Starbucks
and MacDonald's are going to duke it out over coffee.
Apparently, MacDonald's is testing the installation of
gourmet coffee bars is some of their stores and installing
their own barristas to staff them. For those who are not
Starbucks aficionados, a “barrista” is the
person who takes your coffee order and prepares it exactly
to your liking. If you have real status in the status
coffee-drinking world, your barrista knows you by name
and can begin your special brew when you walk in the store.
Makes
me think of the well-loved TV show, Cheers, a bar in Boston
where “everybody knows your name.” There really
is something comforting about walking in a place where
your name is known and where you know everyone else’s
name. Our names are very personal, and to have someone
use it properly implies powerful connection.
Names
are very important to us. When my husband and I married,
nearly 10 years ago, we discussed the name situation.
Most women do take their husband’s name upon marriage,
and I had done so with my first one. But after the devastation
of divorce and the necessity to rebuild my life, I took
back my birth name as a way of recognizing my own re-birth
through a time of great darkness. I wasn’t all that
eager to lose it again. I suggested to my husband that
he take my name. When he received that suggestion with
something akin to horror (and I think it opened his own
eyes to the power of our names), we agreed that we would
just keep our names as they were. I’m so used to
us going by different names now that I don’t think
about it much, but every once in a while I realize that
people who know both of us professionally have no idea
that the two of us are married to each other.
I’ve
always gone by “Christy” as my given name,
but my actual birth certificate name is “Mary Christine.”
I remember always having to correct teachers when they
called the roll the first day of school by saying “Mary
Thomas.” No one ever called me “Mary”
and I simply don’t respond to the name, so I would
try to listen carefully through the alphabet until they
came to me and I would say, “I go by Christy.”
Our
names when used well, bring a sense of connection. When
used less well, something seems discordant or even extremely
uncomfortable. Even when they are just misspelled, it
can be bothersome. “Christy,” for example,
can be spelled: Christi, Christie, Kristy, Kristie, Krysti,
Chrysti, and probably another half-dozen ways I’ve
not yet seen. And not one of these identically pronounced
names is really mine. I find myself asking more about
the power of knowing names and using them well when I’m
at a point in my life when I’m having greater trouble
remembering them.
I
know that when this life is over and I see God face-to-face,
I want to hear my name pronounced as one of those who
has been given the gift of eternal life and the joy of
complete intimacy with God. I want God to look at me and
say, “Christy, you are my beloved daughter. Come
in, come in, my dear one.” It may be that we all
have that longing, and that our name represents our very
being, the core of our soul. When it is misused, even
inadvertently, something is violated. And when a name
is misused intentionally, as when people are teased about
their names—something that so often happens in childhood,
the wound goes deep.
I
don’t know of any way to use other people’s
names flawlessly, or to remember them well. However, I
am aware that at least making an effort to learn and use
them is a way of showing to others that they are valued.
The best way to dehumanize people is to assign them numbers
in place of names. But calling others tenderly by their
names reminds each of us that we are precious in the sight
of God. The Bible shows us that Jesus called people by
their names when inviting them to join him in eternal
mission. It’s worth the effort for us to do this
as well.
