Name

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

The name’s the thing–                                                                                                                                   

the precious thing that’s mine alone.

Some stories tell of Adam

naming animals with such humor

and caprice that we are made to laugh

and as young children we named toys,

then pets, and some of us kept genealogy

of all the living creatures that came

to love us in our youth.

We named our playmates, imaginary though they were,

and those of us with great imaginations

even gave ourselves new names and then designed the tales

to prove that those names were most real.

But Kunta Kinte brought to us a new reality

in the giving of our names.  Was he named

by splendid universe or great ruler thereof

or was he named in presence of and introduced

at once to all the galaxies beyond?

No matter.  Perhaps both.  Whatever happened

as we read or witnessed it on film,

and witnessed, too, the naming of the

families of slaves descended from this one,

we learned to longer look at naming

and the phenomenon

it truly is.

How many names do we possess?

And have we named ourselves as we

were wont to do?

And have we understood the family

of names passed down to us from all

ancestors who lived before and wove their

lives into peculiar branches that are ours?

And naming of ourselves–how often and deliberately

have we bestowed upon ourselves

appropriate appellations reckoned

 by a quickened self-disclosure?

How often have we let the voice

of God break through the towers of babbling names

in order to proclaim again–or for the first time

to our sometimes deafened ear

our holy name of well belov-ed only child?