A Funny Performance
“Okay, folks,” Don says, “We’re live in 10.”
Eric wipes his brow.
That light’s bright, he thinks. I should have asked if they could dim it.
“10, 9, 8, 7,” Don counts down.
Eric rubs his hand over the top of his head, then pats his stomach.
This is nerve-racking, he thinks. I wonder if they’ll like me. I wonder if I have what it takes.
“3, 2, go,” Don says, then points at Eric.
Eric opens his mouth.
“So, my name’s Eric. I never really liked that name. I’ve often wondered what drug my mum must have taken while she picked it. I mean, it’s not very hot-sounding. Not like George Clooney or Brad Pitt. In fact, really, it’s the male version of Ethel.”
A man in the audience chuckles.
“It made picking girls up hard, and on top of that, I played the euphonium. It’s like a tuba but much smaller.”
A couple more audience members laugh.
Eric stiffens his shoulders and raises his eyebrows, attempting an imitation of TV-geek Steve Urkel.
“So, I’d walk up to these girls and I’d say, ‘Hi, my name’s Eric and I play the euphonium,’ and right there, I’d see it in their eyes, that they’d realized they’d found their true love.”
The whole audience laughs, claps their hands and cheers as Eric smiles, feeling more relaxed.
A Childhood Pastime
That’s a joke from one of Eric Bana’s first Australian performances before he became a big Hollywood movie star, appearing in the movies Hulk, The Other Boleyn Girl and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Eric’s right. Names can have a powerful effect on us and other people. Some names make us more appealing in romance and some names can make us more appealing with business prospects as in the episode of The Simpsons where the main character changes his name from Homer J. Simpson to Max Power.
As a child, I had an unusual pastime. My parents had a baby-name book which they’d used while choosing mine and my siblings’ names. They kept it on the top shelf of the bookcase in the study. I enjoyed standing on tiptoe, pulling it down and reading it, wondering which names I’d choose for my children when I grew up. I liked reading the common nicknames associated with each name, the name’s country of origin and the different ways of spelling each name, but most of all, I liked reading the meanings of each name.
I loved reading that my name is a diminutive of Tatiana, an exotic-sounding name belonging to the last Tsar of Russia’s second-born daughter, who died in tragic circumstances, shot in a basement by Bolsheviks, along with the rest of her family, at the tender age of 21. Learning that awed me, but the meaning of my name overpowered that horror because Tanya means “fairy queen”. I thought that was so pretty and felt sorry for girls named Catherine, Candace and Karen which all mean “pure.” How boring, I thought. How ordinary. How lacking in mysticism.
A Changed Mind
Those thoughts have changed, though, because the longer you live, the more sins you become guilty of, so the longer you live, the less pure you become. As a born-again Christian, when God looks at me, instead of seeing my sins, He sees Jesus’ perfectly lived life, His death and His resurrection, so in God’s eyes I’m clean, but when people who’ve known me a long time see me, they remember the times of fallen and the times of dived into sin. They know that beside my name should sit the words, lying, thieving, coveting, blaspheming, murderous adulterer at heart.Those aren’t nice names, but those names well and truly belong beside mine.
For years, I had a severe case of lacking assurance of my salvation. It kept me awake at night and grew so bad walking up or down stairs terrified me. What if I tripped and fell, cracked my head open and then died, shooting straight into the flames of eternal Hell? Reading lots of books and hearing lots of sermons about assurance of salvation cures this malady if you’ve lost certainty of your salvation and God’s unfailing promises of forgiveness and eternal life in Heaven. That’s how I cured mine, and while reading on this subject, I came across a letter an old reformed preached had written for a dying Christian friend whose trust in God lapsed for a moment.
A Comforting Letter
Thomas Brooks wrote the letter in 1675. He states eight reasons for why Christians should no longer fear death. His fourth reason states that death frees Christians from all reproach and ignominy on their names. It frees us from reproaches we deserve because of sins we’ve committed, and it frees us from reproaches we don’t deserve which are only cast at us not because our enemies hate us but really it’s because they hate Jesus, as it says in John 15:18 – If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
Thomas Brooks says Heaven wipes away all blots as well as all tears, as no sins or blots can anyone find in that upper world, and the names of all the saints, in a state of glory, God will write in characters of gold. That means that in Heaven your name and my name will no longer carry alongside it all the transgressions we’ve committed along our way on Earth. Instead, in God’s eyes and in others, the word “pure” shall sit alongside it and the word “forgiven” and the words “redeemed child of God.” I no longer view the word “pure” as a boring meaning for a name. Instead, it’s a joy knowing someday, perhaps soon, the word “pure” shall sit alongside my name, also.
-by Tanya Tufanova