I recently tried out an icebreaker activity with my students that a fellow professor recommended: Ask students about their names. Where did it come from? Are they named after someone? Do they know what it means? It was interesting to hear my students respond. Some of them inherited their name from a family member, while others were named after a biblical patriarch or even a TV show. Many students commented that their name somehow matched their siblings’ names.
Parents decide what to name their children based on multiple factors, many of them different from name selection in the past. In biblical times, names often signified origin, purpose, a person’s characteristics or circumstances, or might simply honor God. In contrast with these weighty associations, author Esther Fleece Allen says about naming today, “Sometimes I think we’ve lost the art of naming in our culture. I’ve found that the names we choose for our kids have a lot to do with the culture and generation in which we were raised. We choose names we like, names that flow together, and names that pair well with our last name. We consult baby name books and lists, looking for trends and unique options that will set our child apart.”[1]
I’ve been thinking of the meaning behind my name for most of my life. There isn’t a big story behind how I received it. My mom knew a little girl with the same name and decided she liked it. But there is a big meaning behind my name.
Charity is a unique name. Amidst friends who had to differentiate themselves—Rachel M and Rachel H or Katie B and Kate F—I was always the only Charity on the roster.
As a girl, I was warned that kids might tease me, claiming that I “loved all the boys” because my name means love. But most of the time, kids had no clue what my name meant. Though I knew from very early on that it means love, it wasn’t until young adulthood that I realized that an eros love could not be further from my name’s true meaning. The New Testament Greek word for charity is agape, the love of God. The love that we can only embody through God’s grace.
There are times it feels I have been misnamed. Despite my name, I often do not veer toward the charitable interpretation. I jump to the conclusion that someone doesn’t answer messages quickly because they are inconsiderate or unprofessional. The fact that they have set up boundaries about technology use or that they are balancing multiple things and genuinely haven’t yet thought of responding is not my first interpretation.
What would it look like to react charitably to people? To choose not to see their exhale as a huff against me and all I stand for but a letting go of the anxiety that is about to overwhelm them?
Giving the benefit of the doubt feels risky because it could lead to being taken advantage of. I might let somebody “get away” with something. But Paul suggests that we will be blessed when we give. “You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9.11 NIV). Paul was likely talking about various sorts of generosity. When I can manage to be generous by giving a charitable interpretation to others, I also become enriched because I let go of judgment.
One of the most charitable people I have met is someone I have the privilege to live with: He’s my husband. They say that opposites attract, and boy is that true and then some for us. I am holding someone accountable all the time. I’m not a task master, but I do tend to draw conclusions about why someone acts as he or she does, and those conclusions are not always complimentary.
If someone messes up, I often want to turn it into a teaching moment, maybe even an “I told you so moment.” My husband, on the other hand, can just sit with what is. If one of our children comes inside with a bloody knee from a bike wreck, my first inclination, after realizing they aren’t seriously injured, is to remind them they shouldn’t have been taking their hands off the handle bar. His first response is to comfort them. I tend to be just as uncompromising with myself. If I forget an appointment or mix up details, I tend to reprimand myself for being negligent. My husband will rub my shoulders and tell me he knows it’s been a lot lately. And that charitable response acts as a balm to my troubled mind.
When your name is Charity and you grow up in a church that only reads from the King James Version of the Bible, it is inevitable that you will hear your name from the pulpit. I always felt the color rise to my cheeks when my name would be read aloud. It felt like all eyes were on me, though really it was just the curious glances of my siblings.
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13.13, KJV).
What in the world? If it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain and if Christ is our living hope, how is charity the greatest?
I am not a theologian. But I am someone who loves words and would like to think there is a connection between a person and her name. I’m still figuring out mine, but I do know that charity can’t be properly enacted without faith and hope. Maybe charity is said to be the greatest because it is the evidence that faith and hope are alive and well in someone’s life. The authors of Charitable Writing say, “Charity must be nimble, charity must be versatile. Love is a way of life.”[2]
When I struggle with treating someone generously and wonder whether I am being motivated by the right catalysts, maybe it’s just as simple as asking, “Am I acting on faith? Am I hopeful my action will yield a positive result?” If so, this philanthropic love, this other-focused action, is greater than a faith or hope that sits on the shelf until it expires.
Giving someone the benefit of the doubt is choosing to take a charitable view of the situation. Thinking the best rather than the worst of someone is a charitable act because it shows faith in them and hope in what they are capable of.
It’s too bad I’m a pessimist. I’m much more likely to question if a student is really sick when I get an email explaining they aren’t coming to class. I’m much more likely to view my children as lazy when they forget to do their chores than to consider them as creative daydreamers who need guidance.
I still don’t have it all figured out. Maybe it would have been easier if I had been named Sue or Peggy (no offense to all the Sues and Peggys out there—I’m sure your names come with their own entanglements).
Little by little, I hope I am taking baby steps toward living into my name. “We must practice it [agape] regularly, and our hope is that over time it will become a stable part of our character.”[3] I continue to pray that the call to action my name implies is something that becomes part of my character.
I want to embody a selfless love, not dramatic like romantic love or contingent on how others treat me but rooted in faith and hope. And when I fall short, maybe I can even learn to act charitably toward myself.
[1] Esther Fleece Allen, Your New Name: Saying Goodbye to the Labels that Limit.
[2] Richard Hughes Gibson and James Edward Beitler III, Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue Through Our Words.
[3] Ibid.
The featured image, “Roses at Magdalen,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.
Charity Gibson is a Christ follower, writer, and professor. She holds a PhD in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and teaches literature and composition at College of the Ozarks (located near Branson, MO.)
She and her husband are raising four children and enjoy spending time together reading, being outside, and fellowshipping with extended family and friends. Charity is the author of The Working Homemaker: Employed Christian Moms Desiring a Thriving Homelife and regularly writes about topics pertaining to faith and family. She also hosts a monthly blog through her website.
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