When the lighting is less than perfect, our vision is impaired, and we tend to put the "wrong labels" on people and things.

ON LABELING

by Cynthia Buhain-Baello
July 25, 2008


It is really exasperating to hear
people play "name games" and more unsettling when it is done at random and
without sufficient proof or validity.

I call it "labeling" or putting tags on people for their color, their status (marital or financial), their
educational attainment, political views,
or whatever endless reasons under the sun that motivates one to play this pompous game of labeling.

For starters, we do not have the right to play this game. It is nearly
impossible to label a package "without
knowing fully well the contents".

Even as a bottle of jam is labeled
according to all its inherent contents, such as weight in grams, nutritional value, fats and sugar contents, so on -
similarly it is appropriate that before we attempt to label somebody as "immoral" or an embezzler, we must have all the facts to support our "labeling".

Knowing the facts does not even
accord us the right to "label" unless we
are sitting in as judge/jury of a criminal case and or giving a testimony
before a legal court. The weighing factor we must consider when we "label"
is our own motive. Why did we say she is this or that? Introspection will reveal more about us than we care to admit because the "why" factor is the truth behind the labeling game.

Sometimes we play the game so quickly we are unaware of it. To label someone with insufficient facts for the
purpose of ruining his/her reputation is
slander and it is cruelty.

"The tongue has power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." (Proverbs 18:21)

Our words grow, what we say today has an impact tomorrow. We may be mindlessly labeling even our own kids and we do not realize the "labels" we put on them may stick to their hearts for a long time.

Women are more prone to labeling than men, probably because they are endowed with the gift of voluminous
verbal capacity. But to use this "gift" for unscrupulous labeling is almost a sign of immaturity and a lack of discretion.

I have been victim to this game, being a woman of "uncertain marital status". In our country, there is no divorce, but because I was "abandoned"
people thought it was synonymous to
being an "adulteress" or a "promiscuous
woman". That is the result of "labeling" without the facts -absurdity.
It is a pity because the person who labels reaps what he sows.

"...all who love it will eat its fruit." I pray that whatever comes out of my pen or my mouth will be sifted through the light of God's word, because one day, I may have to eat my "labels".