The Power to Name: Curse or Blessing?

INTENSION: Connectedness

TOUCHSTONE:

Believe in Your Innate Goodness. This is the understanding that your true identity is not your biography, your circumstances, your imperfections, or your woundedness. Your deepest being is good. Your true essence is an expression of Divine love (i.e., Imago Dei). As Meister Eckhart said, “There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor no created thing can touch.”*

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The Blessing of Naming

Naming is a matter of identity. Most cultures and religious traditions engage in rituals of naming. Christian traditions, both Catholic and Protestant, name infants as part of the ritual of baptism (or in a Christening ceremony for Protestant traditions that do not baptize infants). On the eighth day after the child is born, a naming ceremony takes place for Eastern Orthodox Christians. In the Jewish tradition, baby boys are named on the eighth day after birth at a brit milah (a convent circumcision ceremony), while baby girls can be named at a convent ceremony called a brit bat or simchat bat, usually held within the first month of life. These religious ceremonies acknowledge the importance of naming with the child’s link to the faith community and include scripture readings and prayers.

Naming ceremonies are also influenced by the broader culture. In India, those within the Hindu tradition often consult the baby’s horoscope for guidance in selecting a child’s name. African names can tend to tell a story, such as the circumstances or events of the birth, the day the child was born, or the birth order.[1] In Chinese culture it is commonly believed that a good name can bring good luck, but that an unfit name can bring bad luck. “Therefore, Chinese parents generally prefer names that embody goodwill, prosperousness or seem auspicious.”[2] Native American cultures incorporate a spiritual dimension into naming. Individuals are given a secret, sacred name that is known only to themselves and the spiritual leader of the community. It is believed that “if an individual has a secret sacred name that represents a pure essence, it can never be contaminated, no matter what happens to ‘the outside’ name.” Also practiced within Native American communities is the earning of a new name. As a person evolves and grows as an individual, he or she may be gifted with a new name.[3]

Recently, when my first grandchild was born, he was given a name that tells part of his story. In the tradition of our family, the first-born son receives his father’s name as his middle name. Hence, my grandson was given the middle name, Clayton, his father’s first name. This name is also the name of his maternal great grandfather. In this, I realize the importance in passing on a name. Such claims the story of both life and lineage. It’s a way of recognizing the ones who have paved the way for your arrival, and if a child by blood, whose literal bloodline you share. Naming is not merely a matter of tradition, it is a matter of ontology; a way of claiming the essence of one’s being, historically, religiously, culturally, and personally.

The Power of Naming

I have often been intrigued by the practice of naming as it is found in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian scriptures. There seems to be great power in naming. In the first creation story found in Genesis 1, God speaks creation into existence. The text tells us that “God said, ‘Let there be…’ and that each part of creation came into existence. Furthermore, the text says that God named the Day, the Night, the Sky, the Earth, and the Seas. In fact, there are many examples of naming in these holy texts. Usually naming in these scriptures comes at a point of human commissioning. When an ordinary person has a significant or life shifting experience, that person is no longer the same person. Hence, it is as if the current name for the person is no longer big enough for them in their newly transformed state; therefore, there is need for a new name.

I also find it interesting that in the second creation story, found in Genesis 2, God shares the power of naming with the human, the human that God has created in God’s own image.[4] The text says that God brings all the animals and the birds to the human to “see what he would name them. The human gave each living being a name.”[5] This invitation given by God to the first human makes me wonder about the power of naming as a sacred act.

Could naming be a practice of presence, of recognizing ourselves, others, and the world around us in a deeper way? Is it possible to notice things by naming them? I wonder if this is the point when God instructs the human to name the animals and the plants. Was God simply saying, “Human, I want you to notice this world that I have created. Therefore, go out and gaze upon each living thing. I want you to name them. Think about each one carefully and caringly, because there is meaning and power in the name that you give. Really notice what or who is before you. It is good for you to lovingly and attentively name the world within which you will exist.” It seems that naming can be an amazing way of inviting us to be lovingly present to the world.

