What’s in a Name? Perhaps Integrity
Recently, in the space of one afternoon, I visited Milan (not in Italy), Montevideo (not in Uruguay) and Nassau (not in The Bahamas). I did all this as I and a colleague drove around western Minnesota on the way to Madison, which is just a short drive from Appleton, unlike in Wisconsin. And just in case all of that was not enough, there was the South Dakota border, a tantalizing ten miles away. But we resisted because we did not want to overdo it.
I’d never been to that part of Minnesota. While I had heard of Madison, MN, these other towns came as a complete surprise. So I had to wonder what possessed those otherwise sober Norwegian settlers to concoct such an eclectic urban mix out on the prairies. Did they mean it as a long-range urban plan? Was it meant to be a joke? What were these people thinking?
Perhaps they did it with a nod to their neighbors in central Minnesota. Within a stone’s-throw of Saint John’s there are nice German towns like Saint Anna, Saint Wendel, Saint Stephen, Saint Joseph, Saint Augusta and Saint Nicholas. There’s also New Munich and Uppsala, the latter of which is an outlier in anybody’s book. So if people in central Minnesota longed for a bit of Germany, maybe the Norwegians of western Minnesota thought they could do better. They didn’t leave Norway just to replicate it on the prairies. No, perhaps they were inclined to be a bit more adventurous. Perhaps thoughts of South America and the tropics and the Mediterranean may have been coursing through their minds. Perhaps it was no coincidence that all of these places happened to be warm places. Maybe they also thought warm.
Anyway, names bring in their train all sorts of baggage. Well or poorly chosen, they can evoke aspirations that we set for our communities and ourselves. And much like place names, the names we attach to people serve the very same purpose. Names tell others who we think we are and what we hope to become, and they remind us of the dreams which we fashion for ourselves.
When there’s a disconnect between who we claim to be and who we really are, then we generally fool no one, except maybe ourselves. In the gospels Jesus railed against the hypocrisy of those whose personal disparities were so glaring. These were people who cut themselves lots of slack but expected an awful lot from the people around them. Some of these people even accused Jesus of hypocrisy as he hung on the cross. “He saved others, but he cannot save himself.”
Given all that, in the Easter season it’s paramount that if we claim to be Christian then we should actually give it our best shot. We need to align our name with the reality of our lives. So it is that if we believe that what we do for the least of people we are doing for Jesus himself, then we should act that way. If the Beatitudes are the Christian equivalent of the Ten Commandments, then it might be nice to read up on them every now and again.
In theory, of course, this sounds easy; but for all of us there are days when it’s a real challenge. It’s a comfort to know that we’re not alone in this struggle, however. As the Acts of the Apostles relate, it took the followers of Jesus years to come to terms with who they would be called and how that name would shape their lives. Only in time did they realize they would be Christians and not Jews and that they would have to translate this into a way of life.
Selecting a personal brand is the fad of the moment, and in one sense that’s okay. However, if our brand is only veneer-thin it advertises the shallowness of our lives to all whom we meet. But choosing to be Christian is more than putting on a mask or adopting a veneer. Our name and our very lives must feed upon one another. They must give rise to a deep and ongoing self-examination. And the product of that exercise is the joy that comes from being truly authentic. We become Christian not only in name but in word and deed.
NOTES
+On May 14th I drove with one of my colleagues from Saint John’s University to meet an alumnus and his wife who live outside of Madison, MN. In the course of the trip we passed through the other towns noted in today’s post. It left me realizing that there is so much of Minnesota that I have yet to see, including the town of Ghent, which was just beyond our reach. As you might expect, it was settled by immigrants from Belgium.
+On May 15th I flew to San Francisco, and on the 16th attended the board of directors meeting of Sacred Heart Schools in Atherton, CA.
+On May 17th I said Mass and gave a talk to members of the Order of Malta who live in Monterey, CA.
+The photos in today’s post show glass made in the 15th and 16th centuries from the cathedral in Milan (in Italy, not Minnesota). At top is Saint Matthew, followed by Jonah preaching to the people of Nineveh, a view of the city of Betulia, and the Tower of Babel. At bottom is an interior shot of the cathedral of Milan. For the record, unlike its namesake in Italy, Milan, MN, is pronounced just as it is spelled: MY-lan, with the accent on the first syllable.
