Renaming

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 14 May 2014.

We've already mentioned that renaming is related to the theme of becoming one's true self (or not).

Let's categorize a little further and say that some characters did that in a good way, others in a bad way. Anyone who renamed themselves or was renamed for worldly purposes suffers a worldly demise. Anyone who renamed themselves such that they "might live for God" is saved. So, they can say with St. Paul (another renamed one) in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.

Conversion of St. Paul

This is again related to that fine line of being humbled, becoming nothing, losing one's identity, having it replaced and/or subsumed by something else. Something about that is necessary for us as human beings; we can't avoid undergoing that process.

Maybe it's some kind of nod to the nothingness whence we sprang.

Interestingly, the ones who try to stake a claim to permanence in this life are the ones who go down to the pit. Even Joe Lazarus, who only sought to solidify his sobriety by changing his last name, suffers this demise. Rather than living his recovery each day buoyed (note: water verb) by God's grace, he sought to make it an accomplishment, an achievement, a "done deal."

There's a lot that can happen with the motif of water here (as opposed to land, which is representative of the world, of ambition, of manifest destiny, of the American dream). We have to "put out into the deep" (Lk. 5:4). We need to be buried with him baptism (Col. 2:12). We also know that water is home to sea devils, Scylla, Charybdis, Leviathan. Interestingly, it is the agent of our salvation, but also commonly associated with utter destruction, as in Psalm 69.

Ultimately, it is the primordial chaos:

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind [ruah elohim] swept over the waters.  Then God said, "Let there be light." (Gen 1:1-3)

So, why does it continue to play a role--no, even more--a central role in our salvation? Why not have it be like Marduk: he splits the female water deity in two and that's the end of it? There's something in this crux that reveals the truth of the Christian religion, the very thing that makes its genius superior to all that have come before or since. After that, of course, God names some stuff. Then he allows his greatest creature, man, do the same. Haven't we put all that water in the rearview? And if not, why not?

Short answer: our God is an awesome God.