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Good morning . Give a dog a bad name…I don’t mean Princess Pollydoodle or Tyson the Destroyer…We all know what it’s like to hear someone holler for a dog with a completely ridiculous name, where Tiny is inevitably a brute of shoulder height, Beauty a dog which only its owner could love…you get the picture.Ìý <?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Names can mean so much, to those who give them, and say so much about those who bear them.ÌýÌý

A good name is ‘to be chosen rather than great riches’.Ìý A good name, a good reputation, is to be valued above all - a bad name, once given, is hard to lose.

There are those people, many in the Bible, whom we immediately associate with their mistakes, their wrongdoing - even when they have much that was good in them,

Thomas is always the Doubter, Peter the one who denied Jesus, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

It’s difficult to redeem ourselves in the eyes of others; we can wear that label for life.

But actually we can quite like our labels…we like to label those who are different, who are ‘the other’, whatever that ‘other’ might be.

It helps our ‘them and us’ mindset, if we can associate a person with a name and a name with a label It can make us inflexible, Intolerant and judgemental of others, unable to see the people behind the name

Because a name Is just that…just a label that is put on, and can be taken off ….if we have the grace and the compassion to look beneath’ and realise that deep down, every person has the potential to be just as good as we are.

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God, who sees and knows each one of us by name, give us that same love and care for everyone we encounter today. Guide us to see beyond the labels to the person beneath.Ìý Amen

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