something new

I'm getting baptized today.

Some things I've learned

After a long hiatus, Sojourn is back...for now.

Something I've been thinking about lately is the nature of conversing with God. How do we do it? Does God talk back to us? How do we hear Him? What should we say?

To be completely honest, I'm not 100% sure of any of the answers to these questions. I have a few ideas - namely, the point is more that we are trying to establish a relationship with our Creator as opposed to asking for things, but I still wrestle with the fact that it's a little awkward to "shoot the breeze" with someone who knows everything, and isn't physically present or speaks audibly. How do we "spend time with God"?

I am certain of a few things, though. Number one - God does still speak. There have been a few times where I am absolutely certain that I heard God speaking. Very, very, very few, but they exist. Number two - the Lord's Prayer is always valid. It's things for us to pray when our words or thoughts fail us. Number three - it is important to keep praying, even when we feel like our prayers fall into the void. In Revelation 8, it speaks of an angel offering incense, with the prayers of the saints, as an offering to God. This suggests a few things - number one, that our prayers are a pleasing offering to God, and two, that they are not wasted, that they have a purpose.

In conclusion, I don't know a lot about prayer. I don't know how it works, or why it works, or why God even wants us to pray. But I do know this - prayer is more important than we can fathom, and is a spiritual discipline that is critical for Christians to practise.

Giving

I spent the last two days student teaching at a high school in Winnipeg. I'm still not sure how I am going to fit in, but I know that this is going to be an extremely stretching experience for me - in a good way. My collaborating teacher and I haven't talked much about specifics of teaching our subject, but we have started to talk at length about the qualities of being a good teacher, and of being a good person.

I had the opportunity to listen to my CT speak to his grade 9 class about responsibility and giving yesterday. He asked the class if they could remember when the last time they did something selfless was, and then asked them when they did something selfish. He asked them when they told their families "I love you". The class was so quiet, so still. It seemed like they were actually absorbing what they were hearing.

My CT asked me my first day, "What is the most important thing about teaching?" I responded, "Besides the students?". He then asked me, "Why would you say that?" I'm starting to understand that maybe that there isn't anything besides the students - and, therefore, there isn't anything besides people. Life comes down to people, not things or ideas or activities or philosophies - people. Relationships. What can we possibly do to fulfill our lives that doesn't involve giving ourselves to other people? I know and everyone else knows deep down that having toys doesn't fulfill you. Neither does getting good grades, being popular, being the best at sports or music, or having a great job. We are only fulfilled by giving ourselves fully to other people. Odd, that - the way to fill yourself is to give yourself away to others. Freely, too - with no strings attached - even altruistic ones.

I pray that as I learn to live, I learn to love through giving myself wholly to others.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Where charity and love are, there God is.

To see if people are still reading this:

Christian people are often uninteresting. Discuss.

Finally, a post!

I found this on Boundless (don't judge me, please!).

I think it sums up very well many things I want to say to a lot of people I've never met.

Ignorant Christians
by Gary Thomas

Ignorance is one charge I'd like to see the church vigorously refute by example. We need a generation of first-rate thinkers, but we also need a generation in which every Christian sees himself or herself as a scholar.

Not, mind you, as an academic, but as one who takes seriously Paul's charge to "watch your life and doctrine carefully; persevere in them because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Tim. 3:16).

J.P. Moreland argues that "The spiritually mature person is a wise person."1 According to Scripture, the mind of Christ and God's wisdom are something given to us, but also something that we're told to cultivate (1 Cor. 2:16, Prov. 4:1-13). A mature Christian mind that can teach other believers, defend the faith, and lead others to understanding comes about from a life of intentional study.

If you're not the "student" type, you still owe it to yourself, your God, and this world to develop a mature, wise mind.

The consequences of ignorance are many and severe: Our witness suffers greatly from Christians who speak up without having really thought through what they're saying. Without a developed mind, we are easily led astray by foolish beliefs that the church dismissed as heresy centuries ago.

Ignorance also has moral implications; John Piper has said that behind most wrong living is wrong thinking. This wrong thinking has a "snowball" effect. As my therapist friend, Dr. Mitch Whitman, puts it, we become "increasingly stupid." When we shut God off in any area of our lives, but especially our minds, we become vulnerable to any foolish whim; our emotions and passions will rule us and degrade us.

Worse, we even lose the spiritual perception that otherwise might warn us about what is happening.

