that's good! Thank you once again Adam, this was a beauty. I've been thinking a lot about this lately
Powerful. Thank you.
Thank you, Deb.
I had to come back to this newsletter after printing it out and thinking on it for a while...
It seems to me that the idea of food as a human right/life as a human right exist as necessary only in the context of interpersonal human relationship where depriving other humans of what will allow them to live is considered an option (on both an individual and a global scale). No one would pause to assert their right to life or right to food with the ocean, or an avalanche, or a charging elephant seal; these beings and entities simply ARE and beside them we also simply are.
Your reframing of privilege as insulation from one's own consequence in the world is beautiful and clarifying.
Hi Jan,
I think you've found a way in here. The rights language aims to make a less heinous human civilizational framework, but does little to heal the root separation from the living generosity that reminds us to care for one another. Thank you for digesting and sending thoughts.
A very thought-provoking piece. I'm familiar with the guilt that comes with privilege but tend not to go from guilt to grief. Instead, I go from guilt to freedom, unaffected by the opinions of others. I will have to ponder this. Perhaps I fear what effect grief will have if I move in that direction.
This reminds me of Wendell Berry's Life is a Miracle essay. Recently someone very dear to me struggled with anorexia. As we would talk I kept coming back to telling this person, "your life is a gift!". A sense of not deserving was tied up in the dark thoughts. Countering the dark with gratitude and awe was one of the essential sanity-saving ways of seeing for her. It has to be deeply believed, known in the bones, to effectively counteract this culture's craziness.
And this was a spiritual struggle for her. When a person doesn't know/realize/believe that food, life, our bodies are gifts there is a spiritual struggle. I believe it involves a surrender to God, though others use different words for that.
And all we need to do is be patient and listen with our body.