This was recited last Sunday to close the homily and it’s a good reminder – especially for women in our culture who are given an opposite message – to always serve, to stay in the background, to be nice and quiet.
It’s “Our Deepest Fear” by Marianne Williamson, from her book A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
What does patriarchy look like in our society? To get an idea we need only examine the institution of marriage as commonly understood in Western – European society.
The institution of marriage, of course, has varied greatly over time. In ancient biblical times, polygamy anchored more than one woman and her children to one patriarchal male (Abraham, David and Solomon are a few well-known examples). Later on, marriage in many places was a transfer of property – the wife – from her father to her husband. In Christianity, marriage doesn’t officially become a sacrament until the 12th century. About this time, the idea of romantic love begins to emerge as well.
For a detailed, interesting and often funny history of marriage read I Don’t by Susan Squire.
Regardless, learning about the history of marriage allows us to appraise it more thoroughly. In our own culture, marriage in a society where women consistently earn less than men, are generally expected to be the primary parent and risk a divorce rate well over 40%, places women and children at high risk for poverty. It’s interesting to note that the majority of those in poverty are women and children.
Further, women are socialized to want this unbalanced economic and emotional relationship. In our culture it is often portrayed or considered ideal for women to stay and work at home (losing seniority, pay, network connections, advancement opportunities) in order to be with their children. When women do work, they frequently work part-time and often still bear most of the responsibility for childcare and household tasks.
This then, is what patriarchy looks like. A system of marriage and family that allows most of the lower paid work, long-term responsibility for child care and household care, and thus loss of wealth, to be shouldered primarily by women. However, most of the high paying work, assets and wealth are handed to men.
The fact that we can note exceptions proves the rule. What’s wrong with this system? Who benefits?
This article by Cindy Cesares in the Texas Observer, explains in plain language what racism looks like in our public school system. The issues she highlights are not unique to the state of Texas. You can simply insert “your state” in place of Texas:
Let’s see if we can solve the mystery of why kids of color do worse in school. First off, let’s look at their home life. As people of color, these kids’ parents are subjected to a higher unemployment rate than their Anglo counterparts. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for whites in Texas is at roughly 6.5 percent. For Latinos it’s 9 percent and for African-Americans it’s a whopping 15.5 percent. Texas Hispanics not only make less money on average than Anglos, they make less money than Hispanics living in other states, according to a report published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. As this year’s redistricting debacle has taught us, minorities in Texas have been historically discriminated against in the political process and still have to fight just to gain fair representation in government. And people of color also have a higher chance of being targeted by police as was reported in the landmark 2004 study “Racial Profiling: Texas traffic stops and searches,” which was the nation’s largest survey on racial profiling. Six out of every seven law enforcement agencies in Texas reported searching blacks and Latinos at higher rates than Anglos despite those searches turning up nothing 98 percent of the time.
Here are my own observations. For the seven years I’ve lived in my town, I have looked each time I see local police stopping vehicles in traffic. In every case the driver was a person with brown skin. My observations aren’t statistically significant in themselves — but they sure tell me something about racial profiling in my own town.
Furthermore, the actual statistics speak for themselves. She writes,
Not surprising to anyone who studies the data. Consistently, people of color are given the proverbial shaft.
Poor and minority students in Texas are far less likely than others to have certified math teachers.
58 percent of Algebra I teachers in predominantly African-American schools are certified in math, compared to 82 percent of the teachers in schools with the fewest African-American students.
Of the state’s ?50 largest school districts, 43 have the highest concentration of novice teachers in the poorest schools.
Across Texas, at every school level and in all? core subjects (English, math, science and social studies), Hispanic, African-American and lowincome students are more likely than their more affluent and white peers to be taught by teachers who do not meet state requirements.
A similar analysis of teacher and student data in Los Angeles concluded that “having a top- quartile teacher rather than bottom-quartile teacher four years in a row would be enough to close the black-white test score gap.”
In Arlington, for example, the average teacher salary in the district’s highest-poverty middle schools is $4,750 less than the average teacher salary in the more-affluent middle schools.
In Amarillo, teachers working in elementary schools serving mostly Hispanic and African-American children earn on average $2,405 less than those in the elementary schools serving greater numbers of white students.
People who question the existence of systemic racism need only look at the numbers. Take the emotion out and see for yourself. The statistics are quite simply stacked against people of color in this state.
