This week I watched a very interesting programme by David Attenborough. The truth is that I find all of his programmes interesting. He always seems to come up with new things and very interesting details about creation. I like his style and way of presenting so when the new programme was televised, of course I had to watch. It was about birds but not the usual garden kind or even exotic types like birds of paradise. They were birds that don't fly. The point was made that when we think of birds we think of creatures that fly, sing and have feathers. But there is a group of birds that don't fly, can't sing and their 'feathers' are more like fluff and certainly not suitable for flying as the different strands don't have hooks to make them click together in an aerodynamic way. In fact some of these birds barely have wings at all.
Scientists still put them in the category of birds because of their DNA and evolutionary history. Apparently they became land based after the dinosaurs died out and they were no longer predated and so didn't need to fly away to safety. It was then that they were able to stay on land and grow really big, unlike the birds that they had evolved from. There are five birds in this group: the ostrich (Africa), rhea (South America), emu and cassowary (Australia) and the kiwi (New Zealand). The point that got to me was that although this group of birds were not at all like the usual sort of bird, they were still categorised as birds. Scientists accepted that even though they were nothing like their distant cousins, they were still birds.
We humans tend to categorise other people all the time, whether it be by religion, politics, gender, profession, nationality, likes and dislikes, disability and health ... ... and so on. We have cartoon images in our minds of a beret-wearing, onion-selling Frenchman, a loud American tourist, a pasta-eating Italian, a yodeling Swiss goatherd, a beer-swilling, wurst-eating German ... etc. Of course we know that not every Frenchman wears a beret and not all of the Swiss yodel. Just as we don't expect other nationalities to think that all British men wear bowler hats. But there is a tendency that until we get to know someone then we have a certain image in our minds depending on the category we have placed them in. I remember many years ago someone who didn't want to tell her Christian friend that she was getting a divorce because she thought that she would disapprove and probably give her a lecture about 'til death us do part'. Actually the friend would not have reacted in that way, just the opposite but how often we prejudge what people are like because they have been given a label and put into a category.
An ostrich can't fly, a cassowary can't sing and the 'feathers' and wings of the kiwi are almost non-existent. Yet they are birds. Not all Germans drink beer but they are still Germans. People express their love for and relationship with God in different and varied ways. Just because someone doesn't fit exactly into our thinking of what a Christian is or should do doesn't mean that they are not Christians. Doing things differently doesn't mean it's wrong. It's just different. It's a shame that we can easily accept such diversity in the natural world yet find it difficult to do the same with God's human part of creation. Like the flightless birds, people grow, evolve and change. God is BIG and all-encompassing and all of his creation is varied and that's the wonder of it.
I have become quite an avid label reader. At first, when food shopping, it was about the total calories an item contained. Then for those of us who need to take care of our cholesterol level it's more about the amount of saturated fat that a product contains. The latest in the line of 'baddies' that we need to look out for is sugar, especially it seems in low fat products. It's amazing just how much sugar and salt are added to just about everything, even to what you think are savoury products. There is currently a series on TV about such matters. Last week it looked at sugar in food, this week about the total calories. Next week they will be taking an in-depth look at fats. Oh dear, it seems we cannot win. Years ago we didn't seem to have all these problems but of course years ago, we knew exactly what was in our food as we mostly cooked it from fresh ingredients. All this labeling is useful if you're trying to maintain a decent quality of healthy food in your diet, especially as so much of what we consume is now already processed for our convenience - although I still prefer to prepare meals from fresh so I know exactly what's in them.
It's not just in food though that we see people checking labels. Some people prefer clothing with certain brand name labels rather than others. When I look at clothing labels it's not so much for the name of the maker but rather how to take care of it and wash/iron it. When I buy items of crockery, pots and pans etc. then I look to see if I can use them in the microwave, oven or dishwasher. That's because I really don't want to break something or spoil it by putting it in the microwave or oven if it's not made to withstand the high heat. As regards the dishwasher and washing machine, it does seem a bit pointless buying something that I need to wash by hand when the whole point of having a machine is to save me from that very activity. When it comes to clothing if it says 'do not iron', that's an added bonus. So again, labels are very useful and in some cases quite necessary in order to know exactly what we are purchasing and if it meets our requirements.
Labels tell us a lot about where something was made, what's it's made from and what are its uses. The problem is that we tend to label things that can't really be labelled. Sticking a label on doesn't necessarily tell us everything we want or need to know. When we define people with a label, we might get some idea of what they believe (Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu etc) or where they come from (Britain, Asia, Africa etc) or their sexuality (gay, straight, trans or bisexual) but such labels don't really tell us about the person behind the label. We can't know from a label if there is any unseen or invisible disability. We don't know what financial or emotional struggles someone is experiencing just by seeing that they happen to be 'white European' for example (or any other combination of labels). People can so often put on a brave face, keep smiling when they are actually going to pieces deep inside. How many people get conned out of money by someone who 'looked' trustworthy and dressed smartly? Labeling someone by their outward appearance is not really knowing that person. You can have a fair idea of goods you buy by their labels but you can't use the same method of getting to know a person simply by putting them in a certain box or category. Sadly we do this too much. Just as you can't judge a book by its cover, so you can't know a person by a label that some people want to stick on them. Labels judge people, friendship gets to know them.
Lord, help me not to pigeon-hole people just by their religion, ethnicity, sexuaity or outward appearance but help me to love and treat them all as You do by looking deeper and trying to get to know them better.
Scientists still put them in the category of birds because of their DNA and evolutionary history. Apparently they became land based after the dinosaurs died out and they were no longer predated and so didn't need to fly away to safety. It was then that they were able to stay on land and grow really big, unlike the birds that they had evolved from. There are five birds in this group: the ostrich (Africa), rhea (South America), emu and cassowary (Australia) and the kiwi (New Zealand). The point that got to me was that although this group of birds were not at all like the usual sort of bird, they were still categorised as birds. Scientists accepted that even though they were nothing like their distant cousins, they were still birds. 