thick air

I fear it.
I try not to abuse it.
I swim in it, yet I do not see it.
I breathe it, but cannot detect it when I sniff.
I do not know how to live without it--certainly I would not be sending thoughts of my year in Kenya without a hefty dose of privilege.
Privilege has stalked me since I was young. Never the wealthiest in my class, I was often proud that those spoiled children with cable were so morally inferior because of their economic indulgence. But wallowing in that pride allowed me to look away from my great privileges of always having private schooling, always having two working, encouraging parents, always having good roads. Here in Kenya, some of the obstacles I've faced are perceptions of wazungu as privileged. Kids, instead of wanting to play, will practice the second English phrase they learned (second to "Hawayu," of course, the traditional greeting), "Give me 10 shillings." Beggar children in Nairobi and neighbors in Icaciri alike will ask this, because they see a mzungu and he likely has money. They don't look to see that we are dressed shabbily because we don't know how to wash clothes correctly. They do not see our unkempt hair and beards as signs of poverty. They just see a white person. With money.
The worst part about fighting this stereotype (still present among our peers and elders, but they don't just walk around asking for 10 shillings) is that it is truth. If you did not click the link in the last paragraph, click here. The very things about our appearance that I would think could say we are not privileged, because we do not care how we appear, reveal our privilege. The freedom to not care what people think is itself privilege. The freedom to think we are the masters of our realms is privilege.
It is the illusion of privilege to be the cause of the effects around you. "If you study, you succeed" is a story only believable in a situation of privilege. If you have a learning disability, the story is not about you. If you study, you might not succeed. But you're not the same kind of person. You have a named excuse for not being in complete control of your life. I was in a lovely argument yesterday with a determinist who knew these things well. A counselor and a student currently, he saw this inability to control outcomes as sufficient evidence for inescapable fate. I could not follow him all the way; I picture human existence as stretched across the gap of choice and chosen, waiting for the renewal of both internal and external worlds to bring will and outcome into harmony.
So beware of your guilt, America. Even your identity is not safeguarded against the necessity of interdependence in the world. Your wrongs and rights are not only yours, but shared. Beware the hubris of believing an ash cloud unjustly disturbed your plans or of crediting yourself for your academic success. You are privileged. Thanks be to God for granting you the opportunity to fly around the world or study to show thyself approved or drive a smooth road and not even know it. Open your eyes and see how you depend on the postal workers, the road workers, Immokalee tomato pickers, and uncounted hordes of drivers, cashiers, growers, policymakers, administrators, and children.
And continue to work. Because the farmer plants the seed, but does not make it grow. He does not know how it dies in the ground and releases from its belly tenfold or a hundredfold. Do not work on the factory model--successfully or unsuccessfully producing a product--try the agricultural model. Plant a seed. Speak true, loving words or invest in a child's life or actually plant a seed. Don't judge yourself on results, but hope for them. And work for them. Plow, till, but do not credit yourself with the growth. For as much as the farmer has a right to enjoy the fruits of his labor, he could not have prevented a drought. He did not awaken the sleeping seed to the rising joys of geotropism.
May the peace of Christ dream in your eyes new things today as you breathe whatever air in which you find yourself.