Genesis is about births and beginnings — the creation of Adam and the inauguration of Adam’s work in the world.
So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all wild animals…
God gives to Adam the authority to name the world. “Whatever the man called each of them would be its name.” It is this authority God gives to each mother and father of each newborn child, the authority to name the world. Gift or possession, blessing or curse, human or alien: The names we bestow remain. The names we bestow shape for life the way a child sees the world and moves in the world, working in the world for the life of the world, or hiding from the world.
When God creates a woman as partner for the man, He does not withhold the power to name. The man calls her “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” that is, kin, and not other, not alien or stranger, but one like himself.
When our youngest, Andrew, was in kindergarten, we spent much of that December reading stories of seasonal feasts. We read about Lucy and the way her feast is kept in northern climes, just the way we kept the feast in our house. We read about Mary hurrying to the hill country to share the good news of her pregnancy with Elizabeth. We read about Nicholas, his courage in the face of evil and his care — always — for children in need. And we read about Hanukkah, the festival of lights, and of the miracle that happened in the Temple when the Maccabees and their followers reclaimed it and re-dedicated it for worship.
One December morning in Andrew’s kindergarten class, Mrs. Wright asked her students if any of them would be celebrating Hanukkah. He raised his hand. Andrew knew the story, he told her, he knew about the lights lit and burning for eight days on only one day’s worth of oil. He knew about the dreidel and the chocolate coins covered in gold paper. He knew about the menorah.
Later that week I met Mrs. Wright in the grocery store. She said, “I didn’t know you were Jewish.”
“We’re not,” I replied. “We’re Roman Catholic.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said, “but then Andrew told me he would be celebrating Hanukkah with his family.”
I told her about our story times. I told her we were reading The Power of Light: Eight Stories for Hanukkah by I. B. Singer.
That night, at dinner, I told the family about my conversation with Mrs. Wright. The older children laughed. Andrew started to cry.
His papa explained to Andrew that we are Catholics. We’re Christians. We celebrate the birth of Christ in December.
Andrew cried harder, tears and mucus streaking his face. “I thought we were both,” he said.
I put my little boy to bed that night. His words both wounded and comforted me. “I thought we were both.”
My husband and I divided our childrens’ world into Us and Other more often than we knew, more often than we intended. But the good news is that we did not name the world — and all its animals and all its people — alone. There the were worthy companions, like I.B. Singer, of blessed memory, who helped us on our way. He made the Jewish world of Hanukkah so real and welcoming that our son could not help but see all who keep the feast as like him, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
In the reading from Genesis, we hear that God brought the animals to Adam to be named. There is no suggestion that God brought the animals, then turned around and left. Indeed, we know that the hallmark of life in the garden is the nearness, the physical communion of God and the man and woman. God is with Adam as he begins his work.
And that is my prayer for parents about the work of naming the world: May God be with you as he was with Adam in the garden. May God send you worthy companions for the work. And may you name the world aright. May we name the world aright.
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