Inspired

Passengers

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I just watched Passengers.

My reviews would probably be better if I saw these movies when everyone was still interested in them, but that’s what happens when you’re on a tight budget.

I find Space Movies weird. I like Interstellar, I watched Gravity one time, but there’s always a surreal feeling to it.

It’s the opposite of Star Wars, which makes space seem more normal to be in. These movies really empathize how weird it would feel to be in space.

It’s odd, because C. S. Lewis’es idea of space is that it is full. Vibrant. Not an empty vacuum.

And his idea, while seemingly ridiculous at the time, has now some scientific basis. Scientists think space is filled with kinds of matter we can’t identify. They are not sure what it holding everything together anymore. It just is.

Since they aren’t allowed to say God anymore, at least in secular textbooks.

One of the most annoying things about my astronomy class was that every time we got to something that couldn’t be explained, we were not allowed to say God.

Just like in this movie, when Jim is railing at the universe, he is not allowed to call it God.

Yet, the Universe has a sense of humor? How can a thing have a sense of humor?

You might just as well call it God.

If you look for God in nature, you will find Him. You may not find Him quite like how the Bible would describe Him, no one should take Nature as the ultimate authority on God’s character, Nature is fallen, like mankind, and subject to sin and destruction. That’s what Romans would tell us.

Christianity explains why Nature is both cruel and kind, light and dark, creative and destructive, wise and yet senseless. It’s because it reflects us, the same battles we find inside. Why we use nature for analogies, like having “stormy” feelings, or a “sunny” personality.

Space movies (and books perhaps) seem to capture the human feeling of being lost and overwhelmed by what we find around us. Yet, what we find is beautiful, terrifying, and full of wonder.

Without a personal touch, it seems empty and meaningless.

It’s not much of a stretch to say Passengers mirrors the Adam and Eve story, though it also adds the redemption story to it, self sacrifice, and the power of choice.

A chosen fate seems more bearable than one forced on us.

I don’t know if discussing Jim’s earlier actions in a moral light is what I want to do, they were bad, but not entirely unexpected. The important thing is, once he actually learned to love, he made the right choice. The same with Aurora.

The tree symbolism brings the Garden of Eden story into play too.

The message of the movie seems to be two-fold, that nothing happens without a reason, and that paradise is where you make it. That Love makes the difference between heaven or hell on earth–or in space.

I do not agree 100% with  the idea that we can make our own paradise, but I do agree that love makes even a bare spaceship into a garden of life, and that was a fitting way to show it.

It takes both the higher purpose of saving all the other people, and the smaller choice to stay with the other person to make the redemption complete.

A good metaphor for life, in it’s way. Two people united for the good of all is what marriage is meant to look like, and certainly what I hope mine will be.

It’s a sentimental movie, but that is by design. Not sure I would watch it again, I do not like sad stories, but it was worth checking out.

A closing thought from G. K. Chesterton: The only way to feel at home in the universe is to also feel like a stranger in it. (I paraphrase what he says in his book Orthodoxy.)

You could say, through this world, all of us are just passengers. On our way to either the worst possible disaster, or paradise. Our choice.

Until next time–Natasha.

The 39 Clues to Family.

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So, I’ve been rereading an old favorite series of mine called The 39 Clues. Only the first ten books, it got weird, dark, and gritty after that.

But the first ten books were actually brilliant in their own way, the series went wrong because it deviated from their theme. They were concerned with the actual clues.

Let me summarize if you are not up on the plot (and the books aren’t all that well known so don’t feel bad if you aren’t.) Our main characters are Amy and Dan Cahill, they belong to an old and powerful family of over 500 years of being the most gifted, powerful individuals in the world. Many famous historical figures were supposedly Cahills; but, thankfully, this is not your typical Illuminati type story.

Instead of trying to rule the world, the Cahills contribute to it, with arts, science, strategy, inventions, and impressive physical feats like scaling Mt. Everest. The Cahill family has 5 branches, four of which have a them that relates to some particular gifting. Strategy and Cunning is one; Intelligence in inventing and science is another; Creativity in the arts; and physical prowess.

