What's in a Name?

We get asked all the time what we are naming our son. Sometimes I wish we had kept it a secret, but oh well. Everyone knows. And I just let myself be okay with that. One of the reasons I didn't like telling people our name choices was because you can always tell when people don't like the name or think the name is a bad idea. They nod and say (usually hesitantly) "Oh, cool." Followed by an awkward pause. Or the really outspoken people will start to tell you why you shouldn't choose that name, and start suggesting others you should use instead, as if they were the ones naming your kid, and not you. Thanks, but no thanks, well-meaners.

Anyway, as many already know, unless there is some cosmic intervention, we are naming our son Tennyson Scott Allen. Tennyson, I feel, is a unique enough name that people like it, but are unsure why I chose it. Scott is my Dad's name, and I love my dad and respect him a lot, and as I get older, I see more and more how extraordinarily good and awesome he is, and I want my son to have that connection with him.

Lord Alfred Tennyson was a british poet who, in my opinion, was nothing short of brilliant. He wrote many poems that we still read today. In one of my college English classes, I was assigned to read a long poem written by him called "In Memoriam." This poem, which is several hundred verses long, took him seventeen years to write, and deals with his feelings of despair, loss, and hope following the sudden death of his best friend. In this long poem, he addresses man's relationship with God, how people fit into nature, the power of despair and the power of faith, and, of course, the power of both Godly and human love. As a college student, I read this poem and was astounded at some of the insights, but also deeply saddened by the level of grief he expresses. But the portion of the poem that would eventually lead me to name a child after this man is this:

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,
         I heard a voice, "Believe no more,"
         And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep,

A warmth within the breast would melt
         The freezing reason's colder part,
         And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer'd, "I have felt."

No, like a child in doubt and fear:
         But that blind clamour made me wise;
         Then was I as a child that cries,
But crying, knows his father near;

And what I am beheld again
         What is, and no man understands;
         And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro' nature, moulding men.

For those who like spark notes to help with poetic understanding, the essential message of the verses is this: There are times when our faith wavers, and we feel left alone, and we are tempted to give up believing in God. But then our feelings and our memories overcome our reason, and we can honestly say, "No, I have felt his love before, and will not turn my back on it now." We are like children, who sometimes must trust blindly, just like children who cry; they cry, but they know that their Father is near and is listening and will come to help them. We can't really understand his ways, but God, through the trials that he gives us here on earth, molds us into better men.

When I read this for the first time, I was stunned. I felt the Spirit touch my heart, and tears came to my eyes. This is exactly what it feels like to go through hard or tough times, and this is the true definition, in my mind, of faith through adversity. This is the faith that I want my son to have, and this is the the child-like trust that I hope to raise him with, that he will always love and depend on his Savior and his Father in Heaven.