I have a friend named Joe. Actually, his name is Joseph, but we call him Joe. Actually, his name is Joseph but we call him Joe, and he even said he refers to himself as Joe, but now Joe has asked to be called Joseph because Joseph is his true name and Joe isn't, even though Joe has called himself Joe since before we all knew him as a Joe or a Joseph or a Jose or a Joey. (He refuses to acknowledge you if you call him Joey. I checked.)
But Joe or Joseph or Josefina or whoever the heck he is isn't the point. I'm getting there. I promise.
The point is, Joe now wants to be called Joseph because that's the name God had given him in the first place. The name Joe was just kind of there, I guess. Symbolizing someone who didn't use their God-given name, until God asked rather politely for the name back. And so Joseph has regained his name. And honestly, I think it's cool. It's pretty hard to go through life with a name and then suddenly ask people to call you something else. Especially if God is involved. Not a lot people would understand. It's like me asking you to start calling me Ashlee instead of Ashley, insisting that there are different pronunciations and that you're saying my new name wrong, and why are you saying my new name exactly the same way as the old name when there is obviously a change in the spelling?
(Bad example. Only one of these situations is intended to make people mad. But let's just put the past behind us and surge on.)
In my opinion, there are names, and then there are shortcuts. For the name Ashley, there's a bunch of shortcuts in the forms of Ashlee, Ashleigh, Ashlie, Ashlyn, Ashlynn... the list goes on. All these different names, derived from the exact same meaning. And do you know the meaning of said name? "Ash tree clearing." That's so disappointing. Everyone else has a cool name that means something amazing and profound and powerful, and I'm named after a tree. Freakin' huzzah, man.
Not that there's anything wrong with trees. I like trees. Climbed them all the time when I was younger, enjoy watching them turn bright, vivid colors with the turn of the seasons, wish that there were more of them where I live... but still. A tree.
Obviously my name doesn't fit me like a glove (size small... I have tiny hands). Obviously my name doesn't mean too much and somehow became popular in the United States by the time I was born. Whatever.
I have another friend named Hannah. She has a brother named Josh. Last Saturday we were with a few other people, doing work around a house to raise money. We worked our butts off--there was a particularly ominous time where I had to climb onto the roof of the second-story house and butt-scoot up the roof to knock down a coagulated mess of leaves and pine needles and mud that refused to budge from the house. The reason I did all that with a broom is because the leafblower couldn't get that pile off the roof. And the reason I'm telling you all this is because I think it's really funny to let you know that I literally worked my butt off doing that. It was a rough roof.
Anyways. After the mess was knocked down from the roof and promptly disappeared into my and Hannah's hair, we all took a lunch break. We sat around in the shade and ate our sandwiches and chips. That wasn't the interesting part. The interesting part was when Hannah and Josh started arguing about The Hunger Games. They were really into it. They were bickering over the economics, the concept of the Games, the difference between the books and the movie. No one else really interjected. I didn't either. I just sat there grinning through my sandwich, because they were arguing about fiction and because sibling arguments amuse me so much that it's almost a guilty pleasure.
There was one part of the argument that particularly got my attention. Josh was picking apart the author's decision to name the characters the way she had: Katniss, Peeta, Effie... He felt the message could've gotten across just as well without all these strange names. "Why couldn't they just have normal names?" he bellowed across the table.
"It's fiction," I said lazily. "They can name their characters whatever they want."
Hannah was getting steamed. "It's not a normal world, they shouldn't have normal names! And if you look up the names, it fits each of the characters very well! 'Peeta' is a type of bread, 'katniss' is a plant--"
"Oh sure," Josh said scathingly, "name a character after a fictional plant!"
"It's not fictional! Katniss is a real plant!"
A long pause. "It is?"
Hannah was swelling indignantly. I was shaking in my chair from the giggles threatening to escape during this sacred moment of sweet victory for her.
It was interesting, though. See, we're both writers. The biggest difference between us is that I write the truth and throw in exaggerations, and she writes exaggerations and throws in the truth. I rarely write fiction. I write thoughts and ideas and facts. Hannah, on the other hand, writes stories. Damn good ones, too. We make a great team because she's much more imaginative and creative, but I have a more critical eye. That probably sounds mean, but basically I out-Grammar Nazi her Grammar Nazi, circle strange-looking things and write all over her papers with a blue pen because I don't have a red pen, and I ask lots of questions about the work so she knows what to include and what to take out. I critique her. And the wonderful thing about it is that I don't have to offer anymore--she just walks up and asks me to say mean things about her writing. (Not really. Like I said, she's a fantastic author. I'm very much honored to be her editor.)
Anyways, she got real fed up with Josh about his gripe with the character names because of her own experience with writing new characters. Names of characters take a long time to decide, she retorted. It's one of the hardest decisions to make because the name has to sum up who they are. It's not just the look of a name--like a simple name for a simple person, or an evil name for an evil person--it's the meaning of their names as well.
And it got me thinking. An author spends a lot of time carefully considering what to name their characters. They aren't real people, and yet the right name can make them seem that way. Expecting parents take probably even more time pondering the name of their child because usually they plan for them to turn out to be a real person. Not just one name, either--often a middle name involved too.
So what about the ultimate Author? The ultimate Parent? If so much time is spent over a character in a story, what about us... the characters in HIS story? Because if there's something I know to be true, it is this: we are not the hero of the story. It's a difficult pill to swallow. Maybe not for you, but it is for me.
As Donald Miller once said: "The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me."
We are not the main characters. We are supporting characters. Supporting characters do just exactly that... support the main character. The main character is Jesus. Well, maybe not. Maybe Jesus wouldn't want to be the main character. He seems more modest than that to me. So maybe the main character is the Author Himself.
We do what the Author asks us to, because we trust that He's written out the story and that He knows exactly what's going on. He knows all the action scenes, the romances, the deaths, the births, the climax, the denouement. He knows everything because He's written it long ago. Not only that but He doesn't write the way we usually do. God writes the end first, and then He writes backwards from there.
And if He's planned out our roles in His story, than maybe that means He's toiled and thought a lot about our names. About how to sum up who we are.
So before I sat down to write this post, I researched my name. Yeah yeah, same old thing about an ash tree. Still just as disappointing as ever.
Well, then. What do ash trees do?
Quite a lot, actually. Pretty useful, these trees. The wood is hard and strong, but also elastic, and it can be used to make bows, baseball bats, office furniture, tool handles, and lots of other things that demand a lot of strength and resilience. It's also used for the bodies of guitars because they are known for a "bright, cutting tone and sustaining quality". (Hannah, if you're reading this, I can hear you laughing.)
Ash wood is used for firewood. And medicine. And food and a habitat for animals. And for sitting around looking pretty on the streets. (I didn't word that very well. Skip that.)
The tree's name comes from Old English, and the generic name before that originated from Latin. And both names meant "spear".
Spear? Machetes?
And, suddenly, I feel my name isn't such a mistake after all.
