-ist... the most dangerous suffix

Once upon a time in a land much less judgemental than ours, people had experiences and lived their lives and probably didn't think so much about their identities because they were living.

People thought about themselves in terms of stories and "things that had happened" and not identities and "things that they were" or "groups they belonged to."

I'm not sure exactly when this started changing, but methinks sometime around the end of the Victorian era. Oscar Wilde, an amazing Irish writer in the 1800s, was accused of sodomy and sentenced to two years in prison. Notice... he was not arrested for BEING homosexual or BEING a sodomite. He was arrested for doing something.

More and more I feel like people I meet are becoming very concerned, to the point of almost being obsessed, about their identities. Who they are. Who others believe them to be. Who they project themselves as. I hear it in the news... someone makes a comment and then they are "identified" as a feminist, a sexist, a racist, a misogynist, an ageist... Sure there are other suffixes to use... we have --er: murderer, gamer, hipster, etc. Please never call me a hipster... :P

Some of these names elicit admission into some sort of private or anointed group--artists, per se. Some are incredibly offensive and damning... hypocrite, bigot, feminist (depending on whom one speaks to).

But not only am I experiencing people calling others names--people also feel the need to reject someone's identity as something. If I make a comment, even a public comment about women's rights, it might not mean I am a feminist... so if someone then rejects my identity as feminist, implying I'm not doing enough, being enough, to actually join this club, that perhaps I didn't even consider myself applying for. (feminism will probably be another post, but for the record, I would consider myself a feminist regardless of whether you consider me one).

So, I ask, what gives us the right to judge people so harshly, so frequently, and many times, so hastily?

John 8: 7-11
"'Let anyone who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,".... When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders.... 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?.... Nor do I condemn you. Go your way and from now on do not sin." 

So often, I've found myself in the seat of the accuser, and so often as I read the gospel, the accuser is the name of Satan, the accuser is the one opposed to grace, the accuser is the one Jesus is pitted against, refusing justice and mercy often over pittances.

I also can't help but notice that the elders begin leaving first--people who have lived, who are meant to be wise who can feel deep down how sinful we are and how many times we've messed up.

I've been reading many articles lately on the lack of (especially male) role models. Men seem to be in the line of fire, as statistics of single mother or 2 mother families rise, people become skeptical about these family arrangements, make very bold statements, and there almost seems to be this overwhelming silence of everyone wondering when the men are going to shape up and step up and be role models and stay with their children and wives. People think back to when divorce statistics weren't so high and think we've somehow gone wrong. We probably have gone wrong somewhere... but I also think that families have been messed up for ages and some women have wanted to have 2 mother households for a while and never felt free to, and more things were covered up and abuse was hidden or ignored.

News travels faster now than it ever did and on a much wider scale. Video and voice recording in every cell phone means that anything can be recorded and the horrible things we say and think and do when we aren't thinking "shows our ass in public." People seem to be unwilling to forgive "role models", especially men, who've made mistakes in their personal lives, but don't we learn how to live by making mistakes? I'm not trying to advocate any of these mistakes, but I just feel that if you look deep enough into anyone's history, you find things that people aren't and probably shouldn't be proud of. The question is, do those things eradicate any good we've ever done or could ever do? Some people act like the answer to that question is yes, and I would say to those people that perhaps they aren't being honest with themselves.

Society is seeing a lot of hardship right now, especially in more "alternative" families, in more independence and struggle, in the supposed "class wars." I see a lot of people who could be classed as victims of circumstance, of apathy, of abuse, of the times. But I also see victims of the past being set free. People aren't staying in abusive relationships. People are learning to be there for their children, provide for them, communicate and get the healing they need. There are a lot of people injured by relationships and striking out alone and some people think this is recent, when really, we've just been living alone in families for centuries...  when the truth is that we've just never been really good at loving each other the way we each need and want to be loved.

Plato once said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle" 

And I really think this is true--whether we deal with issues through harsh nonchalance or binge drinking, life is hard. But I think somehow we've started making it harder for each other and for ourselves in linking everything to our identity.

You see, if I like baseball and my best friend doesn't, then we just find something else to do together. But if I'm a baseballer and she isn't or she hates baseballers, then she's rejecting me. She isn't accepting me for who I am. She's against me. So how can I be her friend?

Jesus had dinner with everyone who invited him in... Pharisees, Tax Collectors, sinners, prostitutes, the demon-possessed (Mary Magdalene)... He also healed everyone who asked and many people who didn't ask... people he bumped into, people he met crossing the street, people waiting by wells... To put it frankly, if you were willing to own that you'd messed up, Jesus was ok with you. It was only when you were an adamant asshole that he got fed up with you.

How many times am I that adamant asshole? I am trying to be humbler in my opinions... I'm working on accepting others views and opinions and pondering their perspective before pouncing. I'm getting better at letting there be silence... sometimes opinions don't need to be given. I'm trying to grow whatever wisdom God's given me, and more than anything, I'm trying to find my identity in Him, and not through different groups and names and ideas that this world has invented. I don't want to be so many -ists and -ites and -ers and -ans... I just want to be His and (probably through making many mistakes) serve Him better.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Elliot