Labels aren't bad, they're necessary for making our way through the external world. Imagine navigating city streets or an airport terminal with no labels. Labels are obviously good.

Labels are also a necessary part of our internal framework and personal structure.

They help us identify where we're from (Toronto, Canada) and who we are (man, husband, dad, friend). But we all know from experience that labelling isn't all good and isn't always helpful.

A label reaches the end of its usefulness in our lives when it reinforces, or binds us to something that no longer rings true in our lives.

What do you do with that label?

I come from the Jesus tradition and I am deeply grateful for the formation of myself within that environment and faith. I am who I am because of where I've came from.

And although I've called myself a Christian for years, I don't know if that label makes sense for me anymore, at least not in the way I used to understand "Christian".

Maybe I can just be "human".

To be human is to be both divine and dirt.

One of the most compelling things to me about the Christian faith is the idea of incarnation, which is another way of saying Spirit embodying matter. It's the subtext of the whole biblical story and is made plain in the person of Jesus Christ. The divine becoming human, becoming dirt. The dirt becoming divine.

We are divine, Spirit wanting to incarnate in us. We are dirt, matter wanting to be God.

I can't think of any label more accurate than that.

Join me in this podcast where I challenge the idea that all labels are bad (they aren't!), where I question whether Christian is a label I want to claim anymore for my identity, and where I propose that to be divine and to be dirt is what it means to be human.

In-depth shownotes, links, and other resources at Brad Toews.