Remembered.

The power of hearing a name

The great university I attended as an undergraduate has a tradition called “Muster.” To muster is to assemble, to come together with a purpose. Every year on or near April 21, former students of Texas A&M University gather worldwide—in local halls and auditoriums, on battle stations, foreign fields, and the University campus’s Reed Arena—to remember those Aggies who have died the previous year. A roll call of names is read. And for each name of the lost, another Aggie answers, “Here.”

Every year like clockwork, Aggies gather to call out names familiar and beloved, and someone replies in their stead. There’s quiet power in calling—and in hearing—a name, but at Muster, no one hears their own name. This ceremony for the dead is by the living.

Yesterday, a dear friend and I were “gathered” in Camelia Room 8 at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for a little “chemo party”—mine. Oddly, my treatment day fell on her birthday. (If you’re thinking it was selfish of me to let a friend accompany me to chemo on her birthday, I won’t argue. But I promise, she insisted. And I brought a wicked piece of chocolate cake.)

After chatting away most of the afternoon, she settled into the room’s “plus-one” recliner with her phone, and I propped my laptop on a mound of warm blankets to do some work. Then I heard her sigh and breathe out “Awwwwwww….”

A former business colleague of hers—something of a superstar in the advertising world who had become a mentor of sorts to her—had passed away, and she was reading his obituary, which, being a writer, he had written himself. And midway down the page, after reading the names of family members, friends and others he had loved, she saw her own name. He remembered her. She read that he had valued her friendship, and the joy of collaborating with her on good work. She was teary. I was, too. He called her by name and it mattered.

Each of us holds the power of calling a name in love. That act is beautiful whenever it happens, but maybe never more than when the one who owns the name hears. This morning, imagine me—no, better, imagine the Father—calling yours.

You are precious. You matter. You are remembered. You are loved.

At this she turned and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize it was Jesus. “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

John 20: 14-16, NIV