The names we choose are important.  There is so much associated with the naming of a business, an event, etc.….a child.  Many times the names we use tell a lot about how we “perceive” that which we are talking about – be it a person, place, thing, or event.  This nomenclature issue played a somewhat significant role recently in this country’s political process, regarding differing opinions about political correctness.  The names we give to things and to each other can be dehumanizing and divisive, empowering and unifying, or sometimes indifferent.  Name-calling as we find in our world today tends to paralyze and stultify us in patterns of force that drive us apart rather than drawing us together.  As I write this reflection, I am aware that my choice of the words to use to name what it is that I am trying to express can carry a lot of “weight.”  Ultimately, words and naming always come up short on expressing the ultimate mysteries that touch our lives, such as God, Love, death and suffering.  That being said, words and names do help us to engage in life in the ways that can be productive and hopeful.

In today’s Scriptural Readings (Acts 22: 3-16), we have Paul, also named Saul, recapitulating his “conversion” story.  He starts with describing how as a well-educated Jew, he personally persecuted the New Way “to death,” intentionally seeking out and imprisoning those who were following the Way of Christ.  It was precisely on one of these determined campaigns to reign in the apostates to the Jewish religion and culture, on his way to Damascus, that “Saul” had his conversion:

“On that journey…about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I replied, ‘Who are you, sir?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.’

…I asked, ‘What shall I do, sir?’ The Lord answered me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.’ Since I could see nothing because of the brightness of that light, I was led by hand by my companions and entered Damascus.”

So, here we have Saul, blind to the fact of what he had been doing, now literally blind, confronted by the voice of Jesus Christ, who identifies himself as Jesus.  It is important to note that the confrontation is initiated by Christ, who asks the question, “Why are you persecuting ME?”  This is a BIG “ME.”  Saul has been rounding up every possible follower of the “New Way” and, at the least, having them imprisoned.  This was his total focus – to limit through imprisonment, those who were following the way that Jesus had shown.  And now Jesus was identifying His very Self with those whom Saul was persecuting!  Jesus was naming Himself as those persecuted. This must have been quite a revelation to the person who stood watching – and collecting the cloaks of those who participated in – the stoning of the first martyr, Stephen.  If I were Saul, I’m not sure that sight would have been the only sense to be affected by such an experience!

So, Saul is assisted by his companions into Damascus to receive “instruction” on what he needs to do from somebody he does not know…

“A certain Ananias…came to me and stood there and said,

‘Saul, my brother, regain your sight.’ And at that very moment I regained my sight and saw him.

Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice; for you will be his witness before all to what you have seen and heard. Now, why delay?

This is quite a conversion story.   What I find interesting about it is that Saul is not alone in this experience, even though those around him may not have experienced it the same way.  Everyone has a part to play, whether it be to escort Saul into Damascus, or be the mouthpiece to “instruct” Saul on what he needs to do.

So, why did Saul’s name change to Paul?  We don’t hear those specifics in the story.  Some claim that he chose the Greek name Paul in place of Saul to represent the expansion outward of his “mission,” from strictly the Hebrew people, to all peoples of the world!  It may be beneficial for us to reflect on Saul and Paul, not as a Jekyll and Hyde split personality, but as two poles of possibility that we all live within through our struggles and joys in life.  We vacillate between how we identify with who we are in terms of our personal lives and who we are in our communal lives.  Through conversion(s) we have the possibility not so much to move from one pole to the other, i.e. from “bad” to “good,” but perhaps to bring the two together. These conversions can be dramatic or simply catching ourselves in a familiar habit.  In either form, they have the potential to be simply “nominal” or horizon-transforming!

So, was Paul’s conversion, simply nominal, or even limited only to a turn from persecution of the New Way to an active ministry to promote the New Way?  It seems that it came from a deeper place than simply the images that we hear in the story.  He suddenly was able to see and hear things differently than he had before. All that was familiar to him now looked new and exciting.  Note also that it was precisely his encounter with Christ, which was contextualized within stubborn hard-headed and indeed violent ignorance –feeling oh so comfortable, because it could be “justified” by patterns of familiarity – that opened up a new horizon or environment (perspective) from which he could live and now Love.

Hmmm…I wonder how I have been “converted” or am being “converted.”  How rigid am I when I jump to judgment of others and their behavior when it does not coincide with what I think is correct or appropriate?  Do I really listen when someone is telling me something that sounds foreign, or even irritating to me?  Or do I rest in the laurels of confirmed and legitimized mores, without even considering the possibility that there could be more?  Do the names I give to people and things only serve to label something in familiarity or allow the “otherness” of diversity to speak to me on its own terms that can invite me to see, hear, touch, and embrace in new and transforming ways?

I remember when I was asked to provide a confirmation name for a very dear person I was sponsoring.  I picked “Paul.”  At first, the confirmation candidate was puzzled and indeed offended a bit at my suggested name.  After reflecting and reading on Paul and his life, he became more comfortable with the name. I believe he began to see a fuller picture of this person Saul/Paul and could relate in some ways to this dynamic character.

I am so thankful for Paul – for the Spirit he allowed to flow into his pig-headed ignorance.  I admire his fiery spirit that disrupted the status quo of religion as usual by digging deeper into the true treasures of what faith and love and compassion can mean.  Most of all, I am thankful because Paul gives me and I think all of us hope on both a personal and communal level.  And the hope is that we can be transformed in our blindness, healed by hearing and being led forward in a Spirit of Compassion, coming from others, to an all-inclusive mission of convicted healing.

To be led means to “name” each other lovingly and allow others to do the same for us.  We can only authentically lead insofar as we are willing to be led or “named” by the compassion and wisdom that comes to us on a daily basis through everyone and everything else on the journey with us.

“Now why delay?”

Peace

Thomas

The soul is the delicate yet durable cloth  woven and laced together in loving pattern  by the merciful strokes of God’s Passings…
    And the sheen of our soul is the ever-glowing  awareness we have of this sacred-stitched fabric.