giving thanks in the process

On this eve of Thanksgiving, I am aware of the gratitude that I feel in the wake of Sunday’s congregational gathering. The gathering was filled with compassion… voices shared, questions raised, laughter and tears mingled, and a path was identified. We are on a journey to find a name for our community of faith that embodies our mission, vision and values.

As we begin in life our names are given to us. Sometimes they are intended, like the ones placed on our birth certificates. Other times they find us quite accidently, like the pet name our siblings bestowed upon us that stuck for a lifetime. Often our names are reflective of choices about familial connections, marriages and adoptions. Religious covenants sometimes include the bestowing of a new name and occasionally we simply decide it is time for a change. Names can come to us at any stage of life and can be the product of chance or careful strategy. Names can last a lifetime or but a moment. Always our names are important.

Last summer I was making my first-ever legal name change as I was just this side of the half century mark. I was Katherine Hawker for 49 years and had, prior to my engagement with my beloved, had no intention of ever having any other name. Instinctively now I knew that it was time for two names to become one and an Iowa marriage license allowed that to happen. But as I sat in the Social Security office (the first step of the amazing gauntlet), the name on their records was not Katherine Hawker, but Katy Hawker. With a Katherine Hawker passport, the situation was pretty quickly resolved but the episode evoked a sweet remembrance.

My given name is not Katy but rather Katherine, my grandmother’s name and precious. My mother wanted that I should have a formal name but she also wanted my known name to be less formal. From the very beginning, her name for me was Katy, the only exception being extreme exaggeration when using every conceivable syllable for my name was necessary. So determined was she that I would be called Katy that I was enrolled (and graduated) from public school as a Katy, my medical records were as Katy, and (yep) even my Social Security card.

As I came into adulthood in the 1980’s and married, I identified myself as a feminist determined to “keep my name”. The names that we kept and/or changed mattered, I realized, but the path wasn’t always clear. As our children came along, we gave them two names, hyphenated, and I was proud of “keeping my name”. But it was about this same time that I began to wonder if I could change the Katy to Katherine. I joked that “by the time I’m 40, I will be a Katherine”. My mother, in a gesture very dear, gave to me an apron around my 40th Christmas that says “Katherine”. But as I now near 50, I realize that I still look around the room for someone else to answer when I hear ‘Katherine’ and I assume that a message is for me when ‘Katy’ is announced.

Nowadays I find myself introducing myself in any number of name combinations. I am Katherine HawkerSelf, Katy Hawker, Pastor Katy, and mutations of all of the aforementioned… and more. All of them are good.

At funerals it has been my custom to begin the service by intoning the given name of the deceased on the date of their birth followed by the name by which they were known at the date of their death. Over the years I’ve noticed only a few have remained unchanged and I am suspicious that even here there was more movement than I was aware. Names are integral to our identity and as such they change, because we change.

The grace of the gathered community felt last Sunday is reflective of an embrace of life itself, life that is fluid and filled with possibility. Although the logistics of change as fundamental as one’s name are substantial, with a community committed to the values of compassion even the work itself is rewarding. For this spirit, most of all, I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving to our beloved community!
From … me.