Vanity<\/b><\/p>\n
We are all so vain that we love to have our names remembered by those who have met us but once. We exaggerate the talents and virtues of those who can do this and we are ready to repay their powers with lifelong devotion. The ability to associate in the mind names and faces is a tremendous asset to a politician and it will prolong the pastorate of any clergyman. <\/p>\n
William Lyons Phelps, American educator and literary critic, quoted in Bits & Pieces, June 22, 1995, p. 17.<\/p>\n
Anniversary Celebration<\/b><\/p>\n
The 200-year-old church was being readied for an anniversary celebration when calamity struck: the bell ringer was called out of town. The sexton immediately advertised for another.<\/p>\n
When the replacement arrived, the sexton took him to the steps leading to the bell tower, some 150 feet above them. Round and round they went, huffing and puffing all the way. Just as they reached the landing, the bell ringer tripped and fell face-first into the biggest bell of all. Bo-o-o-o-ong!<\/p>\n
Dazed by the blow, the bell ringer stumbled backward onto the landing. The railing broke loose and he fell to the ground. Miraculously, he was unhurt\u2014only stunned\u2014but the sexton thought it best to call an ambulance. <\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know this man\u2019s name?\u201d asked the doctor when he arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d the sexton replied, \u201cbut his face sure rings a bell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jerry Zenk, quoted by Alex Thien in Milwaukee Sentinel<\/p>\n
New Age Names<\/b><\/p>\n
When the 1960s ended, San Francisco\u2019s Haight-Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. They had children and got married, too, though in no particular sequence. But they didn\u2019t name their children Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing Frisbee with little Time Warp or Spring Fever. And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all ended up in public school. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand. Every fall, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye and send them off to school on the bus. So it was for Fruit Stand. The teachers thought the boy\u2019s name was odd, but they tried to make the best of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand?\u201d they offered. And later, \u201cFruit Stand, how about a snack?\u201d He accepted hesitantly. By the end of the day, his name didn\u2019t seem much odder than Heather\u2019s or Sun Ray\u2019s. At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses. \u201cFruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus?\u201d He didn\u2019t answer. That wasn\u2019t strange. He hadn\u2019t answered them all day. Lots of children are shy on the first day of school. It didn\u2019t matter. The teachers had instructed the parents to write the names of their children\u2019s bus stops on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over the tag. There, neatly printed, was the word \u201cAnthony.\u201d <\/p>\n
Luanne Oleas in Salinas, Calif., Reader\u2019s Digest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vanity We are all so vain that we love to have our names remembered by those who have met us but once. We exaggerate the talents and virtues of those who can do this and we are ready to repay their powers with lifelong devotion. The ability to associate in the mind names and faces … Continue reading “Name, Names”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}