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 What’s
in a name? Well, don’t sell one short just because you do not
understand “what’s in” it. While in a meeting in Kentucky,
we had visitors from Bear Wallow, Mud Lick, Dry Fork, Cyclone,
Lamb, Free Will, Flipin, and many others. Each of these likely
had some appropriateness in the time and circumstance of its
beginning. (You Texans from “Cut And Shoot” may laugh at my
home state, if you have the gall.)
According
to Joe Creason (Courier — Journal) one old timer was really
“put out” with the Highway Dept. when he saw a new sign: “Litter
Barrel, 1/4 Mile.” “Why that community has been called
Kellytown ever since I can remember,” he fumed.
A
good honest name like “Mud Lick” (and I knew it in the
Ante-Pavement days) faces up to facts. There is no effort to
hide the truth, nor to glamorize the failing, to attract these
Americana-mad tourists. If you like it, come and sit a spell; if
not, move on to Dry Fork, or Eighty Eight.
Seems
to me this sophisticated age has unduly complicated the name
game. What became of Cloverine Salve? It is replaced by
Suiphathiozol; or Chymar, containing Neomycin Palmitate,
Hydrocortamate Hydrochloride with 10,000 units of
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Proteolytic activity. That’s good for
a sore, maybe.
Oh
well, I suppose accurate labeling demands such detail. If the
plainness of Mud Lick, and the accuracy of Cyclopentanoper-
hydrophenanthrene were applied to church-goers,
we might come up with some names that really have something “in”
them.
For
example, No-interest-comes-to- please-his-wife Charlie,
Do-it-my-way or I’ll quit Robinson, and Gives-a- Dollar Dan.
On the brighter side but short of the mark, would be
See-my-new-hat Susy, Always-gone-a- visiting Joe, and
Sermon-sleeper Sam.
Or
we could take a second look at the name God has given His
followers, and realize that it also has “something in it.”
The disciples were called “Christians”. (Acts 11:26) Is this
as meaningless as popular usage makes it, or does “A-follower-of-
Christ” mean “A follower of Christ”?? (Read 1 Pet.
4: 12-16)
With
half the honesty of Mud Lick settlers, we wouldn’t call
ourselves “christians,” and act like the devil.
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