Saturday, February 24, 2007
NAMES
Ayelen Leticia Abagail Dosanto Aquino… José Gregorio Jiménez Gamarra … Cristhian Samuel Quintana Rejala … Lorien Esmeralda Miquel Insaurralde … these are just a sampling of some of the names on my class lists. I have always considered myself to be fairly good at remembering names, but even after two and a half weeks I have not learned how all of my eighty-some students are called. One good thing is that I can always ask “what is your name?” and just pretend that I am seeing if they understand what I am saying, but usually it is not very successful because they say it too fast and quiet anyways. I’ve only tried doing roll call in one of my classes, but I am not always even sure which name to call. Some of them use their first, some their second, some a nickname, some use whichever name they feel like on a given day. No matter which one they use, there is a good chance I will pronounce it wrong. Also, there is a good chance that more than one student in the class is named Fernando, Camila or José. But the worst is that even if I pronounce it right and a student knows I am talking to him or her, the student won’t respond anyways.
To know someone’s name and be able to pronounce it is to have a certain amount of power over that person. When someone says my name, I have no choice but to turn my head and look. In Exodus chapter three, Moses responds to a voice that calls out to him from a bush: “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am.” The voice is introduced as the God of your (Moses’?) father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – a name almost as long as one of my students’. Names like this are difficult to call out when you need someone to stop whistling or kicking the kid in front of her. Long names are very inconvenient when the cords of death are wrapped around you and the torments of Sheol overcome you, when arrogant people attack you and a gang of ruthless men seek your life, or when your bones melt like wax. At this point in history, Moses’ people are in need of a name they can pronounce when they are getting whipped and beaten by the Egyptian slave drivers, or when they feel homesick for the Promised Land, so Moses asks God what his name is. God first replies “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be,” but tells Moses to introduce the people to him by his nickname: “I am.” It’s only four characters long, but scholars wanted something fancy so they dubbed it “the tetragrammatron.” Transliterated from the Hebrew, it is YWHW, or in your NIV version it appears as “the LORD.” You can pronounce it as Yahweh, but not in front of your Jewish friends, not even the most liberal among them. I once visited a Jewish congregation that had a female Rabbi and called their synagogue a temple, and even they were very apprehensive about humans pronouncing God’s personal name. In order to honor The Name, the scribes left out the vowel pointing and that is why we can only guess at the pronunciation.
Besides the difficulties presented due to vowel pointing, the ancient Hebrew language is also somewhat lacking and imprecise when it comes to verbal tenses. I have a friend who translated the beginning of God’s response as “I will be who I was.” In some ways I kind of like this, because God’s introduction of himself (God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) shows that he has been faithful to Moses’ forefathers, and therefore he will continue to be faithful to every generation. Others think God gives no answer at all, that he says something like “it’s none of your business, I am whoever I wanna be.” I learned something in school about how the other nations had gods who, if someone called on them, they had to answer. It’s like performing a magic spell if only you knew the right words, or maybe even expecting a miracle if only you prayed the right words. It’s possible that God is telling Moses the only important thing is that God exists and will be there for his people when they need him, but he doesn’t want people using his name just for whatever.
If God is in fact telling Moses his name, it puts him in a somewhat vulnerable position; it’s possible that people could start wars, they could oppress others, they could curse and condemn, they could try and gain earthly goods or power over circumstances to meet their own ends, all in the power of his name. At any given time, over the next 3300 years, there would always be someone, somewhere, in trouble, distressed, sad, calling on his name to come to their rescue. It’s true there would be a large amount of thanks given to the bearer of the Name, and rejoicing in it, but wouldn’t one get tired being called upon to celebrate others’ trivial successes day after day after day?
I tried to teach the students to call me Miss Sabo, and explain that this would be an appropriate term of respect in North America. Unfortunately my name is a little close-sounding to the Spanish word “sapo” which means toad. So I guess I am Teacher Ellen, or even just “Teacher.” I not only hear it a million times each day at school – “Teacher, look at my drawing,” “Teacher, tell me the answer to the quiz,” “Teacher Ellen can I get a drink of water” (“no, you just had recess”) “Teacher Ellen, do we have to copy all of that?” “Teacher, when do we get to watch a video?”– I also hear it almost every time I leave my house, even from the neighbourhood kids that do not go to our school. Luckily I can please them just by asking “how are you?” in English; when we cry out, “save me oh LORD!” it requires a lot more response on the part of the hearer.
Right now I don’t even understand most of what the students tell me in rapid speak, but as my abilities increase, I hope I can learn patience from a God that has shown himself to be very patient with our continual crying out to him and faithful in responding. He even likes it! And as for me calling out the names of my students, well, they will just have to have patience with me as I keep asking, slowly, clearly, pronouncing every syllable, “What…is…your…name?”
