29 Jul 08 — Some thoughts about names

Names can be important. For the ancient Israelites they described (sometimes prophetically) who a child would become when they grew up. One of the most important namings occurred when God Godself renamed Jacob Israel. Jacob was returning to the Promised Land after having returned to the old world of Haran where he had found his wives and where his mother had been born. But he was going to have to face up to his brother Esau whom he had swindled out of his birthright (with Mother Rebecca’s help). He came to the last frontier before that encounter: the Jabbok River. And after setting his affairs in order, he went off alone, and waded into the middle of that river to pray and prepare for the morning’s encounter.

He met God there. And in a most unexpected way: he wrestled with God all through the night. Eventually, as dawn was rising, God wanted to call off the contest. But Jacob would not let God go, demanding a blessing. He received two. His leg was struck and he would limp for the rest of his life. And he got a new name: Israel. His old name Jacob had meant “Deceiver,” but his new name meant, “One who strives with God.” Think about that for a moment. All of us are spiritual or physical descendents of this man who challenged and wrestled with God to the point of demanding and receiving (with consequences) a blessing from God. Today when we wrestle for our full inclusion with the traditional churches that are (in part) the earthly representation of God we are wrestling with God just as Jacob did. And like Jacob, all of us who do so receive a new name: Christians, God’s Beloved, etc. We are not the first: many have gone before us; many will come after us, but all of us receive new names when we challenge the unjust, exclusive, or plain ‘ol false representation of God on Earth and discover that we truly are blessed to be a part of God’s Reign.

A lot of us chose names for ourselves when we were christened as teens or when we took up religious orders. Others of us have reclaimed or given ourselves new names when we have come out to express the “real” person we are. When I came out I reverted to and reclaimed my old child hood name of Robin, setting aside my legal name of Robert for when legalities demand it. So names are important, and can be very emotional issues.

They should also be blessings. Certainly when our lover calls us by our name it can be a blessing. But it should be more than just that. There is nothing worse than being haunted by our name having been stuck in the middle of all sorts of childhood taunts or other defamations. As parents and mentors, when we give our children (actual or spiritual) their names, we have the responsibility to ensure that they grow up knowing that there names are blessings and are names to be cherished. We (and society) can not do that if we are hyper-critical, abusive or sarcastic when we use their names. Some speak a lot about the inappropriateness of using four letter words in civilized discourse, but how many never say such words, but use other words to cause their children, mentors, themselves, their friends, or even strangers equal amounts of pain?

In truth, our names are blessings, they are as much gifts of God as anything else we receive. So be careful how you say names — your own as much as any others.