Nobody's anything...all the time

There are some large envelopes around our office that contain labels – nifty, sticky little pieces of paper. Sometimes we use them to mail things. Sometimes we use them to label stuff so we know where stuff is, when we need stuff to get stuff done.

There’s a problem with labels. ‘Ever buy something that was too much money in the first place, to be faced by a blasted label that insists on leaving behind its stickiness to be cursed by you every time you use the affixee.

As I understand it, Post-it notes were invented by a guy at 3M who was a choir director. He got tired of little pieces of paper used to mark hymns, falling out of his hymnal. So, he developed a light adhesive that was just sticky enough to get its job done and no more.

We tend as persons, to wear labels, usually affixed by persons intent on classifying everyone they meet. It seems we must always be “something.” We must be conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, fundamentalist, universalist, pro-life, pro-choice, and on-and-on, and on-and-on, ad nausium.

How dull!

Nothing could be more unkind or full of baloney. Show me anyone who is anything all the time, and I’ll show you a store manikin.

Bill Cosby once said, “Nothing fits in a pigeon-hole except a pigeon.” But it seems we spend our lives being stuffed into pigeon-holes, devised by people carrying labels…with permanent adhesive.

If we’re honest, like Saint Paul, we’ve all been things we’ve later abandoned. We’ve become things we’ve never been before. And we sometimes return to being things we’d given up long ago, good or bad. That doesn’t make us wishy-washy, just very, very human.

I’d like to think that I could wear the label “Christian” reliably. Unfortunately, sometimes my behavior more resembles the behavior of an atheist.

So, if you want to attach a label to my forehead, I hope you’re equipped with Post-it notes because I may need a new label in about five minutes.

There is one label I long for. If you’d stick “disciple of Jesus” on my forehead, I’d do my very best to live up to it.

Glad we could get together.