“Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people.”
– Martina Navratilova, American Tennis Legend, b. 1956
OK, so maybe I shouldn’t label someone a “legend” in a post about what a problem labels are. But, then, hey, it’s my blog…
On Uncle Doyle’s farm — the one on which my father grew up — there was a particular field that we called “The 10 Acres.” It was, not ironically, ten acres in size. It was not a “ranch,” or a “spread,” or a “parcel,” it was The 10 Acres.
To this day, I can look at a piece of land and tell you if it’s about ten acres or not.
At First United Methodist Church in Fairfield, IA the pastor was a guy named Wayne Bartruff. He was a world-class leader of young men. We didn’t know him as “parson” or “pastor Bartruff.” He was, simply, Wayne.
In Nebraska, there’s a legend of broadcasting, one of my mentors, named Dick Chapin, wasn’t comfortable being called anything other than “Chape,” “Chapin,” or “Dick.”
Is your calling to heal people, or to “be a doctor?” Is it to lead by example, or “be a manager?” Is your calling to (as the Penzey’s spice people here in Milwaukee say) love people and cook them tasty food, or to be “a chef.”
The surgeon that performed the first, successful pancreatic cancer procedure on Dad, bristled a bit when I labeled him a “genius.” He said, “Another doctor has found cancer inside your father. I have removed it. In that regard, I am like the auto mechanic.”
Labels don’t serve us (or anyone else, for that matter), and more often than not, they get in the way of discerning our true calling.
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