Your Name

Names are funny things. My parents named me Rodney Lee Rhodus. Rodney came from my mother's readings in popular culture, and alliteration is always a popular choice in the South. Lee was my grandfather's name. Rhodus is, of course, the automatic surname. It seems to be a variant of Rhodes, probably, and it is not a very common name. My mother once filled out a mailing label for something she was ordering; the package arrived with the last name corrected from Rhodus to Rhodes. For some reason, we all took offense at this. We grow to have preternatural connections with our names. We are protective, possessive of names. We care about our names.

Names are important, as several writers have registered in their works. Ursula K. LeGuin, in A Wizard of Earthsea, has characters who have three names: a birth name, a common name used by the general community, and a secret true name, which allows anyone with knowledge of it power over the named. T. S. Eliot, in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (which, for better or worse, spawned the musical Cats), states that cats have three names: an everyday name, a special name, and a name known only to the cat itself. That both authors identify three names is probably not mere coincidence. I shall not suggest that either writer was directly alluding to the Trinity, but three is a pretty special number.

Many of us, in the world outside of literature, have a variety of names. My family calls me Rod. I introduce myself as Rodney. I usually prefer Rodney, but when my family uses Rod, it sounds right. When others use Rod, it sounds foreign. My wife picked up calling me Rod from being around my family, which is a natural thing to have happen. People my wife works with--and since we work in the same building, whom I also work with--picked up using Rod from her. It is odd, but hearing Rod from some colleagues sounds natural; from others, it sounds wrong. I have not analyzed the differences, but maybe I should.

All of this to point out that names are important. The name of God is important, yet we usually give it little or no thought. God has a multitude of names, which seems appropriate for a being who has so many facets. A Sunday School class at my church has put up a poster which lists the names of God which appear in the Bible. There are many. Most of us probably use a select few names for God--or maybe that's just me. Most of us rarely use the name of God--Yahweh--outside of academic discussions of the text. We prefer God, Lord, Father--names that we can relate with. And perhaps that is the importance of the name of God: we must choose a name that means something to us.

What we call God says more about us than about God. The name we use to refer to God reveals our attitude toward God and our relationship with God. As I mentioned earlier, my pastor sometimes says Daddy when referring to God, a term which--for people who grew up in Kentucky, at least--carries the connotation of much more intimacy and affection than the word Father. Father, for me, seems distant, both in space and in emotion. Some might argue that Father carries the proper degree of respect, and I would not argue with anyone who suggested that. Actually, I would not argue with anyone about any name chosen to address God; the name must be personal and must have significance. We must each choose the name--or names--we will use, but the name must be true--for us.

Just as LeGuin's wizards and Eliot's cats have special names, names of power, which are spoken only by those who have intimate knowledge of the name's bearer, so God has special names which are wired into each of us. Just as my family and friends may call me Rod and I respond, while a sales clerk or a telemarketer cannot get away with it, God allows us to call Him by the names that mean something to each of us. Using God, Lord, or Father is fine, so long as we are aware of the implications of each name. We should not call upon God as Abba if our only association with that word is "Dancing Queen."

The name of God we use must be a name which holds meaning for us. We should not force a name that we have no connection with. If we cannot say Daddy without being self-conscious, then we should use another name. My wife and I had our kids after we were well into our thirties--not by choice, but that is another story. Our kids are now in school with children of our former students. We all show up at the same school functions and at the same birthday parties, and I have told some of my former students that they can call me Rodney; however, most of them hold onto calling me Mr. Rhodus. For whatever reason, I am and will ever be Mr. Rhodus, and I understand that. In a similar way, God, for some people, is and will ever be Father or Lord or God. And that is okay, as long as we are aware of why we call upon him with that particular word. We have to think about the name. We have to be conscious about our choices.

I think that is the importance of the name of God we choose: we have to use the name on purpose. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into routine, especially in this area of our lives. Prayer must be intentional. Our relationship with God must be intentional. We have to be aware, even of the names we use. Otherwise, we are not putting all of our mind and all of our heart and all of our soul into the moment.

