To Know As We Are Known: The Power of Names

            While helping out at a VBS this past Wednesday, I was granted the monumental task of herding a group of nine five-year-old children around to their various stations. They were mostly adorable—but one little boy (whom I shall call Jimmy) had a poor attitude right from the start. Rather than joining in the games, he shook his head obstinately, crossed his arms, and stood in the corner. After a great deal of coaxing, we managed to convince him to play the last game—a game called Cannonball.

            The rules of Cannonball were quite simple. The kids were supposed to sit in a circle and roll the cannonball to one another, saying, “Cannonball to...” and inserting the name of the friend to whom they were rolling the ball.

            Approximately thirty seconds into the game, I discovered that these kids (who had been together in this group for weeks) did not have the foggiest idea what the names of their companions were. For five minutes, each child held the cannonball and froze, searching around the circle, trying in vain to remember someone’s name. This was highly amusing to me, and somewhat mortifying to the kids.

            Later in the morning, when my group went to snacktime, Jimmy once again refused to sit with the rest of the children or eat a snack. Instead, he sat in the corner next to me, put his hood on, drew his knees up to his chin, and sulked.

            We had some time before the next activity, so on a whim (and remembering the game from earlier), I asked one of the girls if she could name everyone in the room. After she tried and quickly failed, I asked some of the other kids if they could do it. Naturally, no one could.

            “Well, I know all your names,” I remarked offhandedly.

            There was an immediate clamor for me to demonstrate this knowledge—so I went around the room, calling each child by name. There was general openmouthed surprise at my capacity to recall each child’s name so easily.

            At the end, I added, “And of course, there’s Jimmy,” and playfully elbowed the little brooding boy next to me.

            I was shocked when, moments later, he took his hood off, looked at me with suddenly bright eyes, and started telling me about what his house looked like. He came and sat with everyone else. He stopped hiding in the corner.

            Jimmy’s attitude wasn’t the only thing that changed—suddenly, the kids all fought to sit on my lap. They randomly gave me hugs throughout the day. I became everyone’s best friend, all because I knew their names.

            Mankind has always understood that names have power. Fairy tales and myths are practically obsessed with true names—the idea that each individual has a true, sometimes secret, name, and this name grants power to the wielder. In Egyptian mythology, the goddess Isis gains power over Ra when she learns his true name. In the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin, the villain is defeated by the knowledge of his true name.

Even in the Old Testament, God’s true name is so powerful that the Jewish people feared to speak it aloud. By the time of Jesus, only the High Priest was allowed to speak God’s true name, and even then, he was only allowed to speak it in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. All of Jewish—and indeed Western—tradition is steeped in the thought that every name has significance and power beyond its practical purpose.

Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wind in the Door deals chiefly with the power of names. The main character, Meg, meets a team of heroes who intend to save the world from the Echthroi, a mysterious force of evil spirits who destroy people by “X-ing” them, or un-Naming them. One of the characters explains, “I think your mythology would call them fallen angels. War and hate are their business, and one of their chief weapons is un-Naming—making people not know who they are.”

The heroes train for years in preparation for facing the Echthroi, doing seemingly meaningless tasks such as memorizing the names of the stars. But it becomes clear throughout the course of the story that this memorization is essential, because to call something by name is actively to save that thing.

“‘Progo,' Meg asked. 'You memorized the names of all the stars - how many are there?'

‘How many? Great heavens, earthling. I haven't the faintest idea.'

‘But you said your last assignment was to memorize the names of all of them.'

‘I did. All the stars in all the galaxies. And that's a great many.'

‘But how many?'

‘What difference does it make? I know their names. I don't know how many there are. It's their names that matter.’”

According to L’Engle, salvation is associated with the granting of a name. Somehow, calling someone by name saves him. The greatest possible evil is to take someone’s name away, and the greatest possible to gift is to name him.

The classic musical Man of La Mancha, based on the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, is a poignant picture of this association between salvation and naming. In this musical, an insane man decides to dream the impossible dream and declares himself to be the brave knight Don Quixote. On his journey, he renames every obstacle he encounters as something other than what it is—the inn is a castle, the windmill is a giant, and the poor prostitute Aldonza is a beautiful princess named Dulcinea. Aldonza initially scoffs at Don Quixote’s profession of undying love, and constantly tells him that her name is not Dulcinea. Yet throughout the story, she is slowly overcome by the sincerity and goodness of his fantasy world, which is far more beautiful than the real world she knows.

In the end, after Don Quixote’s death, Aldonza walks away as another character calls after her, “Aldonza!” In response, she turns around and tells him firmly, “My name is Dulcinea.”

This prostitute becomes that which she is not—a beautiful, pure, chaste maiden—through the power of a name. Don Quixote manages to save Aldonza simply by giving her a different name, and by believing in that name.

But what is in a name? How can names hold this much power?

A name is an identity. A true name tells the truth about the bearer, which is why tales like A Wind in the Door and Man of La Mancha show the virtue of calling someone by their true name. Don Quixote did not accept that Aldonza was truly a prostitute—instead, he insisted that she was a beautiful princess. He found her true name, the name that no one else knew. And it changed her.

Like Aldonza, we become what we are called, when we are called by our true names—and that is why salvation lies in knowing a person’s true name.

Each and every one of us longs to be called by name. We are unsure of our identities, confused by our own souls. In the words of the poet Christopher Poindexter, “We are the scientists, trying to make sense of the stars inside us.” We do not know who we really are, and yet in our deepest hearts, we know that we could be saved if we only knew our names.

This is the great paradox of the world—that we must be called by name in order to be saved, but we have forgotten our names and cannot remember them again.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful moment we remember that we forget.”

Modern culture’s answer to this question is that you must name yourself. You are what you decide you are—but how can any mere human understand and explain the depths of a human spirit, even if it is his own? This is the question Madeleine L’Engle poses—how can we name ourselves when we cannot even name the stars?

The beauty of Christianity is that it answers this unanswerable question, and it answers it differently from society. Christianity declares that the God of the universe who created you knows your name, and He calls you by this name.

You are what He calls you.

We long for God because we long to be named, to be known, in the way that a painter knows his painting, and a poet knows his poem. We are children who look to our Father to learn our names.

1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

To know as you are known—this is the desire of the human spirit. Not to understand the mysteries of the heavens, but to understand the mysteries inside your own heart. Today we can rejoice in the fact that He calls us by name—and someday we shall even know that name.

On that day, the day when we see Heaven, we shall at last know fully, even as we are fully known.

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’” Isaiah 43:1