Years ago I had a life-changing experience in a nursing home. \u00a0I was visiting an aging parishioner and, as is so often the case, she was sharing her room with another resident. \u00a0Both ladies were out having tests run, so I was left on my own to wait.<\/p>\n
While I did, I noticed that my parishioner\u2019s roommate had a photo on the dresser. \u00a0Given the vintage of the picture, it was clearly a picture of my friend\u2019s roommate, but \u00a0what was captivating was the subject matter. \u00a0Taken when she was a young woman, it included her twin sister.<\/p>\n
Both women were clad in leotards and hung by their legs, side by side on a flying trapeze.<\/p>\n
That image has stuck with me for over thirty years. \u00a0It taught me to never make categorical assumptions about people, never assign behaviors or perspectives to them, and don\u2019t ever fail to honor the individual pilgrimages they have made through life. \u00a0Not everyone with white hair is a grandmother or grandfather. \u00a0No one who is can be reduced to that role. \u00a0Each is a real person with hopes and dreams \u2014 some of which were realized, some of which were not.<\/p>\n
The same could be said of endless numbers of other groups. \u00a0Labels simplify life, but they are as dangerous as they are convenient. \u00a0Texans, Bostonians, gays straight, conservative, liberal\u2026.these and many other labels may lend simplicity to the world, but none of them capture the totality of the life that each bears and none of the labels possess definitive, predictable content.<\/p>\n
I have conservative and liberal friends, old and young friends, friends who have a considerable amount of education and those whose education was shaped by experience \u2014- the differences and complexities are endless. \u00a0More to the point, each of their pilgrimages are singular, undermining the value of the labels.<\/p>\n
Yet, far too often we prefer the self-righteous and smug value of labels to the richness of the conversation about our respective journeys.<\/p>\n
Why does it matter spiritually to resist that kind of labeling?<\/p>\n
One, it is a flight from love. \u00a0Too much of the labeling that we do is rooted in a desire to establish what we do or don\u2019t like about someone and then dismiss them.<\/p>\n
Two, it feeds arrogance. \u00a0To label someone else is to say, \u201cI am the arbiter of good and evil, right and wrong, sophisticated and clueless.\u00a0 I stand in the right place, you stand in the wrong one.\u201d\u00a0 We can and should engage in critical dialog about what we think, but labeling has nothing to do with being critical.\u00a0 Labeling should alert us to the sin of self-righteousness \u2014 and sloth \u2014 because labeling people is not simply a function of arrogance, it is the child of laziness.<\/p>\n
Three, labeling closes you off to what God can teach you through others, foreclosing on the stories of spiritual pilgrimage that can enrich our own.\u00a0 Labeling has a way of narrowing the permitted story lines in life, refusing to be surprised, educated, or broadened.<\/p>\n
Where is this in Scripture?\u00a0 In the Book of Jonah, in the calling of Jeremiah to be a prophet to the nations, in the teaching of Jesus, in the churches of Paul as they spread out across what was an alien world to the fledgling faith.\u00a0 It always has been the invitation of a church that preached the gospel to whosoever will and who found a place for people \u2013 even those who persecuted her.<\/p>\n
When I listen to boomers talk about inclusion and diversity as if we are the generational originators and guarantors of something new, I am always a bit bemused.\u00a0 The church has always been inclusive and diverse.\u00a0 Oh, there have been those who were forced to the margins and refused entrance, but that has always been at odds with the Gospel and those who closed the doors on others were never as like-minded as they supposed.<\/p>\n
And then there are those who freely wield the language of diversity, who, in truth, are prepared to embrace only a few, preferring the love of categories to the embrace of real people.<\/p>\n
The fact of the matter is that Scripture has always preferred the language of reconciliation to the language of inclusion \u2014 and for good reasons:<\/p>\n
Our end lies not in the special character of our journeys, but in God<\/p>\n
God does not just invite us, God invites us with conditions.<\/p>\n
God does not simply include us, God includes us with an eye to changing us.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Years ago I had a life-changing experience in a nursing home. \u00a0I was visiting an aging parishioner and, as is so often the case, she was sharing her room with another resident. \u00a0Both ladies were out having tests run, so I was left on my own to wait. While I did, I noticed that my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-perspectives"],"yoast_head":"\n