While working with teenagers I was often asked very strange questions that would catch me completely off guard or leave me on the floor laughing hysterically. However, one day I was asked a very serious question by one of the guys. He asked, “Would you ever consider changing names with me?” I didn’t really understand why he asked this question or what he was getting at. However, I was somehow able to quickly respond with, “Of course not! My name has my story in it.” I didn’t really see the magnitude of my statement until I looked a little closer at what I had said.
Our name attaches us to a story. Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, our neighbor, and every other human who has ever lived and will live in the future. We all have a name. We all have a story. We all are a story.
As represented in a few names listed before, our stories can and do look very different. Our stories can be ugly and full of hate, or joyful and full of hope. We may be able to empathize or feel that we understand someone else’s story, but in the end it is not our own. We can only observe and feel the repercussion of the ink being splattered or carefully and beautifully scripted on the pages of the constantly expanding or shrinking chapters being written. We can easily look at someone else’s story and feel that we have them figured out; we judge them by their actions or what they say. This may hold some truth and it is obvious that our actions hold a lot of weight in representing who we are. However, how often do we know someone’s name, but not their story? We know what we’ve heard about them through the grapevine, but we don’t really know their story. We know that they were arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, but the part we don’t know is that the young man never had a father to teach him how to work and the bread was for his mother who is unable to get to the store because she can no longer walk. We know that he was arrested for fighting in school, but do we know that in the limited time he had with his father, much of that time was spent being beaten every night? Yes, once again, we can look at the name. We can look at the outside and we can judge. I often do. But we have to see deeper, we have to get to know the stories of those around us. We must be willing to allow them to feel that we will allow them in without judgment; that their mess is not too much; that they are not just a name, but they are a story that is still being written. Their past does not have to be their future, and their future does not have to be their past.
After my initial confusion and answer I realized that what I was really being asked was, “Can I switch from my story to yours?” He wanted to have my story. He wanted to be out of where he was; he wanted to be rid of his pain. I think this is also my response to seeing the stories that others are living. I want their story. I want to steal their pages.
Ink is often messy. People are often messy. I am often messy. We must continue to write our own and also read those stories being written all around us.