Amy and Dan start off not knowing about any of this, or what the family’s big secret it is. Or that the 5th branch, is one without a particular gifting, but they do have a focus: Reconciliation. Because, like most families, the Cahills a have a lot of junk and an ongoing feud of five centuries full of blood, backstabbing, and theft, all in a quest for power.

(Spoilers if you read past this point, but the books have been out for so long, I doubt it matters.)

The secret turns out to be a serum that give you all the gifts I listed above, the four branches each got one fourth of it, but the completed serum would make you a better superhuman than Captain America…and also corrupt you.

Amy, in book 10, reflects that she’s glad she and Dan come from the Madrigals, the branch without serum in their DNA, because though it does not make you evil, it does make the temptation to power hunger so much stronger. Messing with genetics is never a good idea and never without its drawbacks.

However, Madrigals, like most different groups, are hated by the rest of the branches, who also hate each other. So, she and Dan don’t broadcast their heritage till it unfortunately comes out by circumstances beyond their control…or fortunately, as it turns out.

Long before then, Amy and Dan learn that their parents were part of the clue hunt, and were killed by the mother of two of their rivals, Ian and Natalie Kabra, Isabel Kabra, the culprit, is a psychopath in fine degree. Who tries then to kill Amy and Dan several times, enlisting the aid of her children, who blindly assume she is not actually going to go throug with it.

Amy at first hates Isabel when she finds out, and almost gets Dan killed by angering the woman; but then she ends up being given the chance to either get ahead in the game, or to save the life of Ian, who by the way, pretended to like her and then dumped her and tried to bury her alive…yeah, nice guy.

Amy has just found out she’s a Madrigal at this point, and that they are supposed to be evil, even that her parents were supposedly responsible for a lot of the deaths of innocent people (they are later cleared, but she did not know this yet,) and yet she drops the item that would give her the huge advantage, and saves Ian.

She later tells Dan what is one of the most important themes in the series: I saved Ian, I can’t be inherently evil. Just because we’re madrigals, doesn’t mean we still can’t be good. (Not a direct quote by the way, just a paraphrase.)

Amy and Dan become full Madrigals and learn their branches true task, but they are not sure they can embrace it and try to unite the branches, because they are not sure they can forgive them. In the end, though, they realize that this is what they want to do.

But how? And that is what begins my look at what these books got right.

As I reread book 1, it struck me how the series is a perfect illustration of a thing that Christians call “Generational Sins.” Or, “Generational Curses.”

The idea comes from a verse in the Bible where it says God is a jealous God, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.” (Deuteronomy 5:9.)

Science has, in the last century, proven what was obvious long before then, that families pass down sins.

In L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series, it becomes a running joke about certain families, like Sloans, Pyes, Pringles, Drews. Macallisters, and so on. Each family has characteristics, sometimes shown by physical appearance like goggle eyes, other times jut a reputation for pride and nastiness.

It’s not contested much in the books, but it’s the idea. It’s also part of the Classic Southern Mindset about old families. And the English idea of needing to marry into a respectable family. It’s in nearly every culture.

Yet outside of medical issues, it can be completely ignored in American culture. Or if it isn’t, the reason for it escapes people.

The verse above says God punishes the the third and fourth generation’s sins. Which seems unfair, at the time however, there was no way to get rid of sin, and it would be passed down. Adam and Eve tainted the whole human race by sinning, it has become part of our DNA. (Seeing the connection?)

God later promises to no longer punish children for their father’s sins, once they have been redeemed from sin’s power. Then people will stand on their own merit. Even pre-Christ, there were times when the children of a wicked man would turn out good.

The same sins tend to get repeated. Alcoholism can be genetic, so can other addictions, or tenancies. We’ve all heard “You have our father’s temper” or something like that said to us or our friends.

I have an odd mix of my dad and mom’s tempers, so I get it both ways.

It doesn’t take Amy and Dan Cahill long to notice that each branch of their family is subject to certain kinds of cruelty. Whether it’s by manipulation, inventing things that destroy, abusing creative power, or being violent, yet cruelty and callous disregard for life are the common thread. Even though some Cahills are good and kind, there are far too many like that. And they see the same flaws in their family members on the quest.

Pride is a big part of it also. Big shock there.

Amy and Dan don’t have a lot of knowledge or wisdom about what to do, but they end up dong some things right by accident.

