COME TO JESUS, SISTHREN & BRETHREN

OK FOLKS- You read the headline, here's the deal. I've been wanting to hold some kind of forum online for people of privilege, specifically, to come forward and 'fess up to the fact that all of their entitlements, adventures, wealth, good things in general are due to their wealth and privilege and NOT due to any specialness that they have themselves created. Then I thought, wow, won't that be a dead forum. The blog equivalent of crickets chirping, essentially. Because seriously, when's the last time you heard a rich white guy just suddenly say, out of the blue, "You know, none of this (waving a martini-shaker at his swimming pool, fabulous house, trophy wife, M.B.A from Yale on the wall...) is due to my own intellectual, physical, or spiritual prowess. I was handed everything on a silver platter, plus myriad other favors, entitlements, and privileges that I'm not even aware of because I've always lived in this very insular, financially protected bubble that I don't remotely deserve..." Seriously, if anyone has actually heard a person of privilege admit to that- notify me. Post on this blog. Please.
Plus, just a wee bit negative on my part since I do tend to rail about trustfunders and how they drive me absolutely bonkers (perhaps because my beloved home state of Colorado is OVERRUN with them.)
Also, it's just a little bit narrow.
Why then, you ask, even bother? Welp because (here comes the pompous Anthropologist Pronoucement- brace yourselves!) I've come to believe that if this century is going to be anything, it's going to be the Century of Comin' to Jesus on a grand scale. Our time of self-delusion, inflated pride, unearned wealth and privileges is rapidly coming to an end. If for no other reason than it's simply unsustainable. And this is a good thing. (I'm speaking mainly to Americans, Canadians and Western Europeans here- the rest of all y'all have your own problems) Por ejemplo, Americans especially need to Come to Jesus about the fact that this country was founded on the genocide and theft of Native Americans and not God's Divine Plan for White People Who Must Be Naturally Superior. The ignominy of this founding was quickly followed by its twin sister, slavery, and centuries of brutal, oppressive racism that has seeped into every pore of our government and so-called "free" society and poisons it to this day. Denial of these basic facts only shoves those twin poisons deeper into our collective psychic wounds and makes them more difficult to heal.
Which brings me to my segue- so, the healing. Obviously these are huge issues, huge thingies, huge wounds that could take a person an entire lifetime to heal, and for a country, it's going to take generations. So, we-all-of-us, sisthren and brethren, need to start small. Really, all of us have things we need to Come to Jesus about. To make it easier, I've posted some of my CTJ's that originally appeared on my MySpace blog (and which got virtually no attention, as I have very few friends. Go figure.) as examples. Keep in mind, it doesn't have to be about YOU and your personal life for starters. If it is, my advice is to start REALLY small - as in, "Ok, I have to Come to Jesus about this hair scrunchy that I've been wearing every day for 6 months. The elastic is dead, the colors are faded, it's starting to smell, and it doesn't make my hair look good at all. Maybe it's time for a new style."
Or like, in a post of over a year ago, when I had to come to Cheezus about the fact that I made way too much Ro-tel nacho cheese dip for the Superbowl, which no one ate, but I kept it in the back of the fridge for months thinking "Someday! We will eat that! Can't let good Velveeta go to waste!" Sigh.

Definitions: Coming to Jesus, for those unfamiliar with the phrase, is about giving up your grand illusions/delusions about yourself or something/someone dear to you, facing facts, and in turn for this act of humility and self-awareness, receiving the sweet embrace of forgiveness in the arms of the "lord", or in my mind, the bosom of the Virgin Mary. If you're Catholic, or if you've read "Bless Me Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya, you know Mary's a helluva lot more understanding and forgiving than her son. She also runs around in the costumes of other cultures pretty frequently (or vice-versa, really, most of them pre-date Mary)as Tonantzin, Kwan Yin, Hera, White Buffalo Calf Woman, on and on. She is the nurturing face of the Goddess, the mythical unconditionally-loving mother to all who will always hold a distraught child to her breast to comfort them, no matter what stupid accident they've just caused or crawled out of. (so why not call this blog "Come to Mary?" doesn't sound as good.)
In the Baptist American tradition, it's the term for when congregants literally crawl on their knees up to the pulpit, weeping and sometimes rending garments, asking the preacher but more importantly their co-religionists to forgive them for ______________. Usually, some version of "living a falsehood." For example, perhaps you are unemployed, and desperately broke, but for some reason are still holding out for that $100k a year job, rather than facing reality or "coming to Jesus" and getting some sort of temp job so that you can pay your bills and put food on the table.
Yes, it generally involves giving up on a pipe-dream, or fantasy, not ACTUAL, legitimate dreams of what you really want to do with your life. In other words, "Put down the Pipe! Dream!"
If you've ever "Come to Jesus" about anything, you know there's a profound sense of relief that washes over you when you finally do. Unlike a confessional, where you just feel more guilty and dirty afterwards, this has immediate rewards (again, appealing to the Americans in the group).

Maybe I should mention that I'm culturally but not spiritually a Christian, and I mean no disrespect or "ironic" snarking by invoking Jesus' name here- I'm invoking it because I think a lot of people can relate to it, Christian or no. So don't waste precious comment space getting all offended that I'm blaspheming your god or something, because I'm not. Jesus seemed like a really good guy from what I can tell, trouble is, his teachings are incredibly hard to follow in real life and most of his "followers" only pretend to follow them, to keep up appearances.

I have to moderate this for hate-speech etc., but other than that, go for it.