A friend of mine posted this on another site. I thought it is worth passing on and she said fine.


We humans like to put labels on everything. We put them on dogs,
places, businesses, people; we pin them everywhere and on
everything. We say this person is a Pagan, this person is a
Christian, this person is Islamic, Buddhist, they are black, white,
red, and brown. Then after we have them labeled, we judge them. We
decide good or bad, right or wrong. After all that is done we sit
back satisfied in a job will done and knowing that we are right and
all is in order in our world, but is it. Surely there is something
missing. Let us look at what we have, a label, and a judgment.
Maybe there is something else.
While at festival I saw a man dance around the fire. He danced like
nothing I had seen before. One moment he looked like a bird, the
next a flame, on and on changing shape and form. He danced like
Shiva dancing the end of the world. I wondered how can he do this,
doesn't he get tired; he must be out of breath, but he continued to
dance. Others got up and danced with him but they would tire and
stop. People began to talk about him. First they labeled him funky
monkey man, and then they judged him, "strange." No one went up and
ask the man why do you dance. I wish I had, but being human I did
not want to look foolish, for then I would have learned why Shiva
dances.
We can be very quick with our labels and judgments. We can say this
person is not doing what they should. People often told my husband
that he was not doing as he should. They put a label on him and they
judged him, he doesn't tow the line, but they never asked, they
didn't know how short his life going to be. A woman wanting a
pentacle on her husband grave, WE label her disobedient, WE say it
will make us look foolish. Until you have lost your spouse you can
not imagine her torment and pain that six years of being told he was
not the right religion brings. You judge another person as a party
Pagan. He doesn't toe the line, he is not as he should be, and YOU
label him and judge him. YOU say the Goddess doesn't approve of him,
YOU judge him. YOU don't like him, because he don't do as YOU think
he should. So YOU reject him. The Goddess does not reject him. She
knows the Path he is on. He will learn what he needs to know in this
life or the next, when he is ready. He may even already know what he
is supposed to know. The Goddess does not teach her lessons from
books she teaches them from life. Maybe between label and judgment
we need to add understanding, compassion and love, and then maybe we
will learn why Shiva dances.
silvermoon

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orderofsonnwend/message/1150
You can go there but you have to join to get on.

Thank you for positing that, Darkwind; very enlightening.

That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing this with us. And many blessings abide Silvermoon and the muse that inspired her to pen the truth.

yes... labels not only cast restriction on the labelled, but upon us. we are labeled from day one, and the limiting effects of it are often never broken. so easy is it to apply a label, so hard is it to have it removed. even after the label is gone, the stigma lingers.

alas... it is part of human anatomy to do such things. we are built to process automagically. this was great in the simplistic times of tribe vs tribe. however, as with so many things that linger from the more primative parts of our brains, it causes great difficulty for us now.

we need to learn to harness the primative mind but also control its 'urges'. we have survived because if it, but we could also perish because of it.

Very beautiful and thought provoking post.

Stereotypes and pre-conceptions always follow us where ever we go. a homeless person asking for money is automatically a drug addict. An Asian man in a suit is automatically a good businessman (or a CrimeLord). A Muslim is automatically a terrorist. Obviously these are false beliefs, yet they follow our thinking.

It is my observation that most people are able to look past these first impressions and make decisions regarding people on the basis of who they are and not on what race, creed, religion, sports team they follow. Yet in all things, the human mind needs a frame of reference, and an unfortunate by-product of that frame of reference is that there will always be some sort of labelling, even as simple a one as "friend", "acquaintance", "family", and any person or character falling outside that frame of reference is classified as odd (the dancing man from the OP for example).

Very Inspirational we need more stories like that I myself donot do Labels, I tell people that when they ask what religion I say I don't do lablels I just Love God and love all others self included, I don't even do right and wrong Its either what will work or what will not work.

I will pass on your compliment.
When they ask me I tell them and answer any questions they ask. Then I ask them about theirs ask questions and say you must get great joy from it as I do mine. There are so many misconseptions about my religion I like to clear them up when I can.

What bothers me most about labels is they seldom are accurate about the contents of the package.

If I wear the "christian" label. People then accuse me of being a "gay basher" a "jew hater" a "simpleton who believes mythical creatures exist".

Jesus also used labels ... but they were simple ones ... there are two kinds of people.

sheep - goats
wheat - tares

IMHO this did not mean christians- nonchristians

IMHO this meant good Hindus , atheists, jews, christians, et al who love others and

not good Hindus , atheists, jews, christians, et al who do NOT love others.

ADDENDUM to my last message.


But Jesus also said we are not to judge others. So we should not even put either of those two labels on any individual.

Yes, 'judge not lest ye be judged'. Some people claiming to follow/believe in Jesus totally disregard this...

What really gets me however, with one of the above 'labels' being that if someone is Christian they are a 'Jew-hater' is that Jesus Himself WAS Jewish. I'M part Jewish and I believe in Jesus. This is something which comes from both sides of the coin however, and there does seem to be some 'Christian' people who really do hate Jewish poeple.....Maybe thy should do a little hostorical research on WHO Jesus was.....

Everyone's different, no matter what they believe, and labels don't seem to do anyone justice.

I am sure I could trace my own family history back to Noah ..... considering everyone alive today has to be one of Noahs descendants . hehehe

And maybe the Jews should do some research on who Jesus was as well. They would find that all of Jesus teaching are quite Jewish.

Yes, I'd say everyone came from Noah and his descendants. Most people don't realize this but all races came from him. Enoch (Noah's great-grandfather) was Ethiopian, and other parts of Noah's ancestry were Hebrew, etc. His sons wives were no doubt from diverse backgrounds. So, aside from micro evolution (the result of changes within humans/races, species, etc from either climate/environmental conditions, and/or with the change of animals especially inter-species breeding, which is, according to Enoch/Dead Sea Scrolls where dinosaurs came from) wich I DO accept, because there are obvious results of that eveywhere, all races really ARE one. Even science has said that everyone came from the same 'mother gene'.

That is very eye opening Darkwind. Labeling can be a very bad thing but it can never be avoided lest you won't comprehend anything if you don't label or call it something. Even something like Nameless is a label.



This is a bit OT but if Noah only had a few other humans with him, then brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts and cousins would have to procreate leading to birth defects and health conditions. In strict amish societies many people that marry are related [Such as half or 2nd cousins], and just that alone has caused many unusually and remarkable birth defects. I can't imagine what would happen if it was a brother and sister.

Well, no not really. Noah had 3 sons, and the wives were from diverse and unrelated backgrounds. Their children being 1st cousins may have a risk of defects, but it's not always the case.

There's also the fact that several Egyptians survived the flood (in the Pyaramids, and there's an external Arab Text which states that). If I do recall, one of the first places they went to after this flood, was Egypt. There's also the off chance that people world over did survive in one way or another. Some Nephilim even survived it.

I don't really think incest was involved. If they went back to Egypt and married the bloodlines wouldn't have mixed at all.

Darkwind, please give my compliments to your friend You said your religion is misunderstood... what religion are you?

yeah i dont think well every reach a utopian type society, seems like theres a oppiste to everything. evil gets replaced by evil,good replaced by good.
yeah lables suck, but we need em. i do agree with the storie though if we could just accept and respect each others indavituallity we'd all be better neighbors, if we knew we wouldent be judged by others then we have more time to be ourselves.....not quit utopian but much better off me thinks