Time and again in the clue hunt they spare people’s lives, or help them when they do not have to, or refuse to play dirty;  ultimately Amy even chooses saving someone over getting the serum.

At first the other competitors look down on them for this…but overtime as Amy and Dan continues to pull ahead, and also to prove themselves compassionate, the other members of the family begin to wonder. Why are they trying to kill each other? (Good question right?)

They start to see the real difference between them and Amy and Dan. A difference of heart.

In the end the difference becomes crystal clear, and they all decide to follow Amy and Dan’s lead in trying to forgive and reconcile.

Generational sins suck,majorly. All of us have our own flaws, bu it can be discouraging to realize we have family flaws too. Ones we’re taught, that come out when we least expect, and that seem ingrained in us. Even in our DNA.

Like Ian and Natalie Kabra in book 10, we may have a shocking realization of how messed up our family actually is.

Like Hamilton, we may start to feel guilty for all we did with our family, blindly believing they were right.

Like Jonah Wizard, we may be horrified at the cruelties we’re capable of, and want to shake our family line.

Or, we may be the peacemaker, wondering why our relatives just can’t let go of their hate and envy.

Whatever position you find yourself in, these books provide at least part of the answer. IT is only by practicing compassion, and making a choice to extend mercy, that we can begin to heal.

When a person who has been severely wronged still decides to be merciful, it is one of the most powerful things int he world. Pride breaks, fear dissolves, curses end, and depression lifts.

Mercy is not pretending someone never did wrong, it is giving them the chance to be better by setting them free of your wrath for it.

That is all I’ve got for now, I recommend checking the series out, until next time–Natasha.

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Why do opposites attract?

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I’m back with another anime inspired post.

In all fairness, this is really more of an idea I’ve had for a long time, that anime just happens to highlight, as well as many other shows and books.

You ever wonder why opposites attract?

It’s something most people know, though some of us may not have experienced it, and it works with friends and family as well as romantic interests.

 Why is it a law of nature? It goes beyond magnetism. The whole world is full of opposites. The ground soaks up water, water is absorbed, they have opposite properties. Same with plants and sunlight, one receives, the other gives. We breathe in the oxygen that plants give out, they take in the carbon monoxide (or dioxide, I forget which is from breathing) that we give out.

The clear reason here is that there is a need, if everything was the same, it could not grow or multiply.

Now you take this to the relationship between a man and a woman, and it gets way more complicated.

I remember once starting that “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” book, but I couldn’t get into it, it was so stupidly simplistic. It attributed all the differences between men and women to superficial signs of those differences. What always happens with books/movies about this subject is the author ends up looking dumb because there are scores of women who start offering up examples of how they do not fit the model.

In their brilliant book Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge begin the book about women with an acknowledgement that women can love anything from tea parties to hunting, dress up to canoeing, and that all this does not really make you feminine, but why you do those things might.

I am not going to go into all that, but I highly recommend the book, or searching for their talks on YouTube.

The real point I had was that they are realistic, they know you can’t put women into a box, or men for that matter. I just want to make it clear that this opposites attract thing is not solely about gender. Gender in the sense of hormones, sexual functions, and physical attributes that is; though they all play a small part.

But I mean in personality. Why do opposites attract?

The question is easier to understand when you realize that they don’t always, sometimes like forces do attract, many people prefer to hang around those with similar personalities. I don’t, generally, I don’t meet too many people like me; but sometimes I do and it’s kind of gratifying.

Which actually concerns me, because if I am only drawn to someone because they are like me, is that because it’s easier?

It’s not a secret that people round each other out. The Bible calls it “iron sharpens iron” and “two are better than one.” The Bible also says that the first two people were man and woman, by the way, so there is optimal companionship possible between the opposite genders.

Where this ties in to anime and other shows is in the shipping.

Mock me if you wish, but I persist in thinking that shipping basically reflect a person’s values where romantic relationships are concerned. I am only getting more convinced with time that what kind of fan you are is very telling about your character, but I can save that for another post. The point is, people who ship things for the wrong reasons, or who just don’t care, can take the same attitude toward real relationships.

I will not say there are never exceptions, but it’s the more common rule.

