A Labor Day reflection on identity and grace

Singer and actress Miley Cyrus has announced that she is dropping her last name and will henceforth be known simply as “Miley.” Her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, supports the decision: “I told Miley yesterday I felt good about her going with her first name. I mentioned Dolly and Cher. Thinking about it more and more . . . Elvis . . . Prince . . . and so on. It’s a natural progression for an iconic superstar legend.”

The news prompted me to consider other people commonly known by only their first name these days. Some sports figures are obvious for the uniqueness of their name: “Tiger” Woods, “LeBron” James, and “Dirk” Nowitzki come to mind. Others are more location-centric: in Dallas, “Troy” Aikman, “Emmitt” Smith, “Michael” Irvin, and “Nolan” Ryan are examples.

And some are transcendent: in basketball, there will only be one “Michael” Jordan, just as in country music, there will only be one “Dolly” Parton and “Reba” McEntire.

This is not, however, a decision just anyone can make for themselves. I could insist henceforth on being known only as “Jim,” but apart from my family and close friends, such personal branding would only be confusing. While 179 names in the US are more popular than mine, 359,224 people are competing with me for first-name notoriety.

And unlike Miley, “Jim” isn’t even my legal name. I could insist on being known as “James,” but no one knows me by what my birth certificate calls me. I could go the route by which some distinguished personages initialize their first name and go by their middle name, but J. Clarence Denison doesn’t work at all. Or I could drop everything but my last name, but nearly everyone misspells it, insisting on adding another “n” in the middle.

So, it seems this little thought exercise has been a waste of my time and yours. Except that it points to a larger cultural issue, one that is prompted by today’s holiday and made urgent by a story in today’s news.

The surprising origins of Labor Day

You might think Labor Day was created by the government to celebrate laborers, but you’d be only half right.

In the late nineteenth century, the average American laborer worked twelve-hour days, seven days a week. Workers often faced extremely unsafe conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities, and work breaks.

As the Industrial Revolution continued to revolutionize society, labor unions grew more prominent and vocal. Unions began organizing rallies and strikes to protest against poor conditions and force employers to renegotiate hours and pay.

On May 11, 1894, Chicago employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of their union leaders. On June 26 of that year, the railroad union called for a boycott of all Pullman railway cars, crippling railroad traffic nationwide. The federal government dispatched troops to Chicago, resulting in a wave of riots and the deaths of more than a dozen workers.

Two days later, President Grover Cleveland signed into law an act of Congress creating a Labor Day federal holiday. While the conditions prompting the holiday have improved dramatically in the generations since, the holiday remains as a tribute to American workers.

Accordingly, today is one of the few days in the year when you are not defined by your vocation. On the days you go to work, society knows you by what you do. Those who practice medicine are doctors; those who teach school are teachers. Like your name, your vocation is your identity.

But this is a problem.

“I am not who I think I am”

Pluto is in the news today, not for what it is but for what it is called. Twenty years ago, it was demoted from major planet to dwarf planet status and removed from planetary inclusion in our solar system. Now some astronomers are protesting the decision for reasons more interesting to their profession than to the rest of us, seeking to restore the celestial body to its former glory.

But our names do not affect Pluto itself. It is no larger or smaller now than it was twenty years ago, nor has its position in our solar system changed. The same is true of anything in nature: we can change the name of “trees” to “squirrels” and vice versa, but neither will care. They are what God created them to be. It’s our perception rather than their reality that is in question.

Years ago, a wise counselor explained the anxiety and discouragement of our work-centric identities this way: “I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.” We are what we do, or, more to the point, what we think people think of what we do. When I was a pastor, I thought highly or poorly of myself according to what I thought church members thought of my performance. Now that I’m a writer, my assessment strategy has not changed.

But it should.

Naming myself by what others think of what I do is a never-ending cycle of discouragement and frustration. There’s always more to do and more people to impress. By contrast, naming myself by what God thinks of me is a never-ending cycle of encouragement and joy.

The fact about me that will endure for millennia after I write my last word is that I am a child of God, loved unconditionally by my Creator (John 1:12). He didn’t make me because the world needed another Baptist minister or cultural apologist. He made me because he wanted another child in his eternal family (John 1:12). He made you for precisely the same reason.

Your Father “calls you by your name” (Isaiah 45:3 NASB). He knows your past, present, and future better than you ever could and loves you because “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Brennan Manning asked, “Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you?”

Do you?

Note: For more on this topic, please see Dr. Ryan Denison’s recent Daily Article, “NASA chief wants to make ‘Pluto great again.’”

Quote for the day:

“Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing—sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death—can take that love away.” —Henri J. M. Nouwen

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