What's your label?

One of mine is WASP.  White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.  True, my ancestors were Scotch-Irish and English, but I think there's also some Cherokee in there somewhere.  I do go to the United Methodist Church, but I joined it 30 years ago when I married my wife who happened to be a Methodist.  Before I married her, I was pretty much a Heathen.  Don't get me wrong; I take my faith very seriously, but if I had married a Catholic, I probably would have been Catholic.  When I say that I'm Methodist, a lot of the Evangelical type churches think of me as being lukewarm.  I've even heard one evangelist type label the Methodists -- as I forgot exactly what the word was, but it had a similar connotation to anti-christ.  Catholics don't think what I believe is correct either.  All this comes just because I call myself a Methodist.  Hmm.  Not many people know me that well to make a judgement about my religious condition.

I said that I wasn't going to blog much anymore unless I had something worthwhile to say.  I feel like I have something worthwhile to say especially in this political season.  I wonder whatever happened to the label "American."

Some of the other labels I get are "teacher."  Now depending on who you are, you might think bad things about teachers -- stuff like they only work nine months out of the year, they have easy jobs, they are incompetent.  I am not even going to dignify that with an answer.  Other people might think of wise, influential, knowledgeable.  Unfortunately that is a label that does not apply to every teacher. Just like dedicated and patient friendly are labels that do not apply to every doctor.  I'm a teacher, but does teaching define Steve Cross.  Not completely.

Then there are labels like overweight.  I'm overweight.  I need to lose 40 pounds at least.  I know that.  Everyone who knows me knows that.  So far in my life I have not been able to do it.  So when someone sees an overweight person, words like glutton, lazy bum, freeloader, fast food junkie go through his/her head.  Immediate judgement.  Now, am I all those things that people think of.  Yes, No -- probably somewhere in between.  However, I am not going to waste space here making excuses.

I could give you a dozen other labels people think of when they think of me.  Middle aged, odd, quiet, creative, smart, mechanically disadvantaged -- bunches of them.  Do these define me?  No, not really.

People don't seem to realize that a label cannot capture a person.  Nor do they take the time to peel away the labels and actually get to know others.  I am not a combination of labels.  I am Steven Cross, and I cannot be easily categorized.  Neither can you.  A label is just a lazy attempt to quantify a person.

This leads me to my final point.  I have heard so many labels in this political season.  Moderate, liberal, conservative, left-wing, right-wing -- almost all of these labels are used to attack other people.  I wish people would just shut the eff up.  If you don't want to vote for Romney, don't.  If you don't want to vote for Obama, don't.  Just save your labeling for someone else.

And while you're at it, remember this.  "We are all Americans."  Red, yellow, black, white, hispanic, oriental, middle eastern, Native American -- Try to label America.  I dare you to.