Pandemic or not Lent is upon us. The pandemic has given us involuntary practices that may lead to personal growth. Lent comes along and offers us voluntary options which may also lead to conversion.

The traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are still viable tolls for conversion; however, in a pandemic, we are looking for ways to create a new normal. Joel reminds us to rend our garments. He is reminding us to create a new life, a new real.

My previous blog gives some guidance in choosing a Lenten practice that may help bring about a new normal. I believe that the elephant in the living room is racism. I have decided to do an intensive study on white privilege as an element of racism in the hope that I can rend my garment. Racism is a sin and this is a good starting point for me. You ma y well choose another Lenten practice that will create a new and better normal. There is plenty to work on.

I am reading and journaling on Me and White Supremacy—a 2-day program. Today’s lesson is about white privilege. I spent at least two thirds of my life totally oblivious to the cultural and social blight of white privilege. In college I became aware that part of my upbringing in the Deep South had instilled some prejudices against people of color. I made some strides along the way. As a high school principal with a diverse student body, I tried to hire teachers who looked like my students when this was possible. Later in life I became aware of white privilege and all the blessings and benefits it bestowed upon me to the disadvantage of others. Layla F. Saad writes:

White privilege is the reward that white and white-passing people receive in exchange for participating in the system of white supremacy—whether that participation is voluntary or involuntary. In order to dismantle white supremacy, you must understand how much white privilege is a key aspect of your life, how you benefit (whether knowingly or unknowingly) from your whiteness, what that means for people who do not receive that same benefit, and how you can dismantle it. (Saad, Layla F., Me and White Supremacy (p. 38). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.)

My mother never needed to sit me down and try to tell me how to act if I were pulled over by the police. I will start examining all the other ways I have been and still am privileged.