On labels

I was discussing recently the difficulty we have with labels-not on clipping them from Del Monte cans and handing them in so your school that's poor from spending money on sports can buy books instead of raising taxes on people who are already well off-but still don't want to pay taxes any higher than they did in the '60s.

I'm talking about the labels we apply to folks in general. Liberal and Conservative. Christian, progressive, or fundamentalist. There is actually no way to avoid labeling to some extent. If we didn't we'd all be stuck using general and neutral pronouns.

Excuse me person? Could you hand me that thing with the stuff on it?

"This?" no
"That" no.

the thing with the color on it that's darker than the color of your eyes or the thing with the stuff on it the color of your skin but darker? No-the thing with the thing that's sitting on that other thing.

It quickly would become an exercise in futility and vagueness.

What can be frustrating though is the vast differences and nuances of opinion that exist in each individual and the attempt to try and place one person or the other in a particular category. This of course is what helps us define people but it can erode the sense of complexity that makes up individuals as well.

I long for a day like Dr. Martin Luther King spoke of when "we'd one day be judged not by the color of our skin (or any sort of label in particular), but on the content of our character".

It seems like a happy possibility to not be categorized as a lover of Rush Linbaugh or a lover of Keith Olberman-or maybe Bill O' Reilly vs. Al Franken. The truth is we're a huge amalgam of opinions, influences, circumstances, and convictions. To categorize anyone is to simplify people and the human experience so that we can be less anxious about reality.

Our anxiety comes from self consciousness-self awareness and the understanding that we can't figure everything out-and that there is randomness and insignificance as well as meaning and relationship that makes up our reality. But we can't wrap it up in a neat package for marketing it can make us antsy. If I can't buy it at Wal-Mart Dwight, I just don't trust it.

It reminds me of the phrase from the movie Pleasantville where everyone who is frightened about the change that is taking place all over the town say something to the effect of "Where do you go when everything around you is changing and the world seems so uncertain? The bowling alley of course".

People can certainly lean one way or the other in terms of political, religious, and all other viewpoints and character traits. But sometimes the idiosyncrasies and contradictions within our selves or that we observe in others is dumbfounding.

I know of a lesbian couple who attended a church that was against homosexuality. They did so because they didn't want to attend a church that while supportive of homosexual people had a woman minister. DOH!

That's like an NRA member that can't find it within himself to quit his knitting group even though his friends think its gay.

We're all so different-it makes us have to come up with labels to manage it all sometimes-so I respect that. I just ask "Where then is the middle ground?" Where can we find a place to accurately describe people, or realities without limiting the person or reality to that specific label? The bowling alley.

I don't know and I don't think we're supposed to know. I think that probably the process of learning about people and relationships is a lot more important than the arrival or the destination. That's not a particularly original concept-but it holds true in many instances. Along the way I think we're invited to make sure we laugh, love, and whatever third thing you can add here to make it a complete statement.

What is it that he poster says "Dance like no one is watching-even though you look like a dork, laugh as thought people around you aren't frightened by your boisterous and close to maniacal look and sound, and love like you aren't going to be issued a restraining order.

I hope you can label yourself as one who laughed at the end of today and each day.
Grace,
Dwight