Sticks and Stones..............

Recently Joey wrote about labels, this got me thinking, we nearly always associate labels with negative thoughts, - skinny, fat, short, lanky but of course they can also be positive slim, hunky, petite, tall.    On being asked what labels we might apply to ourselves I resisted the temptation to use the old joke about "Call me anything you like except late for lunch", instead I extended the tag line for this blog  and suggested "The world's leading transgender Bass Trombone and Tuba playing ex prop forward Christian Gardener"   All of these are pretty positive, but still leaves out quite few rather important ones like Parent, Friend, Son etc. etc.   I am sure that we can all think of plenty of negative ones as well.   I am actually not sure that Transvestite or indeed even "Tranny" are worse labels than Cross Dresser after all they do describe what it is that I do, even if they say noting about the motivation.

I actually do think that the worst thing about labelling people is that it involves Judgement, by that I mean it involves the process of judging somebody else, their appearance, habits, or capabilities and reducing all their characteristics into a single word or phrase.   The Bible tells us that "Do not Judge, or you to will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (NIV Matt 7:1-2)   We are constantly exhorted to evaluate carefully and to choose between good and bad people and things, we should "test everything" (1 Thessolonians 5:21)   But if we simply label  somebody a fool we are hardly weighing up their full value, and we will then be weighed the same.

Certainly it hurts to be called names, especially when we know them not to be accurate, but maybe the biggest damage is done to the the person applying the label.   I will soon be sowing some seeds, but rest assured I will be labelling them!