Paul warned about this when he wrote to the Ephesians:

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. (Eph. 4:17-19)

Christianity exalts the role of the mind as a necessary part of right living, but our faith is unique in stressing how our behavior and our minds influence and act upon each other. When our thinking goes, our behavior doesn't lag far behind. And when our behavior slips, our minds begin to slip as well.

Cultivating the mind of Christ gives believers great potential to showcase penetrating insight and compelling truth. Unfortunately, cultivating such a mind can require considerable effort and persistent study. How sad it is when people called to the ministry try to take a shortcut and instead of calling people to a higher truth, they try to mask their lack of understanding with cleverness or lighthearted entertainment.

Today's faithful have a lot to live up to. The Christian church has thrived for more than 2,000 years because it has largely out-thought its opponents. When we fail to cultivate the mind and wisdom of Christ, we are forced into adopting shallow substitutes — movie clips, clever PowerPoint productions, funny jokes — to mask the emptiness of our thinking.

I'm not suggesting there is no place for movie clips, or that PowerPoint can never be an effective aid, or that humor has no place — I incorporate all three at various times in my own ministry. But I am suggesting that our presentations should be carried first and foremost by persuasive truth and heart-rending insight. Teachers must give their minds to God, so that God can give His thoughts to the congregation.

True Worship

If developing your mind has been little more than an after-thought, it's time to make a change. Paul suggests that a Christ-molded mind is the foundation of transformation. Consider this familiar passage:

Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — which is your spiritual worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing, and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

These verses confirm that while God is the agent of change, we have a responsibility to surrender ourselves to God's change. As C.E.B. Cranfield puts it,

The use of the imperative [be transformed] is consonant with the truth that, while this transformation is not the Christians' own doing but the work of the Holy Spirit, they nevertheless have a real responsibility in the matter — to let themselves be transformed, to respond to the leading and pressure of God's Spirit.2

So how do we allow God to transform our minds? What are our points of cooperation?

Become a diligent student

Every month I eagerly read through Runner's World magazine. It's not an "obligation" for me to do this. Because I love running, I want to read about the latest training techniques and running gear. I revel in the inspiring personal stories; I check my calendar against upcoming races; I want to know about the latest shoes; I even pore over the ads.

The Bible could well be called God's World. If we truly love God's world, Bible study will become a joy. We'll eagerly embrace filling our minds with His inspired words; and we'll also want to read the insights of others as they interact with God's Word, which is why being a diligent student also usually means reading other books.

Is it possible to be a faithful disciple and not be a diligent student? No. How we study will differ according to our gifts, personality, and temperament. Whether we study should not. Contemplative prayer, social activism, fellowship, and enthusiastic worship all have their place; but if Paul says transformation includes the renewal of our minds, I don't believe it is possible for us to be serious disciples of Christ if we do not also become serious students of His truth.

We mustn't allow our own or someone else's laziness or lack of fondness for reading, discipline and study to imprison them in spiritual immaturity. Someone may prefer not to exercise, but if they are 50 pounds overweight, fighting off diabetes, high blood pressure, and clogged arteries, then they had better get over it. They will never get healthy until they find a way to exercise.

In the same way, if someone is ignorant of God's Word, then they will reflect that ignorance in their beliefs, their speech, their purpose in life, their motivations and in all sorts of spiritual illnesses. They need to get over their distaste of disciplined study. We have many ways to "study" these days, so we have less excuse to remain ignorant than ever before in the history of the church. That's not hyperbole; it's simple fact.

Christianity is not like some eastern religions that try to circumvent the mind with meditations designed to put the mind in a state of paralysis (such as meditations on the sound of "one hand clapping"). Christianity showcases a reasonable and rational explanation of the universe and our relationship with the God who created us. Ignorance isn't just sin, it leads to ever-increasing sin, and it has no place in a maturing believer's life.

Sit at the feet of proven teachers

All of us are products of our own prejudices, personal blinders and lack of experience. Fortunately, God has gifted many women and men with insights that can take us to new heights. What an opportunity we have to sit at the feet of trusted and recognized thinkers and teachers.

My writing career launched with the publication of Seeking the Face of God — an exploration of the most common themes of Christian spirituality according to the great Christian classics. C.S. Lewis explains that any new book is "on trial," needing to be tested. But many books have come down through the ages to help us understand the ways of God. The spiritual classics allow us to step out of our century, and even out of our traditions, so that our minds can be stretched and expanded beyond their current limitations.

