The Comforts of Home

Home is a beautiful thing.  The older I get, the more I realize how rare it is for people to be friends with their families like I am friends with mine--I am incredibly lucky.  I wish that same sort of sense of support and comfort to everyone, regardless of whether or not it comes from their biological family.

This same amazing family and I have spent the majority of my time at home playing Rock Band, which my brother provided for us.  I'm on vocals, dad's on guitar, brother's on drums, and we all unanimously voted that mom should take the prestigious role of band manager (read: she can't play the game to save her life).  It's been quite fun :-)  I still can't shake finals off of me, though; sleeping in late and playing video games with my family all day still feels strange, like I'm cheating or playing hooky.  I'm sure the sensation will pass the day before I go back to Berkeley.  Life usually works that way, doesn't it?

In the moments when I'm not enveloped in carefree, joyous interactions with my family, I've been thinking about privilege.  Namely, I've been thinking about how we talk about privilege.  In seminary, transparency seems to be the foundational value when it comes to privilege: you cannot undo the power of the privilege you carry with you into any given situation, so the best way to handle it is to unmask it for what it is.  To say, "I'm aware that because of my class/ethnicity/gender/social location, I have been arbitrarily granted more power than someone of this class/ethnicity/gender/social location."  A lot of people I know would, after this exercise in transparency, pat themselves on the back and call it a job well done.  I'm wondering now, though, if that really is a job well done.  Sometimes, it seems like that exercise of "transparency" is actually a self-satisfied way of claiming the power one is supposedly negating.  I find that obnoxious.  

That being said, I have no real solutions to offer; just that little rant :-)  If I ever figure out an answer to the question of how one should handle power/authority/empire (threw that one in just for kicks), I'll be sure to post it here.  But for now, it's time to return to the comforts of home.