You probably don't know it, but you're being bought and sold every day. If you watch TV or browse the Internet, you're being packaged, priced, and sold to the highest bidder. We call it "advertising."

Now, most Boundless readers are part of a prized demographic: "18-to-35 females" or "18-to-35 males." Anybody who can deliver us to advertisers will be laughing all the way to the bank.

So if network execs fail to capture our attention, it's not for lack of trying. Think about "reality" shows like Big Brother that elevate deception to an art form. Movies full of explosions, expletives and erotica. Stories that exploit our desire for romance — at the expense of acknowledging real-life struggles in relationships. It ain't art and it ain't godly, but that's what people watch, so it pollutes the airwaves all the same.

Now, maybe you don't like it. But ultimately, that doesn't matter — just so long as five million others in your demographic do. Advertising has reduced us to simple labels: I'm a "25-35 male," so I like the NFL and beer ads with supermodels. You're an "18-25 female," so you watch Sex and the City reruns with commercials for Glade Plug-Ins.

Unfortunately, there are unintended consequences to those labels (and the crass commercialism behind them). But soul damage is far harder to measure than sales metrics, so why bother? OK, maybe my compassion slid downhill because I saw too many gory pictures and grieving families on the 11 o'clock news. Yeah, David's relationship with his wife will suffer because he ran across the swimsuit competition for Miss Universe while he was home alone. Sure, Sarah gained another excuse for trusting no one after she watched the orgy of backstabbing on Big Brother.

But we'll just call those unintended consequences "collateral damage." I'm not sure it keeps the advertisers awake at night. After all ... I still watched, didn't I?

Advertising in Real Life

Now, don't let your righteous indignation lead you to boycott NBC yet. Maybe we should direct the spotlight a little closer to home, because advertisers aren't the only ones who apply labels. Personally, I learned to do the same thing in school.

Two weeks into kindergarten, we all knew who the "bad kids" were. By middle school, I'll wager you could pick out the class clowns and the popular kids; the geeks and the Goths. Categorizing people made life easier then, so we still do it now.

Confession time, boys: If we're single and we spot a girl, don't we instantly label her "hottie," "plain" — or worse? And that three-second evaluation determines our behavior. Sometimes I even tip my waitress more because she's easy on the eyes.

Perhaps you're a better person than me: You never make snap judgments based on appearance. But you do hate dealing with customer service reps at 800 numbers. So if the elevator music repeats once too many times while you were on hold, it's time to express a little frustration. You see that beleaguered headset-wearer as a "person I will never meet, upon whom I can vent my bad mood."

That stubborn cashier at Target who won't give you the price you saw on the shelf tag? She's an "obstacle to getting what you want." That guy pulling a shopping cart down Market Street? Obviously, he's "untouchable" and "crazy."

Oh, I don't admit these judgments; I have a smooth veneer of politeness. But in my thoughts, I've slapped an invisible label on these people's foreheads.

After all, they're in my way.

Names

As for me, you can post labels on my forehead that are accurate so far as they go. Male. 5'11". Writer. 31 years old. They help the advertisers know if I'm a candidate to buy an MP3 player, and help you decide if you'll regard me as friend or commodity.

But do they begin to describe who I am?

"If I label you, it doesn't begin to do you justice," you might say, in your more charitable moments. "So I'll name you George Wylie Halitzka, Jr.¹ I call you by your dreams, your frustrations, your idiosyncrasies. I acknowledge your fears and pleasures, knowledge and ignorance, strengths and weaknesses. I call you George."

Don't settle for describing people — it's useful but meaningless. Don't reduce my friends Kent or Joy to labels. Saying Kent's studying to be an engineer or Joy likes to write can't do them justice. And if these people are really my friends, I have a responsibility to them. I need to remember they're not objects to be used when I need a listener or an ego boost.

My job is to call them by name, and mean it. A named person is never a "distractions from my to-do list" — she's an opportunity to love like God.

Interestingly, we don't label babies. We could slap a lot of descriptions on them, from "cries a lot" to "only knows how to eat and sleep." But for some reason, we see babies as miracles ... and that's why we long to name them.

Have you ever wondered at the boundless potential of a newborn? This tiny package of flesh could grow up to be the scientist who perfects the cancer vaccine, or the president who inaugurates an era of world peace, or the next literary giant. So out of their high hopes and measureless joy, his parents bestow a name. They don't label him "poop machine"; they name him for what they pray he'll become.

But something happens on our way from the cradle to adulthood. This screwed-up world is constantly throwing obstacles in the way of our potential as God's image-bearers. Every time we're labeled, we're forced into a smaller box. We become a "troublemaker" or "stuck up," "annoying" or "goofy."

