Here’s a reflective prayer from my 2005 book Touching Down: Prayers for Daily Life. It reminds us, simply, that the labels we use can never tell the whole story, whether we apply them to items or to people. Too often, they obscure as much as illuminate.
The label
I assumed it would be good,
the best of its kind,
for it was a familiar label,
synonymous, to my mind, with quality.
But I was wrong,
for the product was poor,
the workmanship shoddy –
not a patch on models half the price
though less well known.
Teach me, Lord, to look behind the labels,
especially when it comes to people,
recognising that the terms so often used –
East, West,
black, white,
Christian, Muslim,
liberal, extremist –
can only tell part of the story,
never the whole.
Help me, in all my dealings with others,
to see the person first
and the label second.
Amen.