As any keen pub-quizzer will tell you, the months of July and August
are named after two Roman Emperors; Julius Caesar and Augustus
respectively. As humans we have a habit of naming things after
significant people as a way to commemorate, remember and celebrate
them. When I went to New York, I was amused to find that a slipway
was named after someone (they obviously weren't important enough to
have a whole road named after them!). And at the farewell service
for the last Bishop of Lincoln, the Dean relayed some of the great
Bishops of Lincoln and the additions they made to the Cathedral. He
joked that the major addition that Bishop John oversaw was a new
toilet block, suggesting that maybe they should name it after him!
Naming
things after people is not always without controversy, especially
commemorations we've inherited from previous ages. Colston
Hall in Bristol is to be re-named because of the Bristolian slave
trader Sir Edward Colston. Oxford University has recently resisted
pressure from campaigners to remove statues, paintings and
commemorations of Cecil Rhodes and other colonialists. Liverpool
also resisted an attempt to re-name all of the streets associated
with slave traders, as this would have meant renaming most of
Liverpool's most famous streets, including Penny Lane!
This desire to re-name
can spring from a laudable desire to recognise the parts of our
history that by today's standards are regrettable, but they can also
be seen as an attempt to airbrush history. The counter argument is
that, as George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it.” Whether we like it or not, our
history, both good and bad, makes us who we are and our mistakes
should be remembered so that we remember not to repeat them.
Very few people will
ever have anything public named after them, which for most of us is a
relief! The public scrutiny that comes with public recognition is
not something that most of us would like. In our day-to-day lives we
can often get away with 'airbrushing' our past and our present,
hiding those bits of which we're ashamed or those bits we know others
would disapprove of. Both Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle claim
the urban legend of sending friends or upright citizens a telegram
saying “Flee at once - all is discovered” and some or all of the
recipients leaving immediately! The story rings true because all of
us have things we'd rather others didn't know about us. And
worryingly in this age of social media, our mistakes can become
widely known within hours!
Even if we can hide our
skeletons from those around us, God knows everything about us and one
day we too will see the whole of our lives; the good, the bad and the ugly.
Yet the amazing thing is that despite knowing all about us God still
loves us! And more than that he wants us to say sorry for the bad
things, and in his mind they will be airbrushed out so that we can
start again.