One of my favorite kinds of ships I’ve mentioned before are the opposites attract kind. But I recently got a new insight into how deep that goes.

Often people think opposites attract means your personalities have to be opposites. Two cheerful people won’t attract. Two serious people won’t. However, I find that untrue, in shipping and in life. Many couple are composed of two goofier, laid back people. Int hose cases, however, one person is always more so than the other, there is never complete similarity.

Where the opposite really is important is far more interesting, actually. It has to be in character flaws.

This sounds obvious, but it trips people up, let me tell you. Especially in real life, because honestly, it’s easier to see why two fictional people are too much alike than it is when complicated feelings are int eh way in the real world.

You can have two entirely different personalities, but have the same basic flaws.

And for an example here I am going to turn to the very popular My Hero Academia. (Sorry non-fans, but bear with me, I think you can still follow along.)

The three main characters of this show are Midoryia (better known as Deku), Todoroki, and Bakugo. I will spare you the long version of who they are, all that you need to know is that these three have entirely different personalities; yet the show/manga over time shows us that their basic character flaws can be oddly similar. Though Deku veers more to the lack of confidence in his abilities, and the other two veer more to lacking confidence int heir own characters, but all three end up feeling guilty for things they really shouldn’t; and heaping on the shame and self-loathing because of that. The way they express it is completely different for each. But even the other show characters note how similar they are at the core of the issue.

In the same way, people can have very different personalities, as men and women, and yet their insecurities, flaws, and foibles may be pretty much the same.

On the same show, Deku often gets paired up with Uraraka, a girl who has a similar personality, in that she’s sweet, and innocent.

A lot of people hate this ship simply because they seem so similar, but upon further consideration, I realized that they really aren’t. They might both be positive, and that is a good thing, but Uraraka does not live on Guilt Trip lane, nor does she often feel as disappointed with herself as Deku. She has her own flaws, but they are not the same as his, in some ways, they actually are opposites. Deku does not really like conflict, she thinks it is fun or impressive.

Anyway, I hope that made my point. You can apply this to any couple really. Look at your own parents for crying out loud. Mine are certainly total opposites in flaws, though they share many beliefs and values.

It is true that having opposite flaws often includes opposite personalities, but it does not have to.

And it is important to think about when you are dating someone, because in the end, you want to be with somebody who makes you better.

Did you know that humans have flawed cells in their body? Defective ones? And that it’s why you are not supposed to marry someone closely related to you? It’s because the chances that their defective cells will be the same as yours drastically increases, and that is why siblings marrying almost certainly causes defects, often mental ones, and cousins now, though it did not at one time. Over time as we get more defective cells it’s likely even 2nd and 3rd cousins will be too risky, but here’s the thing, it is far less of a risk if you marry someone not in your family. The risk is almost negotiable then, because it’s unlikely they will have enough of the same defective cells to give your kids problems.

There have been some exceptions, it can occasionally work out, and has in the past between more closely related family; and the problem was once not even there.

Theoretically, Adam and Eve were perfect, no defective cells, and for several generations, the amount of defective cells would have been too small to cause problems with intermarrying. That doesn’t even become wrong in the Bible until after Abraham’s time. Abraham married his half sister, and before you think that’s gross, it was common at that time and in other religions. Also, it did not cause any problems. But later on in the Bible it does become ore of an issue. However, 4,000 years or so ago, it was probably barely a risk.

This is a physical example of a spiritual truth if you think about it. Adam and Eve were without sin, so being exactly the same would not have hurt them. They did not have flaws, or imperfections, so how they matched up didn’t matter. It was only after sin that they develop both the same, and also different flaws, like cowardice, blame-shifting, and shame.

If sin was not a problem, we could all marry anyone we wanted, and not worry about making each other worse. As it is, if you do marry someone not good for you, it is still possible to make it work; it is just harder.

It is never the good qualities in ourselves that we need to worry about matching with. Two negative people should not get together, but two positive people can, it’s not a problem. Provided their positivism is not fake (which is really a flaw then.)

Anyway, I am not trying to start any weird idea that if you and your significant other have some of the same problems it means you can’t be together. I doubt anyone would listen to me anyway if I said that. We will always all be human, we all have insecurities, prejudices, and pride; but if we have different flavors of those things, we can help expose them to the light and make each other better.

