Word #9 - Label

I've been a bit MIA due to some classwork and a conference (stay tuned for a post on that one!), but am still intending to do my 40 words.  Label is one of the words I carried around in my pocket for the past week in reflecting on what to write.  I stumbled upon this poem by Emily Dickinson and in an abstract way reminds me of that word: label.

This World Is Not Conclusion

by Emily Dickinson

this world is not conclusion

a species stands beyond -

invisible, as music -

but positive as sound -

it beckons, and it baffles

philosophy - don't know -

and through a riddle, at the last -

sagacity must go -

to guess it, puzzles scholars -

to gain it, men have borne

contempt of generations

and crucifixion, shown -

faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -

blushes, if any see -

plucks at a twig of evidence -

and asks a vane, the way -

much gesture, from the pulpit -

strong hallelujahs roll -

narcotics cannot still the tooth

that nibbles at the soul -

"This World Is Not Conclusion" by Emily Dickinson. Public domain.

We live in a society that wants to label everything: good/bad, fresh/old, big/small, rich/poor, smart/dumb, etc.  I encounter labels on a regular basis.  I spend more minutes than I want to admit reading labels on the products I buy at the grocery store.  I spy labels in the signs around town; "go here" or "don't go here". 

Labeling can be good, it can protect us- "POISONOUS".  But I think labeling has taken on a negative connotation within our society.  We've moved beyond labeling objects to labeling ourselves, our communities, our neighbors. Dickinson names some labels at work in the world in this poem; it seems we want to label the world as a conclusion.  

By putting a label on something, in a sense, we're done with it.  

Or, we think we are.  

I've had a few things I thought I had compartmentalized with a label...

and then...

Bam. 

That label doesn't seem to fit. 

(example: contemporary Christian Music; every time I think I've been "done" with it, I get surprised by how much I really like another song. This has been happening since 1998..you think I would learn.)

I could muse on for this, but instead, I'm going to challenge myself to maybe not be so quick to label the world around me.  

By doing so, I'm limiting myself. 

And The World is Not Conclusion.

Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

Colossians 3:9-11 … The Message …