Episode 47: Have You Forgotten Your Name

[00:00:00] What in life deserves our time and attention, and what things don't? I hope that as we consider that question, along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones - "Have You Forgotten Your Name."

When I was younger, I used to watch a popular Japanese [00:00:30] anime movie called "Spirited Away." I'm not generally a fan of that genre, but this particular film is a standout for me. It's steeped in Japanese cultural references from the past and has themes of childhood, modernization, gluttony, and more. The artwork alone is really quite striking.

And one of the underlying focuses of the movie has to do with Japan, forgetting who it is, and the loss of Japan's spirit, both [00:01:00] figuratively and literally. The setting for the story is an ornate bathhouse, where the spirits of the world think, River spirits or spirits of radishes and other inanimate objects that you wouldn't usually think to assign a spirit to.

It's where they come to cleanse themselves and relax before returning back into the world. The main character is a little girl who accidentally wanders into this spirit realm with her parents. And shortly after arriving in this [00:01:30] strange place, the girl's parents are turned into pigs. And she finds herself working as a servant in the bathhouse.

The overall plotline centers around her efforts to save her parents and to escape the bathhouse. It's a strange movie, but it's strange in a beautiful way. The bathhouse is controlled by a witch who's not exactly evil incarnate, but is definitely selfish. In order to control the spirits and people that work for her, she makes them [00:02:00] sign a contract when they first come asking for a job.

And a part of that deal is that she takes the signer's name. Soon after, the person or spirit who signed the contract begins to forget their own name and once they've forgotten it completely, the witch gains power to control them. One of the main characters is a spirit that has lost his name and consequently has been made into the witch's henchman.

Toward the end of the story, this character learns his [00:02:30] name through the help of the little girl and he is set free from the power of the witch. Names are remarkably powerful to people. It's something that I've never really thought much on. I've always had the same name and never felt any desire to go by any other name.

Yet I know so many people in my life that have changed their name. At least what they have people call them. And it seems that for a lot of people, changing their name is representative of breaking away from an older version [00:03:00] of themselves. I have a friend that changed his name when he finally got off drugs.

And I know people that change their names when they change their gender. I have friends that change their names when they left their religion. And, on the other end, when a person chooses to join a Christian denomination, they are baptized and metaphorically take on the name of Christ. It makes sense to me that when a person wants to make a big change in their life, part of that [00:03:30] transformation may include their name.

I think the most famous example of a name change is that of the Christian Apostle Paul, who previously went by Saul. Prior to becoming Christianity's greatest missionary, Saul was one of Christianity's greatest persecutor. All that being said, there is something special about the name that was given to us as much as we may have ruined that name by bad decisions for [00:04:00] most of us.

It is what our adoring mothers called us. It is the name we had when our life had yet to be lived. It is the name you carried when the most hope for your future was present. When we make mistakes in life, I don't really think that we're tarnishing our name so much as we are forgetting it. As a parent of small children, my children's names are like music to me.

It's the verbal calling card I gave to the people I love the most in the world. [00:04:30] To me, those names I gave them are synonymous with hope for the future. There's a story that I vaguely remember that I don't actually think is true, but I find it poignant regardless, so I'm going to share it. There once was a young prince who was captured by his enemies.

And in order to demean and corrupt him, his captors tried to tempt him into bad behavior by surrounding him with prostitutes and alcohol. In spite of many months of [00:05:00] exposure, this young prince successfully resisted those temptations to the dismay of his enemies. When he was asked why he never did succumb, his response was, I was born to be a king.

The rest of us may not have been born to be kings, but I believe that we were all born to be similarly important to other people in our lives. I may not be a prince or a king, but I was born to be a brother, a friend, a son, an [00:05:30] uncle, a husband, and my favorite, a father. To a small number of people on this planet, I am significantly more important than any king or ruler could ever be.

A person that has forgotten their name doesn't know who they are. In the story of Harry Potter, there's this magical mirror that you may remember that he finds and it's called the Mirror of Erised. When a person looks into the [00:06:00] mirror, it shows them what their deepest desire is. When Harry looks into it for the first time, he sees his deceased parents looking back at him.

It's one of the more moving parts of the series because I think so many of us are in a state of life where we do not know what we want from life. And on top of that, we do not recognize who we can become or what purpose we may serve in our brief lives. When we have forgotten our name, we haven't just fallen into a state of confusion [00:06:30] over what we want, but we have forgotten who we can become or lost faith in that vision.

To know our name is more than a single moment when we find our purpose, but a continuous journey of striving to be better than the day before. I wish there was a mirror that could show us who we really are, but who we are is better defined by the courage that we have to continually manifest. In pursuit of our greatest potential.

Our name is not the thousands [00:07:00] of mistakes that we have made, and will continue to make. But, it is the thousands of actions we have taken, and will continue to take, to step forward in our lives. So what is your name, and have you forgotten it? Has selfishness and bad decisions taken your name from you? In 1972, there was a seven year old boy named Stephen Stainer.

He was kidnapped while walking home. Shortly after his abduction, his captor, [00:07:30] a man named Kenneth Parnell, told him that his family could no longer afford him because they had too many children. He was told his name was now Dennis, and for roughly seven years, that man abused and molested Stephen. When Stephen reached puberty, Parnell began to lose interest in him and sought out another young boy.

He succeeded in abducting another little boy named Timothy. Stephen, knowing what awaited Timothy, couldn't bear to see it happen [00:08:00] to him, and chose to escape from Parnell and return Timothy to the town that he'd been abducted from. When the boys were unable to find Timothy's home, they went to the local police station, and as the story goes, when asked who he was, the hero's response was, I know my name is Stephen.

On that day, Stephen remembered his name and was set free. Have you lost your name? Do you know who you are? [00:08:30] Maybe by not knowing our name, we haven't seen a vision of what we really could be. Or maybe the vision we see of ourselves is actually the wrong vision. It may be the case that we're covered in dirt and the grime that life puts on us, and it may be hard to see that person that we really are and can be.

I may not truly know my own name yet, but I think I do, and it's given me power to pursue the manifestation of that name with passion. [00:09:00] So what's your name? I believe our name is not what we are now, but what we were meant to be. Our name is not simply what people call you, but what you can become. When your name is spoken, it may reflect many other names like friend, brother, sister, husband, wife, father, or mother.

Maybe when that name is spoken, it means patience, compassion, radiance, joy, love, [00:09:30] generosity, determination, and resilience. Don't let anyone take your name from you. Like in the film I described earlier, a witch that represents selfishness and greed may try to take your name from you, but if you can remember it, you can be set free.

Life has a way of trying to degrade us to our most simple desires, but our name represents what we are beyond the simplest versions of ourselves. Your name is what [00:10:00] you and everyone else has ever hoped you could become in life. Your name is Is worth remembering. This is Skipping Stones. You can find this podcast anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts.

For more information about me, feel free to visit skippingstonessr.com. And if you enjoyed the show, "Have You Forgotten Your Name", please like or subscribe. If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me  [00:10:30]  at info@skippingstonessr.com. New episodes will be released weekly, every Monday.