4:6, #597: Names

Great, great grandmother must have had a premonition about her youngest child even while he was still floating around in the amniotic fluid of his first nine-month habitation. Our family Bible which has come down to me indicates that she was a staunch Calvinist who chose to attend a Presbyterian congregation her entire life after she had 'seen the light' as a young girl, as she was wont to say, according to the stories handed down through the years. She was also a prolific writer...which might explain from whence my proclivities come...and had carefully written comments and notes throughout the large volume she apparently read daily for more than 60 years.

There were all sorts of dates throughout the Old Book that indicate that she was in the habit of reading it from Genesis to Revelation about every 18 months or so; which is significant when we realize that Pappy Ishmael was born on the very day she read the story of Hagar's departure with her son of the same name. As I said, she believed her youngest was going to be a wild one even as she carried him, as many mothers down through the ages have anticipated behavior, both good and bad, of their yet unborn offspring. None of the relatives on either side of our clans had had the name of Ishmael and there were no financial supporters to flatter, so her choice of 'Ishmael' can only be explained by providence, fate, or perhaps the fact that she screamed the name repeatedly while pushing the baby out and prior to one of those incantations the doctor asked, "What will the child be named?"

In any event, Ishmael it was. Fortunately for him, he was born in an age when Biblical names were popular, so his 'brand' was not as heinous as that of Cain's. From what we can piece together, however, he would have adequately defended himself had the local New Yawkers of similar age chided him for his mother's choice of names under somewhat stressful circumstances. The question arises, of course, as to why great great grandfather did not alter the naming process; turns out he was thinking of the same name before the birth event and was delighted to hear his wife not only acquiesce, but advocate the name.

As William Cowper, whose works also adorned great great grandmother's shelves, so adequately wrote long before the blessed event, 'God moves in a mysterious way'...children to be born.