A
First of all: welcome to all the new followers and subscribers here! Over the last month, quite a few of you have joined us, and I’m delighted to have you.
Second, our book discussion is slated for tomorrow night. Work continues on my next book, a study on identity and joy in Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death. As regular readers here will know, this means I’m exploring various ideas around identity in this newsletter. We’re also reading and discussing several books on the topic.
Up for discussion tomorrow: O. Alan Noble’s You Are Not Your Own. If you’re planning to take part in the conversation, respond in the comments with “I’m in!” and tomorrow I’ll send you a link to join us. We’ll start at 8:00 PM EST and won’t continue more than an hour. I hope you can take part. I’d love to see and hear from you!
Last time around, I invited folks to respond with the name of a precious or semi-precious stone. True confession: I did this (in part) because I was looking forward to the words themselves— to what they look and sound like. The stones you named did not disappoint.
Here’s the list: obsidian, smoky quartz, jacinth, carnelian, tiger eye, and beryl. And my husband, quoting Barbra Streisand in a great moment here,1 listed micas, quartz, feldspar, pyroxenes, magnetites and coarse and granulated plutonics.
That list is worth saying aloud. I highly recommend your reading it aloud now. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
You’re welcome.
Names are important. I think it’s no small thing that, in Genesis 2, God invites Adam to name the animals. Made in God’s image, Adam is to rule over and subdue God’s much loved creation. Naming the creatures is an exercise of that authority.
Think about it: providing something with a name means giving it an identity. This title will be the means by which others distinguish, recognize, call to mind that thing. And so the name is important: it must express something essential about that which it names.
This suggests something else about Adam’s project of naming. In order to do it well, he had to know the creatures he named. He had to observe and think about each one. In other words, this first act of “ruling and subduing” entailed careful attention to and appreciation of God’s creatures. His task wasn’t domination (as humankind has so often misconstrued our calling); rather it was intimate care.
Last week’s poem had an interesting line about naming. Did you see it? There at almost the end? Tomlinson writes, “Whatever cannot be mastered with a name.” Because there is also a kind of mastery in naming. By placing a title on something, you are, in a way, defining what it is.
We know this is true. Do you like your name? Why or why not? Have you ever had a nickname you didn’t like? One pinned on you in order to tease? The reason you don’t like your name or nickname is because of that inherent mastery: the identity it imposes isn’t something you relate to or accept.
But a name is a master even in small, practical ways. What do you do when you hear your name spoken in a crowd? See? And even now, with my children all grown, I’ll still turn my head in the store when I hear a small voice call, “Mom!”
Fascinating, then, that when, in Exodus 3, Moses asks God for his name, God doesn’t give it.
It’s certainly fair of Moses to ask: he doesn’t know God. He’s been raised in Egypt, surrounded by many, many gods. He grew up in Pharaoh’s house. The God of his forefathers— of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob— is remote at best, belonging to another place and a time out of mind.
So when God commissions Moses to be the leader through whom he’ll rescue his enslaved people, Moses asks God, “Whom should I tell them you are?”
And God answers, quite famously, “I am.”2
There’s lots to be construed from this simple sentence. One translation suggests an open-endedness: “I am” means “I will be what I will be.” In other words, God is inviting Moses and all of Israel to find him out, to get to know him. “I will be what I will be” means “I’ll show you who I am by what I do.”
And then God proceeds to introduce himself to all of Israel in the greatest act of salvation prior to the atoning work of Christ. He reveals himself to Israel as faithful, trustworthy, and powerful beyond the imagination. He ushers them from slavery loaded down with clothing and jewelry that the Egyptians voluntarily heap on them. He leads them with pillars of cloud and smoke. He parts the Red Sea and they walk untouched between walls of water.
Only then— rescue accomplished, promises made good— does he invite them to be his people, his “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”3 After they have begun to know him.
Last Sunday was Easter. My favorite story among the many is Mary at the empty tomb, her vision impaired by tears, bereft.
They’d thought he was the Messiah, finally come to deliver them. But he insisted on a message so different from what they’d anticipated: suffering, dying. What in the world?
It was unimaginable that Jesus should die. Only weeks ago, he’d raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus was no ordinary person: surely, as the Roman soldier in Mark’s gospel tells it, he was the son of God.4
But Mary had seen him lifeless. She’d watched his shrouded form laid away, the stone cover the door.
Now she stands alone in the garden. The other disciples have scattered. Jesus’ tomb is a gaping hole. She’s lost everything, even the body.
And then Jesus says her name.5
What If We Were Alone? What if there weren't any stars? What if only the sun and the earth circled alone in the sky? What if no one ever found anything outside this world right here? --no Galileo could say, "Look--it is out there, a hint of whether we are everything." Look out at the stars. Yes-- cold space. Yes, we are so distant that the mind goes hollow to think it. But something is out there. Whatever our limits, we are led outward. We glimpse company. Each glittering point of light beckons: "There is something beyond." The moon rolls through the trees, rises from them, and waits. In the river all night a voice floats from rock to sandbar, to log. What kind of listening can follow quietly enough? We bow, and the voice that falls through the rapids calls all the rocks by their secret names. -William Stafford
I do hope you’ll join our book discussion tomorrow night, even if you haven’t read the book! Remember to let me know by saying “I’m in” in the comments.
As for a word game, what’s a name you love? Or, if you could choose a different name for yourself, what would it be?
And finally, thanks so much for being here.
With joy,
Rebecca
This one’s a family favorite. If you don’t like the movie, I cannot help you.
Exodus 3:14
Exodus 19:6
Mark 15: 39
John 20:16
I am too slow!🐢 … for which I apologize… Again.
Sapphire.
The picture in your post - a dark sapphire sky seemingly made more blue by the white, shining moon - nothing like it’s beckoning you and me to fly into the universe.
They say - people who have had near-death experiences- that in glory there are colors we’ve never even imagined! But that sapphire sky holds hints…
When I was a young child I wanted to be named “Amy”. Likely because of a song that was popular in the early 50s by that name. But I’m content with “Anne with an E”. And Annie, which lends itself to Grannie. It means “Gracious Woman”. Now I make NO claims to that lovely characteristic being part of my Nature. But I believe with all my heart 💖 that our names were given to us ultimately by our Creator because it’s who we become once we’ve been “conformed to the image of The Son” - Romans 8:29. By hardship, by trials, by griefs 💔and by Grace!✝️
Love, Your Annie
For a boy, I still like Cedric. For a girl, Chloe. I (mostly) have always liked my name, too. I like how some people choose to call me Meg.
God’s response to Moses is so interesting! I AM covers everything, does it not? The gods of human invention were gods “of”
something- war, the sun, fertility, etc. He is above EVERYTHING.
We three here waiting for Jill’s baby to be born will try to join tonight!