That is the real difference to be concerned about, since at the end of the day, superficial stuff is not all that important.

Until Next Time–Natasha.

 

Added to you.

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You know they say God works in mysterious ways.

You look for a job for a year and get nothing, then you agree to help out your friend with ASL, and she offers to pay you for it. You don’t ask, she just offers.

I’m starting to think we really have no control over our employment status. It’s a matter of blessing.

Of course I’m still looking for other work since it’s not enough to pay for my needs, but it sure is better than the flat zero income I had.

I do not have a really long post in mind today, but I would like to talk a little about an oft quoted Bible passage.

Jesus was talking about worrying and he said:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life

….31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6.)

Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these things will be give to you as well.
Some versions say “added to you.”
Christians love to sing about how God is all we need.
And really, it is true, because to have Jesus is to have everything else, and to not have him means to have nothing at all.
Matthew 13:12 “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”
This verse I believe means to whoever has God, faith, and wisdom (in the context of the parable) more of each will be given to them, but if you do not have any of these things, then even the pretense of them, man’s wisdom, man’s assurance, and man’s provision, will be taken away sooner or later.
Maybe not in this life, but in the next.
Personally, I have never worried about money all that much. My family went through some hard financial times for a few years, my dad would often say he did not know if we could keep our house.
And we didn’t.
And if we could buy food, or pay for our vehicles. We still have those thankfully.
I would get worried for a while, but God would remind me of the promises He makes to provide.
Even the poorest Christians have had testimonies of God’s provision.
Some would say we here in the West have no clue what it’s like to be in need, but I think they may be missing the point.
Whatever level of society you are on, certain things are required to maintain it. Middle Class people have different needs than poorer people, and the Rich have different needs than we do.
People who have nothing and live within a community like that need very little to keep that community going by comparison to us. Since they cannot afford things like cars, they form a society where cars are unnecessary.
Here, even the poorest among us sometimes have cars because it is a need in our society to have long distance transportation.
So poverty can be relative to where you live.
I may not be starving, but it doesn’t follow I don’t have needs.
Perhaps I sound privileged, but the circle we are used to tends to contain all our friends, and it can be painful to leave it because of finances. It was very hard to lose our house, though we have never been homeless in the most literal sense, we are in that we don’t own our own home.
I really don’t blame rich people for hanging around each other, who else has common experience with them? Unless you can have a common bond through something besides just being in a similar community (how most school and work friendships are) then who’s to blame you for staying in the one you grew up in?
I have decided to seek the kingdom of heaven first.
What that means to me is, I don’t hesitate to volunteer to do church things, I devote my down time to thins that don’t pay me in money but do have spiritual rewards, I create, I give people gifts.
I try not to worry and instead to thank God for any little income I get. Even if it’s a few dollars gift. and I tithe everything from birthday money to bonus money.
This is not to brag, I just believe it’s what we are supposed to do. Those who are faithful with little will be faithful with much.
And it’s because I have practiced that for years that I feel I have the self-control to tithe even if I got a thousand dollars. It might hurt. I might not like it. But I would do it because it’s a principle to me.
In the meantime, I may want to have spending money, but I am fortunate to be covered in the essentials.
Anyway, I hope this encouraged someone, don’t we all have money problems? Until next time–Natasha.

What’s Your Name?

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“Who can give a man this, his own name?” –George MacDonald. (Unspoken Sermons.)

Hi, I’m back today with a much more mystical subject than I’ve been covering, (and by the way, mystical is not the same as mythical, mystical can be real, but very hard to understand unless you are a Mystic.)

What brought this on was recently watching the Anime Best Picture winner “Your Name.” I was both skeptical and hopeful when I heard about it, and so my siblings and I decided to try it out. We’ve only discovered we like anime over the last year or so, and we’ve been slowly trying different kinds. (I seem to like Slice of Life best aside from the shows I’ve gotten into.) I loved Koe no Katachi, a different anime movie, so I thought, what the heck?

And I thought Your Name was one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen, from a visual and story perspective, though not without its flaws.