The Other Side of Naming

On the other hand, God, in the Hebrew Bible refuses to be named. For example, when Moses asks God for God’s name, God responds, “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be.”[6] To name, assumes to “know,” and therefore, the God who is beyond all knowing cannot be named.

If naming is a sacred act, such cannot be done trivially or hatefully. In our current culture, we seem to be a people who are quick to name. In any act of naming, we perceive to know. Yet knowing, truly knowing anyone is a false perception. We, at best, see only in part and not in whole. Human beings are mysteries, even unto ourselves. Therefore, we must hold the knowing of ourselves and one another with humility and curiosity. This is not to say that we cannot cry out, naming what causes harm. Such would be a distortion of what is good. Yet, if we name with hubris that is grounded in our own self-righteousness, such is an act of ego and not an act of love.

We should be aware that harm can and has been done by naming. Words have power to create and to wound. What is spoken into the world can take form. The old adage “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is untrue. Words matter. Names matter. Names or labels can hold the power to form people’s opinions of themselves, as well as people’s opinions of others. The names of people or things often become the lens through which that person or thing is perceived. We must be careful what we say. Names of beauty, grace, and love have the power to give life. Names born of hatred and fear have the power to destroy.

What I Am Learning

Be careful of the names that you place upon yourself, as well as the names that you place upon others. Without knowing, through naming you have formed in your mind who you are or who the other is. Therefore, naming has become the lens through which you see.
We live in a world, and a culture, that is obsessed with KNOWING. This knowing is grounded in the fear of not knowing. Therefore, we find ourselves in a time when we would rather place a name/label upon others, resting in the false security of our own certainty, than risk finding truths that expose our own insecurity and lack of humility.
We fear what we cannot clearly define… and YET, what is Ultimate has always resisted being defined and contained.
True freedom to love and live in connection with self and others comes from an open and permeable heart. A permeable heart is willing to risk NOT knowing, holding with curiosity the mystery of life and what it means to be human.
People are never as FLAT (i.e., one dimensional) as you may think. Although their inner light may be deeply buried, you must trust in its presence. Therefore, when the going gets rough, turn to wonder. As Trevor Hudson said, “Each person sits beside their own pool of tears.”
When you face what is beyond your control, you have but one choice. That one choice is to ask, “Who am I?” and “What is mine to do?” You cannot control or change anyone else. Your job is to listen for your own innate goodness. All that is good and holy within you will flow from this.

Claiming Our Own Name

There is something in every one of you that waits,

listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself and if you cannot hear it,

you will never find whatever it is for which you are searching and if you hear it and then

do not follow it, it was better that you had never been born…

You are the only you that has ever lived; your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all of existence and if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls…

—Howard Thurman, Commencement Speech,

Spelman College, 1980

Life’s search, it seems, is to hear our one true name. For me, this is the soul’s journey. In listening to the deepest part of myself, although my listening is incomplete and imperfect, I am discovering more of who I truly am. The work and beauty of this journey is in the shedding of my false names, names that do not reflect the truth of my unique place in creation, of my ontology as a unique expression of Divine love.

It is very difficult not to take on the labels of the world, names that value systems of power and greed. Names that come from the place of fear. Such names have always been with us, whether through culture, religion, tribe, or nation, or through the personal distortion of the human mind or heart. We see much of this distortion today. Yet, I believe that the antidote cannot come through fear and despair, but rather through a movement of people who have become alive to the voice of the genuine within themselves.

I believe that such is our source of hope. Human beings, made in the image of a loving, just, compassionate, and humble God, offering ourselves and what is ours to give for the good of others and all of creation. As women’s liberation activist, Sojourner Truth, said, “Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes all go easier. I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.”[7]

Dare to acknowledge your own inner light! Dare to claim your own true name!

With love and gratitude,