Apr 8, 2019
“I Have Called You Each By Name (Isaiah 43:1),” Ed Block
(for Beckah)
A spark will light the eyes and suddenly a clerk becomes a person anyone can love. Look at the name tag. Call her Beckah, call him Tran. In shops and motels, pharmacies, the cleaner’s, deli, fast food chain: address the workers by the names they wear, remark the change. Across a gulf of cold impersonality, formality, and anonymity, reach out a glance, extend a smile. With little risk we lighten burdens, make the day move more swiftly for other human beings, their personhood, called forth, a fullness, ripe with possibilities.