Be

Why be? It fits the Elizabethan English of the King James version, but why maintain that language in the more contemporary translations? We already have an inverted syntax, which throws many of us off balance: "hallowed be your name" is not the way most of us would speak; most of us would say "your name be hallowed," with the subject before the verb. However, most of us have read enough poetry to be able to deal with the inversion. But what about the verb be? Without getting too esoteric, does it have anything to do with the subjunctive? Or is it a matter of tense? Or is it non-standard English that we hold onto because deep down we really miss the poetry of the King James?

Or, is the verb in the imperative: is it being used to express a command or a direction? Since an imperative verb has the understood subject you, is the statement actually saying "be hallowed your name"? This would mean that the prayer (and the pray-er) is saying that this is an action that must be undertaken. We are being directed to hallow the name. Still, this doesn't quite seem correct.

One colleague, asked about this construction, decided that it must be that the original construction might have included a modal, either should or must, which was dropped at some point, possibly for poetic effect. This would create a different kind of command, a statement which directs the pray-er that he or she must or should hallow the name of God.

I have often heard so-called comedians attempt affecting a dialect, using be in a non-standard way: "We be goin' to the store." The problem with this, aside from the fact that it is done in a mean-spirited and derogatory way, is that even dialect has rules for usage. In most dialect usage, be is used to express an action or state which continues on. "We be happy" indicates that the speaker is experiencing an emotion that transcend the moment; the earlier example of going to the store is only correct if the journey is an on-going quest and not a quick trip to the corner.

I cannot answer the question of why the verb is in the form it takes, but I believe that it carries a bit of all of the explanations that have been shared with me--and that I have shared here. Be carries a combination of imperative mood and progressive tense. It suggests that the attitude toward God must be and also that it is a state of the past, the present, and the future. Be suggests that we should exalt God, and that we should not limit our exaltation to the moment of prayer. Our attitude toward God should be on-going.

Many of us--too many of us--get stuck inside our own cultural paradigms. We think of everything, including our relationship with God, in the same terms we use to think of our telephones and televisions. We are so accustomed to being able to turn these things on and off, of being able to tune in when we want, to connect when we want, that we think of all communication in the same way. We trick ourselves into thinking that if we have not initiated that connection, it does not exist, when in fact we are more like the eponymous character in The Truman Show. We are like the Jim Carrey character whose every moment, waking or not, is being observed. We are in constant contact with God, even when we are not consciously talking with Him.

Of course, we are pretty limited creatures. Most of us have a hard time concentrating on one thing at a time. We cannot exalt God 24/7. Some of us (by which I mean me) cannot sing and clap at the same time; we can sing or we can clap, but not simultaneously. (My wife will object that I cannot sing and sing at the same time, but I am speaking of the process, not the product.) I have students, however, who claim that they must have several activities going on in concert in order to study: they must have music playing and snacks on hand in order to effectively tackle homework. While I am suspect of their study habits, I believe it does allow us to address the issue of how we might be able to accomplish our duty of connecting constantly with God.

Just as my students probably do not actively hear the music in the background as they are writing about imagery in poetry, we may not be actively aware of God in the background as we are doing our sundry tasks during each day. But I am pretty sure that the kind of music that the students listen to as they write influences their products. I am sure that somewhere, sometime, a graduate student has undertaken a study of the influences of types of music on particular tasks. I am aware of the studies that suggest that classical music (specifically Mozart) produces higher level brain functions than popular music (usually heavy metal or rap). I am suggesting that the same is true of our everyday lives. If God is our background music, He will affect the way we do whatever we undertake. We may not be actively thinking about God, but we can still be aware of Him on some level, we can still know that He is there. I believe that this is the way to constantly--past, present, and future--exalt God's name: we do it by making God the focus of all we do. We do it by knowing that He is with us always and that He is connected to all we see, all we think, all we feel, all we do.

Be is a little word, and in this context, at least for me (grammatically), an enigmatic word. But it seems to be an important word, a powerful word. It carries much within its mystery, which makes it appropriate in yet another way for applying to God. Be carries the idea of God (I am) and also the idea of how we are to relate to God. It holds much to think about.

Hallowed

Hallowed is one of those words that people skip over as they read, having a vague sense of what it might mean and figuring that the context will take care of our understanding. It is like prodigal; we hear the story of the prodigal son over and over, but most of us have no idea what the word means. (Prodigal means wastefully extravagent. It may be time to begin using the word beyond its Gospel association; our society seems pretty prodigal at the moment.)

