Juliet:

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? . . . ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. There’s truth there, isn’t there? But,not the whole truth. If only it were that simple, Juliet! What’s in a name? Lots! For us human beings our names are primarily about relationship. They are part of the complex web of interactions that make us who we are . . . not objects, but living, breathing, hoping, hurting, thinking, feeling beings. Names are about identity. (Now, that’s a trendy word: identity.) And, identity is much about who does the naming.

So, I wonder, who are you?

Samuel has been getting into an online game called GeoGuessr lately. It’s quite simple really: you are given a completely random location from Google Streetview and you have 30 seconds to guess where you are. The more accurate the guess the more points you get. The tricky part is that your snapshot could be anywhere in the world, and often all you see is desert, or scrub, or featureless plain with no other landmarks. You literally have to ask yourself, “Where on earth am I?”

Perhaps that’s a question for us as we come to the close of one year and begin another: Where are you? Where do you need to be? Are you sure? Or, is it just a guess?

Feel free to ponder that question any way you choose: geographically, professionally, emotionally, spiritually, etc.

Where on earth am I?

A couple of weeks ago Sam and I were playing GeoGuessr together. We were struggling to identify any of the locations. Our opponent was well ahead. Then, on the screen, up came a location we recognized: Waikerie Lutheran Church. Out of all the possible random locations in the world! If there is any grace in GeoGuessr, that was it!

We knew exactly where we were.

Sometimes a picture speaks more than words