What's In a Name?

a rose, they say, by any other name would smell as sweet. so what's in a name?

when i was younger i thought of words as very limiting. how they don't really say what you want them to say. growing older, i added that words are supposed to be limiting. they limit thought to the object being referred to. they operate by means of exclusion, excluding all other concepts except the concept in thought.

so what's in a name?

have you, like me, experienced the uncomfortable feeling of having someone not close to you call you by your nickname?

people call me lots of different names: Gladys, Glad, Glads, Glayds, Dys, Glai, Glay, Gly, Badat, Datens, Dat, Lalai, Bibi (what my lolo calls me), Bibing (what my aunt calls me), little sister, Bait, June (somehow i cannot yet warm to being called this).

and it always matters who calls me what. i'd be most uncomfortable if my former boss would call me Bibi or if my current co-workers would call me June.

it makes me realize that i am many different things to many people. in the same way that they are many different things to me and to other people.

sometimes, nothing so encapsulates what a person is to you more than his or her name.

in the Bible, for example, many characters lived up to their names.

we have Jacob whose name means supplanter. Jacob did supplant his brother by taking away his birthright. and Jacob was repaid with the same trickery when instead of Rachel, he was given Leah to wife.

there's Noah whose name means rest, comfort, or repose. wasn't the ark of Noah in a literal sense an ark of rest and comfort amidst the storm that raged upon earth as never was and never will be again?

then there's King Saul whose name means "prayed for."

the list goes on.

there are times when i find myself calling out a name again and again in the middle of a surge of sadness, and i realize now that there really is only one Name i ought to call on.

did you know? the name Jesus means "The Lord is our Salvation."