Hallowed means "honored as holy" or "greatly revered." It is not enough to say holy and leave it at that because the point should really be about our attitude toward that holiness. It is like the point often made about believing in God: many people seem content to say that they believe in God, as if that were enough, but Satan believes in God; however, his attitude toward God is not the best. Saying that God--or God's name--is holy is merely stating a fact. We must go further, we must commit to an attitude about that holiness.

So, how do we honor or revere God? Is it something we keep inside us, or do we need to show someone? Is it enough that God knows how we feel, or do we need to share our feelings with others? It would be easy to argue either side of this point: we are admonished that the person who prays loudly in public has already received his reward--but wait, that is the hypocrite who prays loudly; is it the public nature of the prayer or the hypocritical nature of the pray-er that Christ is chastising? That seems to be more to the point. It is not so much how we praise God--what words we use, where we do it, what form it takes--as it is how we do it, as in how we have fixed our heart.

Honoring the holiness of God, giving God our respect, our love, our praise, our all, can take many forms. Yet, it does not have to be formulaic; we don't all have to do it the same way. Some may choose to pray silently. Some may pray their praises loudly, shouting to the Lord. Some may sing. Some cry out from their hearts. Some dance, some bang a gong, some write words on paper. Some share their praises with groups, large or small, and some find a secret place and share only with God. Whatever way we choose to honor our God, we must have one thing--and only one thing--in common. There may be as many ways of praising God as there are individuals who are doing the praising, but they all have one common quality: it has to be sincere.

False reverence is, in most cases probably, too harsh an accusation. At least, intentional false reverence is probably too harsh. Most of us are probably more likely guilty of unintentional false reverence--our hallowed is hollow. We say the words without putting the emotion into them. We do not set out to disrespect God, but how would we feel if someone were talking to us from a script? And we're not talking about Meryl Streep or Russell Crowe reading from a script--we are all too often more like a reluctant middle-schooler reading Shakespeare in class. The words may be there, but where is the heart?

The most important step in honoring God, then, would be to approach God with an attitude that is intentional. We must focus on God and on our relationship with Him. We must praise with our hearts, and our hearts must be filled with love and respect and joy and gratitude. We must place ourselves before God and acknowledge His greatness. A friend of mine, many years ago when we were in college and had time to talk about such things, commented on what he thought was the most impressive aspect of the original Star Trek movie: he observed that the movie was, in one way of looking at things, a study in scale. As the movie begins, we see a person working on the Enterprise, and we are impressed with the size of the star ship. Later, we see the Enterprise dwarfed by the alien ship, and by association we are awed at the sheer size of the latter. In a similar way, we can begin to glimpse the majesty of God by visualizing ourselves on the Earth, then seeing the Earth in the galaxy, and finally placing the galaxy in the known universe. All of this is much like the passage in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, where Rebecca tells George about the letter the minister sent to Jane Crofut, which is ultimately addressed to someplace in God's mind.

But God's greatness is not limited to size or power. Recognizing that Christ is the earthly incarnation of God allows us to perceive that God, even in His glory and majesty, is humble and quiet, that He experiences peace and humility in ways that we cannot. God's greatness extends in all directions; we as humans, and especially we as Americans, are programmed to see greatness mainly in terms of grandeur. Many of the poets see God in the little things. Walt Whitman observed that "a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. . . ."

Once we have realized our feelings toward God, we have to find the ways we will express them. Having the feelings without acting upon them is almost as bad as going through the motions without having the feelings. Acting upon our feelings, this thing of which we speak, can be called praise and worship. It is whatever we do to show honor and reverence to God. As we have already noted, we will each praise and worship in our own way. There is no right and proper way to do this, so long as we are doing it sincerely. (Actually, I have taught enough high school students to know that someone will say, "Oh, I guess that means I can sacrifice kittens," or "Let's sin, but do it with sincere reverence." As I reveal to my students, some questions have many correct or valid answers but have many more wrong answers--and the same applies to our praise and worship. Just because there are a multitude of ways to show our reverence and honor to God, that doesn't mean that there aren't any wrong ways.)

As we pray, we have to pray with feeling. We have to invest ourselves into our prayers. When we can do that, we can truthfully and sincerely intone the word hallowed as it applies to God and His name. We can pray as we were instructed.