There’s a two-year-old boy who struggles to say my name as it appears on my license and debit card. Instead, he uses a word once used as a pejorative nickname for me in second and third grades. I don’t mind, because I know his heart. In fact, it makes me smile because of the irony.
Colton and I have a few things in common. We both like playing disc golf at the park with his daddy. We both like my MINI Cooper. Both of us prefer to ride behind the steering wheel rather than in a passenger seat. We both think about his daddy when commuter jets fly overhead. Both of us have a lot of growing up to do.
Colton’s momma told me that I’m one of his heroes, one of his favorite people. She got him to go to the park the other day by telling him that “Mr. Ryan’s car might be there.” Puzzled by Colton’s interest, I asked about how this attachment happened. His momma told me her hypothesis: that I look him in the eyes and get down on his level. Instead of just talking with the adults, I’ve been including him in the conversations.
She said he feels seen.
That was a record scratch moment for me. I got a lump in my throat as I left that moment. It happened amidst the bustle of our church’s atrium between services—a few weeks before that atrium went empty and dark because of social distancing. On Easter Sunday, my mind jumped back to that conversation; and it’s been rattling inside me ever since. During my church’s online services, one of my friends on the livestream talked about Mary feeling seen and known. Jesus said one word, and the gospel became instantly real to her. Amidst her hysteria and confusion, she didn’t recognize Jesus’ voice until he dropped two syllables.
“Mary.”
The one who had just vanquished the tyranny of death knew her name. The one with whom she had trusted her heart and hopes hadn’t forgotten her. Her friend was not gone. She wasn’t a face in the masses. She didn’t learn of his resurrected life from a press conference, a public sermon, or a throng on the road. It didn’t appear in the news ticker on the bottom of her screen, in her social media feeds, or on the cover of a newspaper at the gas station. Jesus met her there in the quiet. Alone.
“Mary.”
In the middle of this pandemic, I feel like a pixel on a screen comprised of 7.8 billion other pixels. In the past month, I’ve probably seen more graphs than any other month of my life. Human life has been melted down to data points. People have become percentages. Podcasters, pundits, and peers in my social feeds have openly performed the algebra of how many dollars a human life is worth—whether a person’s continued existence is equal to another person’s business. Our respective mortalities have been reduced to probabilities. Our livelihoods have been dumped into bulk bins of essential and nonessential.
We are all bearing the weight of new labels, new societal teams, new loneliness. Maybe I shouldn’t speak for you, but I feel like we crave more agency and autonomy right now than we ever have. I wish I wasn’t a population segment. Maybe you, too? I’ve melted when people have said my name the way they always have, when it has sounded familiar.
During this pandemic, I’ve spent a lot of time alone in the woods and on rural roads. During that time, I’ve had intimate encounters with Jesus that left me in awe or in tears. Or both. I’ve felt seen and known and loved by Someone I ironically can’t see or fully comprehend. An ancient Jewish poet said that same Someone named all the stars. Just in the Milky Way, scientists estimate that we are surrounded by 100 billion stars. 100 is way bigger than 7.8. Jesus knows my name. According to two of his biographers, he also knows how many strands of hair are on my head. I couldn’t tell you that figure within a margin of a thousand.
Jesus knows me better than I know me.
He knows you better than you know you. He knows the exact cocktail of emotions that brew in you and me on different days and at different times of the day during this sequestering. He knows the figures on our bank statements and how many extra Calories we’ve respectively consumed in boredom or stress. He doesn’t need a test to know who’s had the virus, who has it now, or who will contract it.
He knows my future with as much vivid detail as he knows my past. He knew I’d be on the specific dirt paths I chose this morning. He knew where I’d take my hat off and talk to him. He knew what part of that conversation would drop hot tears onto my cheeks. I’ve never heard Heaven say my name out loud, but I have felt its echoes ricochet within my ribs. Even today.
“Ryan.”
I love Jesus in part because I feel seen and heard. Jesus’ brother wrote, “We love, because he first loved us.” Jesus has gotten down on my level, when everyone else is talking to each other. He has made my soul feel older and part of something bigger than myself. Just as we do with Colton, Jesus has let me throw discs wildly in the wrong direction as I try to prove myself worthy of inclusion. He’s cheered me on in my wobbly running toward him.
Somehow, he has the bandwidth to sit in those moments with each of us. All of us. Not one of us has to be alone right now. None of us need to wonder if we have value, if our lives matter. None of us are stored in eternal spreadsheets or drawn on any infinite graph. Every one of us came with a name that Heaven knows, that Serendipity whispers at just the right time. And I hope that this mandatory pause brings you enough silence to hear your name spoken into the ears of your soul.
—
Stock image purchased from iStockPhoto.com
