You (fill in the blank) child of God...

When my sister Gayle and I would get mad at each other, we would call each other names. After a time of yelling classic epithets like, "You doo-doo head", we would retire from the field of battle in the war of words, each convinced victory was ours. No muss, a great deal of fuss and the satisfaction of righteousness were the spoils of those long ago wars. I still play those word wars as an adult even though I should know better by now. I find it easier to label people, categorize them, put them in neat containers and dismiss them. Here are some of the names I use now... liberal, fundamentalist, moderate, mountain native, outlander, Floridiot, new ager, knot head (oops... left over word from my childhood battles), city boy or girl, Democrat, Republican, INFP or ESTJ, a four (Enneagram numerology), Christian, pagan. And I have been labeled myself... drawling southerner, conservative, unchristian, naive, farm girl, snappy dresser, liberal, lazy, ADD. All of these are true and untrue at the same time. That is the problem for me with labels and naming.
In the picture framing class I teach at our local community college, there will often be a mix of newcomers to our area, natives and those of us who have lived here for some time. I get to watch as people choose to transcend the word definitions of who they are as they connect heart to heart. In my morning class this rotation, three people have become very good friends even though their labels would make this seem unlikely. One woman, a stylish, educated career African American woman who has just moved here from California... another woman, a mountain native, difficult personal life, business owner, well dressed and high school graduate... her cousin and best friend, a man (bet you thought it was going to be a woman), mountain native, shy and careful in his interpersonal relationships... have just taught me once again to appreciate the power of friendship. Yesterday they were laughing about visiting each others’ homes... telling stories of their time together, joking, hugging, admiring each others’ work, making suggestions about mat colors, checking their math figures. As they walked out to the parking lot together lugging their load of pictures and mat board, the sound of laughter trailed in their wake.
Their friendship, like the relationship between David and Jonathon in the Old Testament, reminds me that God often works in the relationships of opposites. David, a shepherd boy, and Jonathon, the son of a king, would appear to have little in common but the story of their friendship has survived the passage of time. Ruth, the daughter-in-law, from a different country and younger, begged her mother-in-law, Naomi, to let her stay with her after the death of her husband. Her words, "Entreat me not to leave thee", have been sung and spoken at weddings for generations. Paul and Barnabas, Jesus, Mary and Martha, Aurelia and me, Mickey and Johnny... all were friendships that transcended the barriers of names and culture and religion.
I find a sense of God’s presence in the friendships of the unlikely in my life and I am blessed with a wealth of them. So today I give thanks for all my friends and their labels that both define and separate them from me. I give thanks for the power of friendship that makes these labels transparent, lets us see into each others hearts and for the steadfast love that flows between us as we live our lives, separately and together, children of a God whose name for us is "Beloved".