When I am anxious to be belittled, I have a remedy to hand. A big company, a utility, a marketing organisation is only too ready to help. It already knows everything about me but it is hungry for more. Easy. It just needs my number. We all have a number. Sometimes it may run to about 45 digits. At the end of the day we are nameless but well numbered.
Every time we make a purchase or make an inquiry we are interrogated about the experience. Was it well done? Did I get prompt attention? Were my needs met? This is so different from going into a shop where we put the cash down and leave with the product. End of story. Go online and the story never ends. The marketeers pester a customer with repetitive dull questioning until they have all the numbers they want.
My name does not come into it. A name is a decorative flourish on a purchasing unit. If it is anything more it is a problem.
Once upon a time a name was an asset. Leonardo, we know, came from Vinci. William came from Ockham. These were men with blood in their veins. People met them in their studios or in the street. Not so today. Dyson, Porsche would, if people had their way become mere numbers – like the schools that some pupils went to. Man united, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal would be deprived of their magic if somebody dared to give them numbers rather than names. Who wrote ‘Gulliver’s Travels’? Number 34. Who wrote or dictated ‘Paradise Lost’? Number 27. So it goes on.
‘Who gave you this Name? comes at the beginning of the BCP (Book of Common Prayer) catechism. The answer comes: ‘My Godfathers and Godmothers’ in my Baptism…’ It continues with the benefits of becoming an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. I.e. it is a God-given name. The catechism comes from days when we were given Christian names, not forenames. It is worth consulting the catechism once in a while.
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