I’ve been thinking a lot about names. It started when I was trying to name a character for a book set in Louisiana, worried that I wouldn't know who he was until I named him. That conjured all kinds of memories and mental leaps.
In the late 1980s, on my first or second day as a 20-something, entry-level, phone-answering employee at Southern Living’s parent company, a tall, elegantly dressed older man walked up to my desk and told me to make a lunch reservation for four. Green as I was, even I had sense enough to realize he was Somebody. I just didn’t know who. So in the most I’ve-got-it-together professional voice I could fake, I said, “Yes, sir . . . and . . . in whose name would you like me to make that reservation?” Bless him, he saved me by finding a face-saving way to tell me his name. Too bad I hadn't noticed the enormous portrait of him hanging in our lobby.
When my maternal grandmother was dying, there was a moment—a very brief one, thank goodness—when she didn’t recognize me. Not only that, but she got really angry at this person standing by her bed, claiming to be Valerie. Fortunately, her confusion soon passed and I saw recognition in her eyes. We were both so relieved. But I never forgot those few seconds. I can’t imagine what it must be like for my friends whose parents have dementia—the daily absence of recognition and the inability of someone you love to call you by name.
Of course, thinking about my grandmother made me think about Moses. (You can see the logical progression there, right? Me neither.) Specifically, Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3). Early during their encounter, God tells Moses, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Still, Moses wants an answer to a nagging question: But what’s your name?
Depending on which translation you read, God’s answer is “I am that I am” or “I am who I am.” The NIV has a footnote that translates God’s response as “I will be what I will be.” He first tells Moses, “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” And then he repeats to Moses: “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’”
God puts the focus on his relationship to Israel, not what men call him. He also refuses to be defined by a name just to make humanity more comfortable.
On a human level, we should do the same—put the focus on our relationships with each other and never let ourselves be defined by whatever others choose to call us. Each of us has to be true to the self God intended us to be—even when that self is tough to name.
And now I just have to play this song one more time:
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