R. Somerset Ward puts it so well:

Herein lies the great justification of the practice of devotional reading. It is, in fact, the use of, and cooperation with, the great process of inspiration which is forever going on in the world: a process whereby the power and wisdom of God is continually flowing out into the world to aid the growth and development of man's soul.3

Ward goes on to explain how devotional classics "act, like the starting handle of a motor, by drawing in some of the living power of God to enliven our lack of life."4 If you're not particularly challenged or inspired by people in your own community, or even your own century, you are invited to mine the passion, conviction and deep insight of brothers and sisters who lived in earlier times and in different places.

In addition to the spiritual classics, make room on at least a yearly basis to read a good work of what is called "systematic theology." Respected teachers like Wayne Grudem, R. C. Sproul, J.I. Packer and many others that your pastor might recommend can help you educate yourself with essential truths.

Pivot

The biblical instruction is clear: We need to take charge of our minds. On their own, our minds can be instruments of anxiety, doubt, worry, fear and romantic fallacies. Paul urges us to exert ourselves more strongly in the arena of our minds than in any other area of the spiritual life:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. (Phil. 4:8)

He's even more forceful when writing to the Corinthians:

Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. (1 Cor. 14:20)

We need to mature to the point where we take charge of our minds, Paul insists, because God holds us accountable to do so. Jesus challenged some teachers of the law for their faulty reasoning when He said, "Why are you thinking these things?" (Mark 2:8).

Some Christians act as if they are helpless victims to their thinking, as if they can't stop certain fantasies, infatuations, negative thinking, ruminating on fears or hateful prejudice. This simply doesn't square with a biblical worldview that tells us to "pivot" toward pure thought. We are taught to stop thinking about evil and to start thinking about what is pure or admirable or excellent.

For understandable reasons, we give our brains a little more power than they deserve, but ultimately, the Bible tells us we mustn't allow any organ to rule over us — not our stomachs, not our genitalia, and not our brains. We must take dominion over each aspect of our humanity, surrender it to God, and allow it to be transformed by God.

Give your mind to God; let Him develop it, shape it, fill it and use it. Let's make "ignorant Christians" a thing of the past.

* * *

NOTES

1. J.P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul. (Navpress: Colorado, 1997), p. 39
2. C.E.B. Cranfield, "The Epistle to the Romans" (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979), p. 607.
3. R. Somerset Ward, "To Jerusalem," (1931; reprint, Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1994), p. 162.
4. Ibid.

The Universe, in a few minutes.

I was linked to this while reading Boundless today.

Follow this link, read the article, and watch the video. Then comment.

Wow.

An interesting idea

After a short hiatus, Sojourn is back.

So, after reading a critique on Dawkins' The God Delusion by Terry Eagleton, I hit upon this question(This question has nothing to do with the article, but it's an interesting article nonetheless)

As a Christian, I understand that the death of Jesus was sacrificial in purpose. Jesus assumed the role of a sacrificial lamb, and took all of the sins of humanity upon himself. We as Christians believe that Jesus died on a cross at Golgotha, and that his death acts as justification in the eyes of God for those who accept it. However, was it necessary for Jesus to die on the cross? Would a death of natural causes have been sufficient to fulfill God's plan and act as the proper atonement for all mankind?

On Hiatus

Hello, dear readers.
This blog has been temporarily suspended while I concentrate my creative energies elsewhere. It will come back someday, I promise.
Until then, please turn your attention to Straight Ahead Jazz - my regular blog.
-Matt

Fads and Fixtures of the Evangelical Church

I found this here. I saw this a while ago and it really made me think about this stuff. I rediscovered it earlier today, and thought that it might be a good idea to post. Also, to bring back Sojourn. Anyways, happy new year!
/Matt


#1 Making Converts -- I've always felt uneasy about the idea that Christians should be seeking to make converts. Am I wrong in thinking that the making of converts is a task associated with Islam, rather than Christianity? Perhaps I have a flawed understanding of the Gospel, but I always thought the purpose of evangelism is not to make converts but to make, as Christ commanded, disciples. Indeed, my primary complaint against each of the other nine methods on this list is that they are usually ineffective in instigating true conversion much less helping make true disciples.

#2 The Sinner's Prayer -- The gates of hell have a special entrance reserved for people who thought that they had a ticket into heaven because someone told them all they needed to do was recite the "sinner's prayer." I've searched through the entire New Testament and can't find an example of anyone who was "saved" after reciting such a prayer. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that such prayer is worthless or that it can't be used by the Holy Spirit. But salvation is not obtained by reciting a magical incantation as many, many, "Christians" will discover after it's far, far, too late.

