In God's Image

I just read a quotation from the July 11 sermon in my Texas church. The following words reminded me of my reactions to a banner that has been designed and is being made to hang in a church. First the (edited) quotation; then my thoughts about the banner I will be seeing soon:

"Churches must stop thinking about everybody primarily in terms of in or out . . . Besides the fact that these terms are offensive . . ., they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other . . . We are all created in the image of God. . ."

When I read that this banner in celebration of diversity would have a square to represent all categories of people, I read the list of categories and immediately felt left out, because I didn't identify with any of the categories. I'm not African-American, Asian-American, young, old, gay, lesbian . . . and, frankly, I don't remember the rest of the categories. When I fill out forms, I am required to enter my age; is it middle age? not really. I'm required to enter my ethnicity, and I check "caucasian," but only because it's the closest thing in the list to what I am, but I NEVER think of myself as a caucasian. There simply was no category to represent me. Then I recall an incident that happened shortly after I started working for the Dept. of Public Instruction:

Someone said to me, "I suppose there are a lot of African Americans working there." I stopped to think. The truth? I thought about this absolutely handsome man I often saw in the building -- distinguished with very dark skin. Maybe he was African American, and I was sure, at the time, that there were people of many different ethnicities and skin colors working at DPI, but I could not answer the question I was asked, except to say, "well, I'm sure there are." The next morning that I reported to work, my secretary met me in my cubicle, as she did every morning to share and inquire regarding family and friend events of the evening/weekend and current events at work. Talking with her, I suddenly realized, "My secretary is African American." I'm sure she and I had discussed issues related to skin color or ethnicity, but it never occurred to me to "pigeon-hole" her.

I don't want to pigeon-hole anyone, nor do I want to be pigeon-holed. Do you want to categorize me? Okay: I'm Danish and German and English and Ojibwe with a touch of Scotch Irish, but my English ancestors included Vikings who married the French, and were my Mediterranean/Middle East ancestors Roman? Greek? Israelite? Other? I am a female, an adult, a mother, a grandmother. My eyes are blue, my skin olive. I'm Protestant and American.

I could list so many more categories. Do you want to pigeon-hole me? As much as I love being a mother and grandmother, those pigeon-holes alone leave me insulted for loss of all of the other things I am that I care about. Don't pigeon-hole me, and don't ask me to support the act of pigeon-holing anyone else either.

We all are made in God's image. Maybe when we look at each other, we should see God!