Strange how, as we have desperately tried to tear down stereotypes and prejudices over the past decades, it has resulted in the reverse - increased labelling and boxing up of our identity cues. 

Our newly normalized signature lines professing preferred him/her/they only serve to categorize more precisely. The cult of individualism is messing up the work of removing prejudices. What happened to our fight to be known as just ‘human’ - all made equal and in the image of God? That 'Big Me' vibe says it's all about my rights and makes itself more important than our work towards blending with The Other.

We are pushed into boxes- Click Here to Choose your Identity kits AVAILABLE NOW. 

Identity, instead of being a definable space with definable value, is far more malleable. We change - that is the beauty of life. I am a mother, a grandmother, a woman, a Jesus follower - that is complex - my identity is complex and mixed up. I'm an ant when I'm seated in an arena at a football game, yet I can claim Queen Bee status on my wedding day. Identity and agency change. There are multiple iterations of me. Ignoring this makes us wooden, unreal, disconnected and brittle. We become unable to swing and change. But the Big Me in reality finds it hard to give away agency and allow another to shine or even offer up a seat on the bus. It's my right, and I paid for it! We are so hungry for significance - we steal it from others. 

Rights are a totally complicated beast. Always have been and always will. 

For example, I can both feel compassion for the woman who is forced to search for an abortion clinic outside her state (her body/her right) as well as be present and comfort those arguing that we should side with the preservation of life inside the womb (the rights of the unborn). 

I can watch the gaudy pride parade for the 3-min news segment and have complex feelings. Do the drag queens represent the gay community I know and love here in my city? Not really. Is the parade an important tool for the movement? Yes. My prediction is that its cache is running out. Needs a refresh.

Refuse the Mental ghetto.

Don't listen only to those voices in your lane. Swerve. Plow into oncoming ideas. Say no to the increasingly dangerous and divided world. If we take sides and deny the tension, it is not helpful; we are being carried back to dualism.  

Stay connected. Stay thoughtful and informed. Reconnect with your senses. Your soul. Your God. 

But now, for the time being, you are merely wandering with your five senses, which, without your usual self-absorptions, are uncannily alive…..I reenter the woods and rivers with a moment-by-moment sense of the glories of creation, of the natural world as a living fabric of existence, so that I'm both young again, but also seventy thousand years old.

                                                                                           Jim Harrison, poet

Think for yourself - use your senses.