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Miley Cyrus drops last name, inspiring me to do the same · The Daily Article

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning and welcome to the Daily Article Podcast from Denison Forum.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Monday, September 7th, 1226.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is an automated reading of today's Daily Article authored by Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today's article is titled, Miley Cyrus drops last name, inspiring me to do the same.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Singer and actress, Miley Cyrus, has announced that she is dropping her last name and will henceforth be known simply as Miley.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, supports the decision.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I told Miley yesterday I felt good about her going with her first name.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned Dolly and Share.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thinking about it more and more, Elvis, Prince, and so on.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a natural progression for an iconic superstar legend.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: The news prompted me to consider other people commonly known by only their first name these days.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some sports figures are obvious for the uniqueness of their name.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tiger Woods, LeBron James, and Dirk Novitsky come to mind.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Others are more location-centric.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: In Dallas, Troy, Acmon, Emmett, Smith, Michael Irvin, and Nolan Ryan are examples.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: and some are transcendent.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: In basketball, there will only be one Michael Jordan, just as in country music.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: There will only be one Dolly Parton and Reba McIntyre.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: This is not however, a decision just anyone can make for themselves.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: 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.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: While 179 names in the U.S. are more popular than mine, 359,224 people are competing with me for first-name notoriety.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And unlike Miley, Jim isn't even my legal name.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could insist on being known as James, but no one knows me by what my birth certificate calls me.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could go the route by which some distinguished personages initialize their first name and go by their middle name.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But J. Clarence Denison doesn't work at all, or I could drop everything but my last name.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But nearly everyone miss spells it, insisting on adding another end in the middle.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, it seems this little thought exercise has been a waste of my time in 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.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might think Labor Day was created by the government to celebrate laborers, but you'd be only half right.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the late 19th century, the average American laborer worked 12-hour days, seven days a week.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Workers often faced extremely unsafe conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities, and work breaks.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the industrial revolution continued to revolutionize society, labor unions grew more prominent and vocal.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unions began organizing rallies and strikes to protest against poor conditions and force
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  [SPEAKER_00]: On May 11th, 1894, Chicago employees of the Pullman Palace car company went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of their union leaders.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: On June 26th of that year, the railroad union called for a boycott of all Pullman Railway cars, crippling railroad traffic nationwide.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: The federal government dispatched troops to Chicago, resulting in a wave of riots and the deaths of more than a dozen workers.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Two days later, President Grover Cleveland signed into law an act of Congress creating a Labor Day federal holiday.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: While the conditions prompting the holiday have improved dramatically in the generation since, the holiday remains as a tribute to American workers.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Accordingly, today is one of the few days in the year when you are not defined by your vocation.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the days you go to work, society knows you by what you do.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Those who practice medicine are doctors.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: those who teach school are teachers.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Like your name, your vocation is your identity.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: But this is a problem.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Pluto is in the news today, not for what it is, but for what it is called.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: 20 years ago, it was demoted from major planet to dwarf planet status and removed from planetary inclusion in our solar system.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: 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.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But our names do not affect Pluto itself.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: It is no larger or smaller now than it was 20 years ago.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Nor has its position in our solar system changed.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The same is true of anything in nature.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: We can change the name of trees to squirrels and vice versa, but neither will care.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: They are what God created them to be.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's our perception rather than their reality that is in question.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Years ago, a wise counselor explained the anxiety and discouragement of our work-centric identities this way.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: I am not who I think I am.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: I am not who you think I am.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: I am who I think you think I am.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: We are what we do, or more to the point, what we think people think of what we do.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: When I was a pastor, I thought highly or poorly of myself according to what I thought church members thought of my performance.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Now that I'm a writer, my assessment strategy has not changed, but it should.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Naming myself by what others think of what I do is a never-ending cycle of discouragement and frustration.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: There's always more to do and more people to impress.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: By contrast, naming myself by what God thinks of me
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: 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.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't make me because the world needed another Baptist minister or cultural apologist.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: He made me because he wanted another child in his eternal family.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: He made you for precisely the same reason.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Your father calls you by your name.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: He knows your past, present, and future better than you ever could, and loves you because
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Brennan Manning asked, do you really accept the message that God has head over heels and love with you?
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you?
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the daily article podcast.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: For links, scripture references, or to find out more about Denison Forum, visit us at DenisonForem.org or click the link in today's show notes.