"Cache"

Kathy was not expecting such a travesty to occur Thursday evening when she took one of her favorite blouses to the dry cleaners. To Kathy this particular blouse was fashionably chic. It had a tailored bodice with a peplum extended from the cinched waistline to portray a hour glass figure. It had huge bishop sleeves that made a powerful expression when she entered a room.

Two days later Kathy retrieved her blouse from the dry cleaners. When she got home she tried her blouse on. Kathy kept pulling at both sides of the blouse to make it button but she could not get the right side to over lap. The blouse just would not stretch far enough to close. The waistline was riding up her back. The sleeves now squeezed her arms like a blood pressure sphygmomanometer inflatable rubber cuff. Texture change in the blouse went from a smooth cotton feel to the rough hand of a cantaloupe. To Kathy's chagrin her dearest blouse had shrunken. The blouse that once made a bold fashion statement had experienced extreme terminal care by the hands of the dry cleaning technician.

Kathy immediately contacted the community dry cleaners regarding her shrunken garment. She found out that if only the dry cleaning technician would have taken time to read the fabric content before placing her blouse into the mistaken laundry pile, her garment would have been preserved. The dry cleaning technician assumed "oh it is just another shirt, we can just throw it in the pile with the other shirts ,wash it, press it and "TADA!!".

Much like the dry cleaning technician, from our youth, we learn to sort clothes into piles by color: white clothes, light clothes and dark clothes to prepare them for laundering. Often the same practice is adopted throughout life when sorting people like we do laundry. Young, mid-life, old people, black or white are sorted into different piles according to their outer appearance, size, age, and nationality. Once a person is prejudged and tossed into a distinct pile without having their content viewed introspectively, he or she is expected to stay put in the pile where they have been placed according to societal specifications.

In reality prejudging without learning a person ability and value is like missing out on a cache of treasures. Both the presumptuous person and the person who has been labeled are robbed of quality interactions with each other. God has meticulously crafted each individual like an intricate tapestry. He presents us as his fashion statements.

Before we, categorize people and sling them into a throwaway pile we must go beyond the label of a person to become familiar with the content that is within the person. Each human is extraordinarily made despite his or her form, age, and stage in life. Take the time to get to know an individual and learn of their value. Never assume the label but always observe the content. Each content care instructions should read: Reduce the Heat, and Handle with love.”