Labels and Names

We survived Sleetaggedon yesterday.  As the temperatures warmed up, all the melting ice from our roof came down like a gentle rain or the ice crashed to the ground like when a glacier calves.  I spent the morning reading and working on my journal.  Roy spent most of the day working from home.  He gets cabin fever before I do, so by the late afternoon he was ready to get out of the house for a bit and he chose to go workout.  I remained ensconced with books and a bit of dove watching.  At one time we must have had thirty doves sitting on the fence and around the bird feeder.  I took some time to look through the three editions of Boys and Girls Bookshelf  I found on Thursday.  Because I always want to learn, I practiced drawing a cat using squares and triangles that I found in the Wonder and Play edition.  These books are rather entertaining with poems, stories and knowledge, mixed with a bit of wisdom. 

Roy returned from working out, tired and cold.  Dena, Roy and I had been discussing dinner plans throughout the day but once he came home, he was ensconced and begged off of going to dinner with us.  It might have also been due to the fact that he is not a fan of Las Alamedas.  The original owners are back and the menu choices are more varied and reasonable.  They had their Sunday Brunch in the menu and it looks really good.  We had a courtly older gentleman as our waiter.  After a week of mainly texting with one another, sitting around a table and having face to face conversation was welcoming and refreshing.  Dena and I visited over delicious Mexican food and when we were finished, we decided to make a quick run through of Home Goods.  Neither one of us left Home Good disappointed.  I was just going to drop Dena off at her home but I hadn't properly welcomed Mr. B aka Bandit to Rancho De Five.  He was there on the couch waiting for Dena to get home.  He is a beautiful street wise cat who is a big softy. 

All the ice, snow and sleet videos I watched yesterday were so entertaining and full of spontaneous creativity.  The students at Sam Houston State were having an adventure filled time of sledding down hills on campus on creatively constructed "sleds."  My freshman year at Texas State formally known at Southwest Texas State, had a snow day.  A bunch of us knew of the cafeteria window that didn't lock, so we procured our "sleds" whose pedestrian daily use is better known as cafeteria trays.  We had great fun cause SWTSU is full of hills perfect for impromptu sledding.  And being good Christians, we returned our trays to the cafeteria after all our rides. 

Walking on Water, Reflections of Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle is rocking my world.  Granted, much of what she writes is so over my head and several passages have been re-read until I finally have just a hint of understanding but there are many pages full of my notes in the margins and truths underlined and noted.  One of the chapters, Names and Labels has my attention and most of the ink from my pen.  She is vehemently opposed to pigeon holing people with labels and rigid boundaries.  Who wants to be assigned to a category or class that limits growth and change and dare say, transformation.  By way of comparison, Madeleine writes about the world in general that labels and in labeling we depersonalize.  She hints of the Christian world's same tendency to label and classify.  In my opinion the Christian world of pigeon holing  is meaner and done with more clarity of thought.  As we read scriptures and search for the answers to our doubts experience tells us to keep it to ourselves.  Just look at Thomas, he did great, sacrificial things for the Gospel, yet we have labeled him 'Doubting Thomas.'  That is his labeled legacy for the ages.  Honestly, as I search the scriptures and desire God, I am less apt to share because I know I will grow past any label assigned to me by others, but there are those others who will keep me there at that place, in their words and minds, never letting me grow.  It would be fine to stay that way in their minds, but it becomes a bother when they express those thoughts and views of you to others.  I remember a conversation I had with my dad a few years ago and to make his point he reminded me what I said in the 3rd grade about this subject and there I have remained in his mind all these years, my statement as a 9 year old.  Really?  Trying to pigeon hole me as a fifty year old something into a third grade boundary is ridiculous.  The word picture that comes to mind is an older lady Roy and I saw at breakfast one Sunday morning.  Clearly, she had been to church but what she wore and the color of her hair was age inappropriate.  When she looked in the mirror she probably saw herself from her best or glory days but to others she had labeled herself trying to look 25 when she was 75.  It happens, all the time.  I am reminding myself to remember and to be thankful for those who have let me grow and be transformed in my walk with the Lord and in my thoughts and views of life because they are certainly in the majority rather than think of those who continue to try and put me in a box with complete with a label.    Lisa P and I can sing the chorus of, 'don't fence me in.'  Neither one of us like to be put in a box. 

This morning it looks like the doves have returned to Capistrano.  The bird feeder is empty and they have pooped into their bird bath.  Ah, my work as bird curator is never done.  Happy Saturday!