Appellation

ap . pel .  la . tion/noun/  name, designation, title

If you love words–their sounds, their meanings, their origins– you do know that exploring one word can lead you to another, which is not a bad thing, as long as you don’t go down the rabbit’s hole, which sometimes happens. I started looking at  the fleeting nature of words–their evanescence–and ended up thinking about something else. As children we were told to choose our words carefully because words once spoken can’t be hauled back in like a kite. This idea is true for us in adulthood as well. We, too, need to be careful how we use words, although from observation, I have concluded that some grownups, especially in high places today, tend to forget this.

Yet despite our parents’ caution about the irretrievable nature of our words, I find it amazing the extent to which  the words of those who have passed on have lingered and make a difference hundreds, even thousands of years after they were spoken or written. We haul them in on the printed page–nowadays on a variety of technological devices–to get inspiration, instruction,  and information. Sometimes these words may be a profound statement, but they can also be just a simple saying.

I am thinking of a short piece I read  by Richard Wright, who is famous for his powerful novels Black Boy and Native Son, but who  isn’t known as a poet. Perhaps it was on one of his off-days that he decided to try his hand at writing  a haiku, a short Japanese poetic form that has quite a demanding, rigid pattern. A haiku must have  only 17 syllables in three lines and convey a dominant image. Writing haikus is challenging. Richard Wright met the challenge successfully. This is the result:

I am nobody

a red sinking autumn sun

 took my name away.

The writer may not have been as interested in conveying a particular concept as he was in mastering the poetic form, but his words endure and cause us to search them for meaning.  In the first place, I don’t know many people–Emily Dickinson excluded– who go around proclaiming to the world that they are nobody. Now, there are some people who are so eager to seem humble and self-effacing that they might just as well go ahead and say “I’m nobody,” but they are in the minority, I believe.

In the poem, the reference to the autumn sun conjures up  an attractive, pleasant landscape that should draw you to it, but it’s deceptive. It takes away the speaker’s  appellation, his or her  name. Sometimes situations occur in which  what should be promising and positive turns out to be disappointing and unsavory. Here  the autumn sun  is indicted for doing an injustice. It carries away a name, something that is such an integral part of one’s personality that when that  is gone, something vital is lost.

Unfortunately,  people can be that “red sinking autumn sun” that takes away our name and leaves us feeling like a nobody. It happens more often than we would like to think. Perhaps it was that classmate with a spiteful tongue  way back in third grade; it could be a teacher, a friend, a spouse, a parent. These all have the potential for being robbers of our appellation, leaving us feeling diminished.

In the current national conversation,  much of what is being said is negative–so much autumn sinking sun cutting people down to size, stealing their characters with name-calling. And they have the media to help accomplish this. Facebook and Twitter are handy servants. Look around and you will see people focused on the weaknesses of others, eager to take away their names.

But the reverse can also be true. That autumn sun can embody people who deliver positive affirmation of selfhood.  A recent magazine article I read presented tributes from individuals to their former teachers lauding the teachers for their inspiring  words  that motivated them as students to succeed. In 2009 I produced a little gift book called Teachers Touch Tomorrow. In it successful professionals praise their former teachers for their words and deeds that helped shaped their lives. Writer and speaker Tony Campolo credits his mother as one whose words “minimized” his failures and “maximized’ his successes. It is possible for the autumn sun to affirm rather than steal from us.

Look around  again and be encouraged  that there are those whose faith and spiritual vision cause  them to refuse to be influenced by the prevailing negativity. They draw from God’s reservoir of empowerment to use words that create for others as well as for themselves a strong, enduring name that nothing can take away.

Blessings,

Judith

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 “If there’s no enemy within, the enemy without can’t hurt you.”  Anonymous