What’s in a Name?
There is somewhat of a debate among nature lovers as to how important names are. Some folk think that names get in the way of appreciating nature. That can be true if you feel you have to know “all the names”, an impossible task. When you see a photo like the one above, you can always think pretty flower even if you don’t know the name.
I happen to think names are important. Names give you context and connection. It is hard to say you love a flower, yet you can say you love California poppies or any other aspect of nature. Knowing the name of something in nature makes that something specific and concrete. You can know exactly what it is then. The flower above is a California poppy. The little native bee next is a green sweat bee.
There are two Creation stories in the Bible. The first (Genesis 1) shows what God thought of ALL of His Creation, “And God saw that it was good.”
Many people focus on the relationship of Adam and Eve in the second Creation Story (Genesis 2-4), plus the eating of the forbidden fruit. While those things are obviously important to the story, I find it interesting that the Bible says that God brought the animals to Adam “to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.” The story says that nature was not named by God, but God wanted to see how Adam would name it.
The implication is that Adam needed names in order to care about Creation and that the names helped God understand Adam. Names do imply care. As human beings, we are geared to support things we care about, not things we have no feelings for. It is difficult to have feelings for an anonymous person compared to someone we know by name. In biblical thought, knowing someone’s name implied intimacy.
The same thing happens in nature. Anonymous animals, plants, places don’t get the care that animals, plants, places with names do. Next is a giant coreopsis, a native plant restricted to a small area of the Southern California coast and Channel Islands (and blooming now).
It is impossible to know the names of every living thing (some haven’t even been discovered yet).
But it is possible to know that every living thing has a name and is worth caring about.
– Rob