Happiness and Privilege

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. - John 10:10

If we were to think of the prospect of moving towards Jesus’s call to a whole life as a form of self-care, let’s remember that it’s not a level playing field. Some of us have far more obstacles on our field than others of us.

Let’s pause for a moment and sit with this idea under the teaching of an indigenous leader and she unpacks this idea:

“For Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color, it is especially difficult to approach the topic of self care, because the system of self-care is often so unreachable for those who do not have the money to take care of themselves. There are many layers of privilege in the conversations… we must consider how our oppressive systems keep so many from getting the care they need. Self-care is for everyone, to help us be more healthy humans.” - Kaitlin Curtice, Native

For some of us, this has been our experience our whole life and feels no more insightful than water being wet. For some of us this may feel like a new insight. That sentence in and of itself may represent how privilege works - for some of us, privilege has protected us from facing some of the harder realities of our world.

If Curtice is right, which seems like an appropriate take on Jesus’s teaching, that “self-care is for everyone,” then what does it mean for us today to pray for this provision for ourselves and for our neighbors?

Spend time praying “Give us this day our daily bread” around this idea of self-care is for everyone.