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If You Had Another
Name, Would You Still Be You? by Joe McKeever
For many years the editor of
the Wall Street Journal was a Tarheel by the name of Vermont C.
Royster. That "C" in his name stood for "Connecticut."
And yes, all his siblings were likewise named for the states.
My wife and I were dining in
a Birmingham restaurant some years back when I happened to notice
that our waitress' name was Auburn. Being the type who likes to
jest with the help, I said, "I'll bet you have a sister named
Alabama."
She said, "I have two
sisters--Tulane and Cornell." I shrank back into my chair,
certain that she was putting me in my place.
"I have four brothers,"
she said. "Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and Duquesne."
For once, I was completely speechless.
"My father's name is Stanford
and my mother is Loyola. They're from Baton Rouge and were engaged
before it occurred to them that they each had colleges as names
and decided to do this to their children."
"When we were little,"
she said, "we were on the front of Parade magazine, on Art
Linkletter's House Party, and in Ripley's Believe It or Not."
When she told me she was married
with two children, I said, "Wait a minute--let me guess your
husband's name." Gardner Webb or Truett McConnell. Something
like that.
"My husband is Ron Harris,"
she said, "But my children are Agnes Scott and Slippery Rock."
She hastened to add, "I'm kidding about those."
I once told that story to a
professor at Agnes Scott who had a contribution of her own to
this tale. "On the first day of class, when teachers don't
have a roll yet and have to circulate a sheet of paper for everyone
to sign, and invariably some guy makes up a fictitious name? Well,
I've learned to read ahead of the name I'm calling so I don't
fall for that. That's when I spotted the ringer. I said to the
class, 'Who made up the stupid name?' No answer. Then I said,
'All right, who is this States Rights Constitution Finley the
Third?' And some guy raised his hand. I said, 'That's your name?'
It was. And just think--he's the third. There's two more of those
running around."
Mary Lou Sumrall worked the
welfare office in Columbus, Mississippi, for years. Once she was
helping a client fill out an application. Name? "Ninthamay
Terry." Excuse me--what? "Ninthamay Terry." How
did you get that name? "I was born on the ninth of May."
That's one person who ought
to give thanks every day she didn't arrive on the twenty-third
of September or some such.
Dr. John L. Sullivan, leader
of Florida Baptists, has made it a hobby collecting strange names
over the years. He has quite a collection by now. Whenever we
bump into each other, we manage to compare the latest oddities
we've encountered.
Names are strange creations.
Composed of letters of the alphabet and given certain sounds,
the voicing of which represents a living, breathing human being.
Utter those sounds and someone in the room--just one, the same
one every time--will turn in your direction and say, "Yes?"
Stand at the edge of a crowded children's playground and utter
the sounds that represent your child and do it loudly, and yours
will cut out of the herd as clearly as though a cowboy on a pony
had separated him.
Nothing else sounds like or
as good as our names.
One aspect of the Old Testament
many people find fascinating is the practice of changing names.
A fellow would begin life with one handle and later, as his character
blossomed or his identity became fully known, the family or society
or even the Lord Himself would give him a new name.
Abraham started out life as
Abram, and his wife Sarah started as Sarai. He went from "exalted
father" to "father of many people," while her name
appears to be "princess" both ways.
Abraham's grandson Jacob received
his strange name as a newborn when he reached over and grabbed
hold of his twin's heel. His unimaginative parents, Isaac and
Rebekah, naturally dubbed him "Heel-holder," which came
to mean "someone who gets a free ride on the other fellow's
dime." In time, as God began to mold Jacob, He changed the
name to Israel meaning "one who strives with God." Seems
to me the Lord was saying He'd rather have a son who fights Him
than one who takes advantage of his brother.
Peter started life as Simon.
Since the new name means "Rock," I always wanted the
old name Simon to mean "Sand" or maybe "Cream Puff."
No such luck. According to my Bible dictionary, Simon came from
the Old Testament "Simeon" and may have been a form
of Samuel. Now, Samuel--there's a name with a good story behind
it.
When Hannah prayed for a child
to end her barreness and the harrassment she was being subjected
to by her husband's other wife, God heard and answered. In appreciation,
she named the little boy "Sha-mu-el," because, she said,
"I have asked him of the Lord." But Samuel does not
mean "asked of the Lord;" it literally means "heard
of the Lord." The child's very name was "God answers
prayer."
In the Bible, your name is
who you are. It's not just a handle, your identity, but your reality.
That's why names were so crucial.
God knows your name. He knows
the syllables you respond to and He knows the reality of who you
are. "I have called you by name," He says in Scripture.
God gives you a new name. (Isaiah
62:2 and Revelation 2:17 among others.) He makes all things new
for you through Christ and fittingly gives you a new name. New
reality, new identity--you need a new name.
Every child sooner or later
asks Mom and Dad why they were given the names they ended up with.
When my maternal grandmother was born in the early 1880s in rural
Alabama, the practice was to give a child the names of all the
visitors the day of her birth. That's how Sarah Louisa Martha
Tabitha Noles got her name. And why Grandpa called her "Sally,"
I suppose.
My oldest brother Ron was named
for Ronald Colman, everyone's favorite movie star in 1935. When
I came along, the Joe (alas, not Joseph) came from her uncle Joe
Noles and middle name Neil for her cousin Neil Barker. Anyone
calling me "Joe Neil" is immediately recognized as a
relative who has known me from the beginning.
In Heaven, forget your earthly
name. You get a new one. I have no idea what. The reality of Heaven
will be so far above the kind of earthly existence we've known
that only an entirely new language can contain it.
In Bible days, the faithful
Jews deemed the name of God so holy they dared not pronounce it
lest they be guilty of taking His name in vain. To protect the
sanctity of that Name, when one was reading Scripture and came
to the written form of the Name, he would simply insert 'Lord"
or "The Name." Eventually, they forgot even how to pronounce
the Lord's name. When we say "Yahweh," it's our attempt
to do what they dared not--pronounce the Lord's name. Why we rush
in where they feared to tread is anybody's guess.
Jesus, who knew better than
anyone the specialness of God, taught us to pray, "Our Father,
who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name." Hallowed. Holy.
Something very special and unlike everything else. That's our
Father.
No language can tell the wonders
of our Lord. No earthly name can hold all He is. We stand in awe
of this One who made Heaven and the earth, then revealed Himself
to His creation in Jesus Christ.
No one who knows Jesus Christ
and the Heavenly Father would ever, ever use the sacred Name in
a profane or harsh manner. Let us approach Him with reverence
and speak His Name with respect.
We shall be ready for a new
language when we arrive at His house. We've about used this one
up.
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