However this is not a movie review, watch it if you’re into that sort of thing, otherwise don’t bother, if anime turns you off. But the concept of the movie was something I did want to talk about, because part of what  I liked about it was how similar it was to other things I’ve read, and it’s mostly read, since I’ve seen few movies tackle the subject.

The movie centers around a couple different ideas which I’ll list here for clarity before breaking them down.

  1. The idea that Love transcends Time and Space
  2. The idea that there’s power in knowing someone’s Name.
  3. The idea that people are destined to meet, despite whatever impossible obstacles seem to stand in their way.
  4. The idea that time is interwoven, not just a long line of events.

The first two are the most important, and the ones I feel the most informed of, if you could call it that.

I happen to be a fan of Madeleine L’Engle’s first three books in the Wrinkle in Time series, my favorite out of the three is “A swiftly Tilting Planet,” it’s amazingly complex for such a short book, and it focuses on Joy, and Love, like all three of the books do, as well as Time Travel.

What’s interesting about it is that just like in “Your Name” the boy in this book time travels by going within someone else. Only it is several different people and all male. Also he other person’s conscious remains. he just blends into it, giving them help when he can but only subtly. they can’t know it’s him or it would scare them too badly. It is not possessive, but sharing, like a passing traveler.

The boy, Charles Wallace, goes within for the same reason Taki in the movie does, it is to redeem people and save others. There is a disaster int he book that is going to wipe out the world because of an evil man, and he has to redeem the parents of this man and save some of them also. Taki has only to save an entire town, but it proves just as difficult.

Interestingly, both stories share the theme of someone forgetting quickly as soon as they come out of it, what happened. Only, instead of Charles Wallace forgetting, it’s Meg who is only helping him by a sort of telepathic connection they have (more spiritual than mental) and because she is not there, it fades from her mind. Like a dream. Other characters in the book have dreams that are actually from Charles Wallace’s life, while he is within them.

I find the similarities astounding.

Here we have the idea that lives can be shared across time and space, and it is because of love, joy, and the need for salvation (in every sense of the word) that it happens. We have the idea that our spirits are not bound by time, space, or our minds. Because Meg’s mind may not be able to retain it (her brother has a rare mind that is able to, not many people do) but her heart and spirit can. In the movie, the two people’s minds are only able to remember for a short time what happens, but their hearts and souls remember always.

It’s actually a common idea in Japan that people can be connected and share sorrows and joys, especially with lovers. And the idea is actually not unbiblical. I’ve heard stories of people sharing feelings or some other kind of connection in the spirit, or even physical pain.

But and even more important thing (at least for the average person who probably won’t expereince that kind of trascendential existance in this life) is the second thme. The power of names.

I again turned to L’Engle, this time her second book int he series, A Wind in The Door. In this book Meg learns more about her task in the universe (in Church we would call it spiritual gifting or calling, the secular world also calls it a calling, rather mockingly, but also with some seriousness.) It is to be a Namer, and she does not get it. She asks her teacher about it:

Meg: “Well, then, if I’m a Namer, what does that mean? What does a Namer do?”

Proginoskes: “When I was memorizing the names of the stars, part of the purpose was to help them each to be more particularly the particular star each one was supposed to be. That’s basically a Namer’s job. Maybe you’re supposed to make earthlings feel more human.”

He goes on to explain that their enenmies, the Echthroi, are trying to destroy the world by doing just the opposite:

“I think your mythology would call them fallen angels. War and hate are their business, and one of their chief weapons is un-Naming – making people not know who they are. If someone knows who he is, really knows, then he doesn’t need to hate. That’s why we still need Namers, because there are places throughout the universe like your planet Earth. When everyone is really and truly Named, then the Echthroi will be vanquished.”

In “Your Name” the problem is not that the characters forget who they are, but that they forget each other, every time the barrier of time is reinstated between them, they forget. And eventually forget even that there was a person they were trying to remember. Though they have a vague idea that they are always searching for someone or somewhere or something. Because they cannot remember the name they don’t know who each other are. It echoes L’Engle’s idea so closely, it’s bizarre.

Knowing your own name is important, so is knowing other people’s. But why?

George MacDonald had some very profound thoughts about this, in his Unspoken sermon about names he notes that the names we give each other are just shadows of what a real name is, since the real name, that God will give us at the end of time, is one only he and we will know, and only that one person will have.