Finally, consider that in most cases we pay for public schools with property taxes. Higher income suburbs, more property taxes, better schools. It isn’t rocket science.
For those of us who benefit, our children are not “blessed with good schools.” No. The system is designed to give some of us a better education, thus better access to high-paying jobs, better access to health insurance, better access to wealth. The system is designed to be unequal.
During the past few years I have been consciously working on putting only good – no, make that fabulous – relationships, events and things into my life. Simultaneously, I have been eliminating or minimizing anything that doesn’t add something fabulous to my life.
Life is short. We never know how much time we have. Why spend it with people who treat others badly, pull us down or make us feel less than who we really are?
The most fabulous thing to add is service to others, especially service to those who are struggling. In helping them I help myself. That is the paradox of becoming who we are meant to be. We are all connected. We can’t really manifest our best selves until everyone is able to share their gifts. That is why working to end poverty and hunger is so important – crucial really. We need the gifts of everyone and we need to serve those who struggle in order to be healed of our own blindness.
When I am asked to participate in a group, event or activity I stop and ask, “Is this something that I can’t wait to do?” If the answer is “yes” then it goes on my calendar. If not, then I politely decline. No excuse required.
The same goes for people. If the relationship is mutual and life-enhancing I spend time there. If not, I minimize my exposure there as much as possible.
Think about where we spend most of our time: work, friends and family. Do you love your work? If yes, then you are filling your life with what you love. If not, then start taking steps to do what you love. To do anything less is to devalue the life you have been given.
The same is true of family and friends. Apply the “fabulous standard.” If you love spending time with everyone in your life, then you are in a good place. If not, minimize contact with those who don’t enhance your life or make you feel wonderful. Instead, start spending more time with those whose presence adds to your life. Be around people whom you admire, who appreciate you, make you feel terrific and are happy to spend time with you. Be around those who live with integrity and who value the common good. A helpful tip: these will not be people that you would normally expect.
Apply the “fabulous standard” to activities, food, movies, books, clothes and household items. In carefully selecting the content of my life I find that what is there is of high quality – but not necessarily high priced.
Live intentionally. It’s simple really. Be the empty bowl. The recipe: Take one life. Add everything you love. Take out everything you don’t. Mix and enjoy.
Whoever you are, wherever you are – fill your life with fabulous!
Originally published on this day last year, as I prepare for my doctoral proposal defense today – exactly one year later – I can see the importance of embracing filling my life with fabulous! Last year on this day I could never have envisioned completing my doctoral course work today. Thank you to all of the many people who supported me in this undertaking. I am VERY grateful to you all!
The post Truth or Consequences talked about the fact that the way we speak about something determines how we understand it. It’s not the other way around.
In a previous post I discussed how our untruthful speech keeps us from seeing reality as it really is. Here’s another example: the idea that there is such a thing as an “objective” or “unbiased” point of view, or reporting.
Why? Because the reality is that all reporting is biased. It can not help but be biased. This is because we each come to a situation with our own experiences, background understanding, education and cultural lenses. We have no way to write or speak about anything that doesn’t incorporate these aspects of ourselves.
For example, I can’t have the perspective of a man of color from the global south. I can only understand and speak about the world from the perspective of a woman of northern European descent, living in North America, benefiting from white privilege with access to far more than my fair share of resources compared to most human beings on the planet.
Rather than trying to make reporting “unbiased” which is impossible, we should try to learn what the bias actually is.
In other words – there is ALWAYS a bias. The question to ask is “What is the bias?” and “Is the reporter or speaker open and transparent about their bias?”
Every newspaper, book, magazine and TV show edits the material they have. Some facts are reported. Some pictures are chosen. Some quotes are used. Others are not. Everything we see has been selected and edited using a particular lens. What is the lens? Who pays? Which corporations sponsor? Who benefits?
As a Catholic theologian, my bias is for the common good. This does not mean “to compromise” like in a real estate deal. I don’t give up something, others give up something and we wash out somewhere in the middle. No. Rather, we each listen to every one’s needs. Then we use imagination and creativity to come up with something that meets the needs of all.
In striving for the bias of the common good I use my lens described above. It is a limited lens, which is why it is important that I listen to many points of view. This requires on-going reading, conversation and education.
This is not fast. It is not easy. But that is not to say that it is impossible. It does take time, effort and perseverance. It does take listening to one’s self and to others. But this is the task of caring for our human family.
