The names we give things – particularly living things – are too short to say what needs to be said.

In Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea, wizards are able to work magic if they know the true name of the thing they wish to enchant.  Everything has a name in the language of the Making as well as its common name.  The word for stone – “tolk” – is part of the name of every stone, but every stone – and every drop of water in the sea – has its own name that describes it completely.  To change something into stone, the wizard casts a spell adding “tolk” to its true name.

The Ents, or tree-shepherds, of Lord of the Rings speak a language of long names, each name the sum of all that makes an individual unique.  If you wish to speak with an Ent, you must be prepared to listen for a long time.  When trees are cut down, Bregalad the Ent laments with a poem, “I came and called them by their long names, but they did not hear or answer.”

The English language has become a language of efficiency. Only with difficulty can we create with it the poetry that truly describes life.  When we speak a name in English, it is as if we start to name it, then change the subject.

Think how long we would have to debate the cutting of a tree if each one had its own name, instead of a value in dollars.  “Allow me to introduce you to Sequoia Nestbearer, who grows along the Eel River, where his roots have spread for 500 years …” continuing with a chronicle of each year.  Even if we somehow justify cutting the tree, what we make of it becomes just a prefix to its true name: “This fence, whose boards were once Sequoia, who grew along the Eel River…”

In English, we need long names to avoid confusion.  Even in this room, if I speak of “George,” “Diane” or “Carol”, I must enlarge the name or you will not know which George, Diane or Carol I mean.

Perhaps we should forego using the short name “Quaker,” since it says so little about who Quakers are.  We could use only the long names of each Quaker, saying them all until we know the true name they have in common.

If we used long names, we would do less stereotyping of each other.  We could not use the short name “terrorist” unless we add “… called Hasan, whose father was taken by the police and never seen again, who cares for his mother until he finds the opportunity to take as many police with him as he can.”

The Christian creeds are an attempt to create a long name for Jesus.  But can we truthfully say that “he sits at the right hand of his Father” is part of that name, or is it a metaphor we have substituted for the true name?  The man named in the creed is not the same man named “Jesus, son of a carpenter of Nazareth, whose teaching was of love, but mistaken for political activism.”

We worship in silence out of recognition that the short names we know are all incomplete, and we wait in silence until a long name – or at least more than a syllable - is given to us to speak.

            -Eric E. Sabelman

              24 April, 2011