Ayelen Leticia Abagail Dosanto Aquino… José Gregorio Jiménez Gamarra … Cristhian Samuel Quintana Rejala … Lorien Esmeralda Miquel Insaurralde … these are just a sampling of some of the names on my class lists. I have always considered myself to be fairly good at remembering names, but even after two and a half weeks I have not learned how all of my eighty-some students are called. One good thing is that I can always ask “what is your name?” and just pretend that I am seeing if they understand what I am saying, but usually it is not very successful because they say it too fast and quiet anyways. I’ve only tried doing roll call in one of my classes, but I am not always even sure which name to call. Some of them use their first, some their second, some a nickname, some use whichever name they feel like on a given day. No matter which one they use, there is a good chance I will pronounce it wrong. Also, there is a good chance that more than one student in the class is named Fernando, Camila or José. But the worst is that even if I pronounce it right and a student knows I am talking to him or her, the student won’t respond anyways.
To know someone’s name and be able to pronounce it is to have a certain amount of power over that person. When someone says my name, I have no choice but to turn my head and look. In Exodus chapter three, Moses responds to a voice that calls out to him from a bush: “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am.” The voice is introduced as the God of your (Moses’?) father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – a name almost as long as one of my students’. Names like this are difficult to call out when you need someone to stop whistling or kicking the kid in front of her. Long names are very inconvenient when the cords of death are wrapped around you and the torments of Sheol overcome you, when arrogant people attack you and a gang of ruthless men seek your life, or when your bones melt like wax. At this point in history, Moses’ people are in need of a name they can pronounce when they are getting whipped and beaten by the Egyptian slave drivers, or when they feel homesick for the Promised Land, so Moses asks God what his name is. God first replies “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be,” but tells Moses to introduce the people to him by his nickname: “I am.” It’s only four characters long, but scholars wanted something fancy so they dubbed it “the tetragrammatron.” Transliterated from the Hebrew, it is YWHW, or in your NIV version it appears as “the LORD.” You can pronounce it as Yahweh, but not in front of your Jewish friends, not even the most liberal among them. I once visited a Jewish congregation that had a female Rabbi and called their synagogue a temple, and even they were very apprehensive about humans pronouncing God’s personal name. In order to honor The Name, the scribes left out the vowel pointing and that is why we can only guess at the pronunciation.
Besides the difficulties presented due to vowel pointing, the ancient Hebrew language is also somewhat lacking and imprecise when it comes to verbal tenses. I have a friend who translated the beginning of God’s response as “I will be who I was.” In some ways I kind of like this, because God’s introduction of himself (God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) shows that he has been faithful to Moses’ forefathers, and therefore he will continue to be faithful to every generation. Others think God gives no answer at all, that he says something like “it’s none of your business, I am whoever I wanna be.” I learned something in school about how the other nations had gods who, if someone called on them, they had to answer. It’s like performing a magic spell if only you knew the right words, or maybe even expecting a miracle if only you prayed the right words. It’s possible that God is telling Moses the only important thing is that God exists and will be there for his people when they need him, but he doesn’t want people using his name just for whatever.
If God is in fact telling Moses his name, it puts him in a somewhat vulnerable position; it’s possible that people could start wars, they could oppress others, they could curse and condemn, they could try and gain earthly goods or power over circumstances to meet their own ends, all in the power of his name. At any given time, over the next 3300 years, there would always be someone, somewhere, in trouble, distressed, sad, calling on his name to come to their rescue. It’s true there would be a large amount of thanks given to the bearer of the Name, and rejoicing in it, but wouldn’t one get tired being called upon to celebrate others’ trivial successes day after day after day?
I tried to teach the students to call me Miss Sabo, and explain that this would be an appropriate term of respect in North America. Unfortunately my name is a little close-sounding to the Spanish word “sapo” which means toad. So I guess I am Teacher Ellen, or even just “Teacher.” I not only hear it a million times each day at school – “Teacher, look at my drawing,” “Teacher, tell me the answer to the quiz,” “Teacher Ellen can I get a drink of water” (“no, you just had recess”) “Teacher Ellen, do we have to copy all of that?” “Teacher, when do we get to watch a video?”– I also hear it almost every time I leave my house, even from the neighbourhood kids that do not go to our school. Luckily I can please them just by asking “how are you?” in English; when we cry out, “save me oh LORD!” it requires a lot more response on the part of the hearer.
Right now I don’t even understand most of what the students tell me in rapid speak, but as my abilities increase, I hope I can learn patience from a God that has shown himself to be very patient with our continual crying out to him and faithful in responding. He even likes it! And as for me calling out the names of my students, well, they will just have to have patience with me as I keep asking, slowly, clearly, pronouncing every syllable, “What…is…your…name?”
# posted by Ellen @ 4:12 PM 
