Hello My Name Is

   At a recent concert, I heard one of the speakers sharing how a boy had told her in high school that she should never be as pretty as her sisters. She shared with great conviction, though she appeared to shrug off the words they stayed with her and became part of her identify. She said it was as if someone had handed her a Hello My Name Is label and written Ugly on it. And that she had taken that label and used it to identify herself.

   I think is something that most of us can identify with. We are handed labels that others fill in for us, and we cover ourselves with those labels. For this young woman ugly led to worthless. But, she wasn’t ugly and certainly wasn’t worthless. Take a look at your labels, Hello My Name Is. What is written there? What should be written there?
   Hello, My Name is daughter, friend, worker, creator, thinker, writer, sister, planner, dreamer, seeker. I can’t say that I have never had these labels attached to me. I have! I have had them handed to me by both those who are being malicious and those who are meaning to be kind. And I have accepted them, only to find them stuck to me. I felt like a walking sticky label. Not capable, weak, afraid, timid, intimidating, intimidated. The labels clung to me. But, slowly, they have been removed through the realization that they are wrong, Wrong with a capital W! I urge you to examine your labels. What is your name?

Nonsensical Trio

Okay – I warn you upfront, today is just a nonsensical bit of writing. It’s just the way I look at the world.

There are lots of animals that live in the back yard. The live in the front yard too, but the dogs seem to think that they are really only allowed to live in the back yard and bark at them until they resume living in their appropriate space. A rabbit lives in the yard with a little white furry stripe on his rump. I love that it makes him, Peter Rabbit, so easily identifiable. When he was just a tiny thing, he liked to come close and listen to people talk. I’m not kidding, he would sit just a few feet away and if you kept talking and didn’t move to suddenly, he would be quite happy to just hop right around you. Perhaps he was trying to English through immersion. Yesterday morning, Peter Rabbit, now much older and quite grown up, was in the front yard. The dogs of course were announcing that the “attack bunny” was out of his space and should be chased back to the back yard. I went out and tried to shoo him away rather than just opening the door and let the dogs go into their flight of fancy. “The big woofy woofy dogs are coming out; you need to move along someplace safer.” I swear that rabbit pfft’d at me and then hopped quite preciously back into the back yard.
Three crows have also taken up residence in the last few days. I like their substantial size and the way that they seem to just soak in the light around them and be velvety in the shade and shiny in the sun. There was just one, and being in the yard for a short time leads to an animal having a name. They must have names. So, I was thinking Whitman. But, then two other crows showed up and I am at a complete loss as to what to call them.
Deer like to gather in in the evening, eating corn and seed. Mainly though, the dark faced doe who stands and eats corn, with little corn bits stuck to her nose. She is beautiful, sleek and shiny and looks so healthy. She watches in the window from her dinner buffet place. I wonder if she wonders about us, if she is observing us as we observe her.
They are beautiful to watch, taking on characteristics of their own. Personality abounds in these furry creatures who live here.

Tossing the Business Cards

What is your title? If you could get a business card, or perhaps pull out your existing business card – what is your title? Let me see, if I pulled out a card to meet my roles they could say, daughter, friend, sister, worker, auntie, cousin, worshiper, dreamer...

The Pharisees liked titles; they liked the official names which they could use to imply power. Jesus challenged them to throw away the business cards, and think about who titles really belong to.


“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father, ‘for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbled himself will be exhausted.” (Matthew 23:8-12).


What an equalizing business card that is. Brother and servant are the new titles bestowed. Brother, a sibling, a care giving one who knows you and cares about you. Servant, one who is putting aside their demands at that moment to serve you, to care for you. Imagine for a moment what your world, your piece of the world, would look like if that was in motion. A brother to the woman in the assisted living facility who is people watching from her window, a brother waves. A servant who realizes that someone else has mud on their feet and stoops down to wash them, removing the dirt and grime, and drying them. Perhaps it is by doing the dishes or shoveling a walk, opening a door, or offering to help when you don’t have to. They are all acts of servant attitudes. Pull out your business cards, write on them – brother and servant.