To Label or to NOT Label? Do I get to choose?

 

First, some context to this post:

I have some questions that have lived with me all my life, and the way I have lived my life has brought me closer and closer to understanding the nuances of the answers that are true for me…and also understanding the importance of remaining in the question as long as I need to. But I think that is a different blog post…that “living in the question” piece.

 

For now I want to stay in this exploration of how the answers show up through process. And what becomes more possible when I share my process, not just my answers.

So in this whole question about the labels we use, and the labels we resist, and the labels that can help us feel connected and a sense of belonging and those that can separate us and have us throwing bombs at one another – what is going on with all this?

 

How does one label have two such opposite outcomes?

Why does a label – especially a “religious” label that purports to be in the name of peace, love and unification as pretty much all the major world religions do…why do those labels end up with people killing one another?

 

This has been a driving question in my life. At the basic  screaming, WTF level.

 

So this morning when a process unfolded that had me understanding labels in a new way, I decided to share the full process, not try to edit it down to a simple conclusion. I wanted to let you see, anyone who might have the same question, how the process works for me.

Even though I have been repeatedly told to get to the point, people don’t have the patience to read things, “they” won’t take the time…I’m going to go ahead and write to those who will. Thanks for being here with me.

I think that it’s more useful to share my own process of coming to conclusions that help me be a better, more clear mother and grandmother, able to share what I have learned in a way that I hope will work better than other things I have tried in the past.

 

Recent history: 

Yesterday I had a talk with Cindy, 8 year old Presley’s mom, about the fact that Presley was feeling bad about being pushed by kids at school to state whether or not she is a Christian. Does her not being willing to accept their label mean it is not true for her, in her own way?

I tried to offer some support…and I have no idea whether or not what I said was particularly useful. I think the most useful thing for Cindy was just me being in it with her.

 

Then today, I got a text from a teammate in my WordTrails world, Dara, forwarding the text you see here. Last week, Dara had let me know that she has a friend who is suffering mightily.  A woman she deeply respects and admires, who is a devout member of the LDS church, which has been torn asunder by the Charlie Kirk shooting and the horrific aftermath.

I live in a town that is largely Mormon, the venacular for LDS, and although I am not of that faith for my own reasons, I love living in a community that has been built on such strong and true family and community values. These people are loving, inclusive, and caring and I am reaping the rewards of living in a community with a solid foundation of these values. Perfect? No. But a solid foundation of real community.

 

When the Charlie Kirk shooting happened, our WordTrails team had a conversation at our weekly Campfire – a Zoom gathering – about our desire to find a way to put WordTrails into the hands of someone in the LDS community who might help it find a way in to supporting and opening whatever conversations need to happen.

The question remained open as we left the campfire – and then a few days later, Dara told me about her friend, and asked me to send her a game.

I sent it.

The picture here is her reply.

 

And, magically, her reply somehow gave me the opening I needed to be able to say to Cindy what I would like Presely to know, about how I approach the question she is wrestling with. That it has been my question too, and here’s what I have come to at this point in my life.

 

So – with no further ado, here is what this whole process made me able to say to my granddaughter. Which I didn’t even know I was thinking, until this process brought it out of me.

 

Letter To Cindy, for my granddaughter Presley 

 

I wanted to share all this with you as a way to speak of how I feel about the label of “Christian”

Perhaps you can share this with Presley if it feels appropriate. 

I sent a game to an LDS woman who is deep in all the anguish of the Charlie Kirk shooting and the fallout to the LDS people. I told her although I am not LDS I absolutely stand with her in her despair. I am here with her and for her.

 

Not because I am – or am not – a “Christian”

Simply because I am a human with a huge, loving heart which has been broken…and broken open…by the things humans do to one another…in the name of religion.

Because of labels 

So…it’s not that I am not Christian. 

 

I am a disciple of whoever stands in and exemplifies forgiveness, love, compassion, curiosity, courage. The excitement of discovery, the beauty of being willing and able to be wrong and lean into learning a better way….

Here is what I have come to understand, about labels.

If a label can help me feel safer to open up and wonder…if it gives me a place to stand in the world where I can catch my breath and look around, see what’s here, rest as needed, gather some strength and courage before I’m ready to move on,

That to me is a good use of labels. It’s an OKness that is very, very important and necessary.

 

I just don’t want to get trapped by the label. I don’t want people thinking they no longer need to wonder about me, because they have me figured out. 

 

The labels I use are MINE to use as they work for me, and mine to let go of when they no longer do.

 

As are yours. This is true for everyone.

Use the labels as they work.

 

Remember to let them go when their usefulness has waned.

Presley, as next in line of a powerful lineage of women, you can look at your mother for a really really powerful model of a person who is living that.

And your mother and I as two women who are doing that together. Helping one another so we can learn, and pass on something important to you.

 

❤️❤️❤️

 

 

 

The process this morning has helped me see this:

 

My life has been a path of trying to find what works a little better.

I am quite sure that is where WordTrails came from, or what it came in as – an answer to my very big question. My biggest heartbreak.

What I am doing, what we are doing, is not working. Show me, bring me, bring me to, something better.

And, WordTrails showed up. Needing a lot of assembly…four year’s worth, in fact – but that too was part of the process. Now it is here, and saying,

Here’s a way, Scout. Here’s a way to be able to watch and be a part of your own process, while in exchange with others. Hope it helps! Have fun!