“The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the being, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man’s own symbol,–his soul’s picture, in a word,–the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is, or even, seeing what he is, could express in a name-word the sum and harmony of what he sees.” 

(Link to the full sermon here: http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/unspoken-sermons/5/)

Taki and Mitsuha are not names that sum up who they are exactly.

Mitsuha means “third leaf” and is similar to her grandmother’s, mother’s and sister’s names, which are first leaf, second leaf, and fourth leaf, in that order. It symbolizes he place in the story as a carrier on of tradition, but not her personality.

Taki means waterfall or water plunging. He does plunge into water in a sort of vision in the movie, and that is when he is able to save Mitsuha and her village by switching with her one last time. But it doesn’t sum him up.

In the end, that’s not really the point. The names in the movie do just what MacDonald points out our human names for each other are meant to do, identify us to ourselves. Help us distinguish each other, honor each other, and of course, remember who is who.

But as MacDonald and L’Engle both point out, there’s a higher reason for names. Names carry our identity.

My full name (which I don’t use on this blog and won’t actually give here for privacy reasons) mean “joy/rejoicing, Christ’s Birthday, and guardian/one who guards or protects.” If you knew me in real life, it makes sense. Even on this blog, it makes sense.

I’ve been told many times my name was no accident. Not everyone is blessed with a good name. In India many girls are cursed with a name that means “unwanted” there’s a group that takes in some of these girls and allows them to legally change their name into something better. If your name has absolute no positive connotations, I’d suggest you consider going by something else, but most names do have some good meaning.

Why is it important?

It might surprise you.

In the Bible a lot of stress is put on names, I’d say more than almost any other religion. Names are seen as so powerful that priests could not even write the full name of God because it was so holy, they abbreviated it to “Yah.” The bible doesn’t actually say not to write God’s name, that I know of, it’s more of a Hebrew culture thing added later, but that is how seriously they take it.

The second commandment is not to misuse the name of God. Sadly, even Christian often don’t take this one seriously.

But even so, other names have power. Abigail’s husband Naboth, who disrespected King David, name means fool. Sometimes bible names come to mean that thing because of the bearer (I think Ruth is like this, it mean friend), but Abigail tells David he is just as his name suggests, meaning it already meant that and his parents clearly sucked.

Judah means “praise,” and David was of the tribe of Judah, as was his son Solomon, both of whom wrote psalms and considered worship to be very important.

Jesus means “deliverer”, Emmanuel means “God with us.”

The list goes on and on and on, any important Bible figure almost always has a name that connects to their purpose. Noah means “rest or peace”, Jacob means “usurper”, Moses means “drawn out”, and if you know their stories, it all makes sense.

But even more importantly God himself tells us names are important.

Phil 2:9 “Therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.”

In Exodus 3:15, He tells Moses his name is I Am Who I Am (Yahweh) “This is My name forever.”

Google verses about names if you want an even more in depth list, but even this tells us names can be eternal, and higher, and powerful. Names mean authority.

Heck, everyone knows this, think of even a couple hundred years ago when black people had “slave names”, names usually not in proper English, that they would change when they were freed or they would finally get a last name like a legal citizen would have. Changing the name was a sign of being able to be though of as an intelligent human being. Even before they really were, by most people.

Even in fiction, every writer knows, names are important. My character’s names always come to me, and then unless I use them, no other name will stick in my head. After awhile I started looking up the names when this happened and was shocked to discover that (at least when they were real and not made up ones) each name had a meaning that matched the purpose I had for the character, and something about their personality too.

Even when we don’t know a meaning, a name has immense power. There’s a whole cultist idea about this, but let me say, names don’t dictate everything. They help, sure, but you still choose what you do with your name. So don’t worry about it if your name has a personality associated with it that you don’t like. (I prefer not to look into that stuff at all, I stumbled on some by accident. It was scarily accurate in some ways, but wrong in others. No one can fully predict who you will be except God.)

Well, this ran long because of all the quotes, but it was interesting. I hope it inspired you to go look up what your name means, it might surprise you. And until next time–Natasha (Christ’s Birthday.)

True Strength.

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Let’s talk about strength.

Strength gets defined a lot of different ways.

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