What's in a name?

on blessings and curses 

"Do you think it's mi2xin4?"

The question came out of nowhere. Her eyes were downcast and her voice was shaky, but so sincere.  

"I do. It seems very superstitious to me." I said, using the word I had just learned yesterday. 

Mi2xin4, superstition. 

We're learning the vocabulary of life and storying by listening to stories of people's lives. Today I'd asked our teacher to share with us how she and her husband had chosen their son's name.

We love names. We love the stories behind names. We love the meanings of names. We had enough trouble naming our own two (as evidenced by the fact that little mighty man has two middle names). I can't imagine choosing one name for your only child. So how's it done? I wanted to know. 

We were about halfway through our lesson. She'd given us a five minute story and we had 20 new vocabulary words less than 3 minutes into the recording. 

She's a sister now but she wasn't when her son was born. I knew this from a different recording.

This story began with a trip to the "name giving specialist." Her husband and father-in-law wanted this for her son. They paid the specialist a lot of money to determine the best name based on the child's "shi2chen0" (time of birth, sort of) and the "wu2xing2" (five elements of the earth).  In the end, they didn't like the way the given name sounded and decided to ask our teacher's father. "He loved to read books and knew many words." She told us in the recording. High praise in a language containing over 10,000 characters. High praise, indeed. 

"Many people say choosing a name for a child is very important. If you chose a bad name, their whole life will be unsuccessful. For example, my father's father gave him this name. I don't know why he gave him this name. It's meaning is 'bumpy road.' So, many people all say this name is very bad. His life will be very bumpy, full of many difficulties. My father's life was very like this. It is true. He got cancer and encountered many other sicknesses and hardship. His work was laborious but bitter.  Recently there was an elder who was teaching me. He said that a name is very important. He said that If a person has a bad name, every time someone calls their name they are cursing the person." 

We paused the recording to write down the words for "got cancer," "encountered," "many other sicknesses," "elder," and "cursing."  

If we had continued to let it play, as I did this evening while doing my homework, then I would have heard her say, "I don't know whether this is true or not true." Which brings us back to the question that seemed to come out of nowhere. 

"Do you think it's superstition?" 

She looked up from the table, patient while I searched for the words and longed for the day when my mouth can say what my brain knows and my heart feels. 

"I do. I think it's superstition." I began slowly.

"Look at my husband. His dad's name was Marvin. He died of cancer at the age of 54. His life was also difficult. He and I, we believe this soil was cursed before your dad was born. Man was told his labour would always be bitter. The one who gives life, he allows cancer and sickness. If does not allow it, it will not be. No one else has that kind of.....

power." I finally conceded and said "power" in English. We searched around in our dictionaries until she concluded with visible relief, "wo3 ming2bai0." (I understand). 

Again using our dictionaries more than I prefer, I went on to tell her about our little princess' name. How we chose it because He comforts us and we wanted her to know that He would always comfort her. When others believe that their heartache results from their revered one's arbitrary displeasure, we know that our father works all things, even bitter things, for our good. When other deities are aloof, our father can always be counted on to comfort the broken hearted. In life's darkest hours, we wanted her very name to remind her that he will always be her comfort.

This isn't true because it is her name. We named her this because it it true.

Everything we believe to be true must be true because we've read it in the book. This is how we know what is true.

I went on to try to say that think people want to blame hardship on something specific. They want to know, "Why us? Why heartache? What next?" (Sometimes I want to know. "Why us? Why heartache? What next?") 

We think if we know "This is the cause, this is the source" then next time we can prevent it. We can change names. We can move apartments. We can start over. We want something else to blame so we don't have to accept that our world is cursed and we are fallen. 

I'm sure a lot was lost in translation through our dictionaries and my mistakes. (After all, I'd almost said, "This potato was cursed long before your father was born." but I caught myself before I said. Unfortunately, I'm sure there were many more mistakes to which I was oblivious.)  But I pressed on anyway. 

Another example, I concluded, is Ichabod. (I told her we would look it up the next day together because at this point I was in waaaay over my head.) The gist is this: The glory didn't depart because that baby was born. The glory had departed and so that baby was named. 

Through tears she said, "Yes, yes! That is what I think. I think my grandfather believed life was difficult and full of pot-holes. No parent wants to make their child to suffer. My grandfather, I think, he was speaking of his own life when he called my father's name 'bumpy road'. He was saying how his life had been, not how my father's life would be." 

A bumpy road, indeed.