#3 "Do you know Jesus as…" -- In the fall of 1987 I began my freshman year of college. I was far from home, overwhelmed and lonely on a campus of 20,000 students. While sitting alone in the cafeteria one afternoon, an older student walked up, smiled and asked if he could join me. I was starved for conversation and thrilled to have the company. He sat his tray down in front of mine and took a seat as I prepared to engage him in a heady discussion of his choosing. Politics, philosophy, science. I was mentally preparing for anything he threw at me.

Glancing up from his plate of spaghetti, he asked, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?"

For a few seconds I was stunned, completely at a loss for a response. "I'm, yeah, actually I have." I finally managed in reply.

"Oh," he said, visibly disappointed. "Okay, that's good." He wore a look of minor defeat. He had chosen the wrong table; no soul would be won for Christ over this lunch. We chatted politely while I finished my burger. He ate quickly and excused himself. After that lunch, I never saw him again.

This is one question that needs never be asked for it shows (a) you do not know the person well enough, (b) the answer is yes and the person is a lousy Christian, or (c) the answer is no in which case you just activated their Fundie-alert system and caused them to switch their brains into ignore mode. Instead of asking about a "personal savior" you might want to simply try to get to know the person.

#4 Tribulationism -- Ask a non-believer to give a rudimentary explanation of "the Rapture" and chances are they can provide a fairly accurate description of that concept. Ask the same person to give a basic explanation of the Gospel message, though, and they are likely to be stumped. The reason for this curious state of affairs is that evangelicals have promoted what I refer to as "Tribulationism" -- an overemphasis on eschatology that overshadows the Gospel. I'm sure that somewhere in the three dozen novels that comprise the Left Behind series the Gospel message is presented. But there is something horribly wrong when the greatest story ever told is buried beneath a third-rate tale of the apocalypse.

#5 Testimonies -- Several years ago, during a job interview for a Christian organization, my prospective employer asked me to tell him my "testimony." The fact that I was a Christian apparently wasn't enough. I had to have a good conversion story to go along with my faith. Now you may have a great story about how the hound of Heaven" chased you down and gnawed on your leg until you surrendered. No doubt your story would make for a gripping movie of the week on Lifetime and lead to the making of numerous converts (see #1). But the harsh truth is that your story doesn't much matter. You are only a bit player in the narrative thread; the main part goes to the Divine Protagonist. In fact, He already has a pretty good story so why not just tell that one instead?

#6 The Altar Call - In the 1820's evangelist Charles Finney introduced the "anxious seat," a front pew left vacant where at the end of the meeting "the anxious may come and be addressed particularly--and sometimes be conversed with individually." At the end of his sermon, he would say, "There is the anxious seat; come out, and avow determination to be on the Lord's side." The problem with this approach, as theologian J.I. Packer, explains is that,

The gospel of God requires an immediate response from all; but it does not require the same response from all. The immediate duty of the unprepared sinner is not to try and believe on Christ, which he is not able to do, but to read, enquire, pray, use the means of grace and learn what he needs to be saved from. It is not in his power to accept Christ at any moment, as Finney supposed; and it is God's prerogative, not the evangelist's, to fix the time when men shall first savingly believe. For the latter to try and do so, by appealing to sinners to begin believing here and now, is for man to take to himself the sovereign right of the Holy Ghost. It is an act of presumption, however creditable the evangelists motive's may be. Hereby he goes beyond his commission as God's messenger; and hereby he risks doing incalculable damage to the souls of men. If he tells men they are under obligation to receive Christ on the spot, and demands in God's name that they decide at once, some who are spiritually unprepared will try to do so; they will come forward and accept directions and "go through the motions" and go away thinking they have received Christ, when all the time they have not done so because they were not yet able to do so. So a crop of false conversions will result from making such appeals, in the nature of the case. Bullying for "decisions" thus in fact impedes and thwarts the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Man takes it on himself to try to bring that work to a precipitate conclusion, to pick the fruit before it is ripe; and the result is "false conversions," hypocrisy and hardening. "For the appeal for immediate decision presupposes that men are free to "decide for Christ" at any time; and this presupposition is the disastrous issue of a false, un-Scriptural view of sin.

My friend Jared Bridges has pointed out another reason for me, as a Baptist, to despise the term "altar call": We don't believe in transubstantiation and we don’t burn offerings, so we have no need for an "altar."

