Labels

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." Perhaps no other falsehood is so often quoted by the young. Yet it tells us something about human nature: Invented as a defense against a juvenile onslaught, it verbalized the pain a "name" had caused. The truth is, physical abuse hurts the body, but words assault the soul.
We use names to categorize people. We prejudge them with one word labels (radical, liberal, fundamentalist) and file them away in our mental data banks. We are no longer threatened with friendship. We are protected from the vulnerability of a relationship.
"Him? He's strange." No need now to lend a hand. Her? She's plain." No need now to look for beauty. "Them? They're just a bunch of fanatics." No need now to understand.
By categorizing people, we build what we presume are walls of security. In reality, they make us isolated prisoners. Labels push us away from people so that we do not have to accept our differences- or even face them.
Call me "stupid" and I will make no attempt to learn. Call me "rich" and I will have nothing else to share. Call me "perfect" and I will mask my weakness. Call me "carnal," and I will cease to pray.
If we are ever going to love each other or achieve any sense of unity, we must end this distancing process. No man is one-dimensional. We must be willing to learn more about a brother than what he wears or how he looks. We must accept and encourage him where he stands. Love must come before labels. Perhaps Leo Buscaglia, popular writer and professor at University of Southern California, put it best: "There is no word vast enough to begin to describe even the simplest of man."