Sure, it's partly our fault; we're sinners. But it's also the accumulated weight of sins against us.

So when I call someone by name, I see them through Jesus' eyes. I look past the labels to a soul worth dying for; say to them, "Please be all that you are, and all that God made you to become. I believe in you." To name someone is an act of faith, hope and love.²

The Pharisees were labelers. Picture them sneering the words "sinner" or "tax collector" to their victims. Jesus was a namer.

Do you remember the time He was sitting in Sychar Square when the local Samaritan tramp came to the well? She had three strikes and was out — a despised race, the wrong gender, the next best thing to a hooker. But Jesus didn't dismiss her with those labels. He treated her as a person worth saving.

When he met Zaccheus, Jesus could have easily said, "Pssst — hey, you sleazy IRS agent! Meet me under the third sycamore from the right after dark. I wanna talk to you, but I don't want anyone to know." Instead, Jesus proclaimed, "Zaccheus, come down from your perch, because I want everybody to know we're doing lunch."

Jesus could see through the outer wrappings to the heart underneath. Maybe we should cultivate that ability, too ... because the alternative is a tragedy. Just ask Inspector Goole.

An Inspector Calls

In his play An Inspector Calls, J. B. Priestley illustrates the end result of labeling souls. Just after the turn of the 20th century, a wealthy factory owner has gathered his family for a party. The Birling clan, together with the daughter's fiancé, are toasting their own success. Maybe there's a little too much alcoholic self-congratulation in progress, but why not? They're the "haves," not the "have nots." Life can go nowhere but up.

Suddenly, the party is interrupted when a police inspector arrives and informs the family that a 20-year-old girl has committed suicide by drinking drain cleaner. She suffered horribly on her way to an early grave.

Over the Birlings' objections, Inspector Goole begins to narrate her story. Just one year earlier, the girl was working in Mr. Birling's factory. She was barely earning enough to hold body and soul together, but at least she had a job! Then in an attempt to earn a living wage, she led her fellow employees in a strike.

Without paychecks, the employees were quickly starved back to work — and of course, the girl who started it all was promptly discharged. Mr. Birling labeled her a "troublemaker," and therefore "expendable."

By an extraordinary stroke of luck, the girl managed to land a job in a posh department store — quite a change from tedious, dangerous factory work! But she made the mistake of looking prettier than the Birling family's wealthy daughter when she tried on a dress at the store. So for no good reason, the daughter made a complaint to the manager and had her fired. The girl was "too pretty to pity."

Alone with no way to support herself, the same young soul showed up one night at a pub of ill repute, where she met the Birling daughter's fiancé, Gerald. He gave her some money — but only because she agreed to become his mistress. In time, he broke off the relationship to find someone of his own social standing. His mistress was "easy" and "beneath him."

Now alone and destitute, this girl turned to a group that helped poor women with the essentials of life. Tragically, she was turned away by committee chairwoman Mrs. Birling. When the Birling matron questioned of the girl's motives, she labeled her as "a suspicious character" who was "unworthy of life's bare necessities."

So with no means to support herself and in ever-increasing despair, the girl resolved to end her life. Finally, she became a statistic — another reason for head-shaking and tongue-clucking among the chattering class.³

But weren't the Birlings responsible in some way? Couldn't they have prevented the downhill spiral if only one of them had called her by name? Couldn't one of them see her as more than a "disposable lower-class wench"?

Possibly, yes ... but they were too busy labeling to see her as a soul.

C. S. Lewis reminds us that each person on earth bears within himself an immortal spark. Every individual we see will one day be a creature so beautiful and majestic that if we saw him as he truly is, we would be strongly tempted to bow down in worship ... or he'll become a creature so loathsome and repulsive that we could hardly stand to look on him now. But there is no third option, because as Lewis says, "There are no ordinary people."⁴

When we label someone, we fail to treat that person like Jesus would. We take a soul and cheapen it, render someone less than God made her to be. When we name her, we accomplish what the Birlings couldn't bring themselves to do: elevate her closer to the image of God.

So let's not let anyone's name become a throwaway line. If we're going to say it, let's make sure we mean it ... because we're addressing an immortal in the flesh.

* * *

1. Yes, my middle name is Wylie. Got a problem with it?
2. Throughout this discussion of labels and names, I'm indebted to the late Madeleine L'Engle's wonderful book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (New York: Bantam Books, 1980). For more on the subject, read chapter 7, "Names and Labels."
3. J. B. Priestley, An Inspector Calls (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1998). (Originally premiered in 1946.)
4. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperOne, 2001). (Originally published in 1949.)