#7 Witnessing -- Evangelism ain't Amway. It is not a form of Multi-Level Marketing in which you get extra credit for the number of people in your network and you don’t get a great commission for the Great Commission. If you want to sell something door-to-door make it Amway products not the Good News.

If you want to be a more effective "witness for Christ" then start by doing what Christ did and love other people. Start by loving the "unlovable" -- the smelly, unbathed men down at the mission, the annoying kids at church, the bonehead who cuts you off in traffic. Yes, you need to tell people about the Gospel. But that is evangelism, not "witnessing." In the context of the Christian life, "witness" should be a noun more often than a verb.

#8 Protestant Prayers -- Last week one of my fellow coworkers, a young Catholic man, was asked to open our meeting with a prayer. Without hesitation he began reciting the "Lord's prayer." Afterward I joked that, having come up with such a fine prayer, he might want to write it down for future use. What I didn't say what how his recitation of the prayer made me uncomfortable.

First, I'm not used to hearing prayers that don't contain the word "just" (as in "We just want to thank you Lord…") so it had an odd ring to it. Second, it seemed to violate the accepted standards for public prayer. I had always assumed that praying in public required being able to interlace some just-want-to's in with some Lord-thank-you-for's and be- with-us-as-we's in a coherent fashion before toppping it all with an Amen. Third, I thought that prayers are supposed to be spontaneous--from the heart, off the top of the head--emanations, rather than prepackaged recitations. If it ain't original, it ain't prayer, right? Can I get an amen?

But where did this idea come from? We have entire books to teach us how to pray yet Jesus managed to wrap up the lesson in less than forty words. Why isn't that prayer good enough for evangelicals to use? Why do our prayers sound nothing like His example? (And if you are wondering what prayer is doing on a list of evangelistic fixtures then we are really in trouble.)

#9 The Church Growth Movement -- Sadly, this has moved from fad to fixture. Think I'm wrong? Ask the next person you see to define that phrase. In fact, ask the next 100 people you see. Let me know if you find anyone that tells you they think the church growth movement is a movement in the church to grow disciples. (If you do find someone who says that then smack 'em upside their head with a Scofield for they're a Purpose-Driven Liar.)

#10 Chick Tracts -- Chick Tracts are a tool of the devil. That fact--and yes it is a fact--is not changed just because you know a guy who knows a guy who heard testimony about a guy who said the Sinner' Prayer after finding "The Long Trip" on the floor of a truck stop restroom.

The term evangelism derives from the Greek word evangel--"good news." So it's rather odd how so much evangelism appears to be about "selling" Jesus and hoping that you can convince the unsaved heathen to buy into salvation. This was the way I had been taught during Vacation Bible School classes at the First Baptist Church of Fire and Brimstone. Pass out Chick tracts, recite the canned "how to get saved" speech, get them to say the sinner's prayer. Above all, close the deal. They may die at any time and their souls would be lost to eternal damnation if I didn't "make the sell." By the age of eight I was a cross between Billy Graham and Willy Loman.

Whenever I began to seriously read the Gospels, though, I noticed something strange. People constantly flocked to Jesus despite the fact that he never passed out a single tract. He would walk up to people and say "Follow me" and the next thing you know they're giving up their lives to follow him around the countryside.

The people responded to Jesus the way they did because he is God. He is what our hearts have always been seeking. When we come face to face with him we may accept or reject him. But we can't not know him. Calvin claimed that there is an awareness or sense of God (sensus divinitatis) implanted in all people by nature. The context of this universally distributed belief being rather minimal: there is a God, He is the Creator, and that He ought to be worshiped. The Gospel, though, fills in the essential details.

We evangelicals don't need tools of evangelism. We don't need fads and fixtures. We don't need anything more than the Gospel. For that is one fixture of our faith that will never go out of style.

(Note: The last time I posted this article, I ended up caving into peer pressure and admitting that maybe this stuff ain't all that bad. Two years later I find that I conceded too much. I've modified my stance a bit and clarified a few points of contention. But I really do believe that these "fixtures" have become detrimental to the making of disciples. Am I wrong? I'm open to hearing counter-claims.)

What's in a name?

Everyone has a name. This name may be ordinary and commonplace, such as Andrew, Matthew, Amy, or Megan, or it may be completely different and obscure, such as Drusilla or Oddmund.
If a name is not recently invented, it probably has a meaning to it. For example, according to behindthename.com, Jacob was the most popular boys' name in 2006, and it means "holder of the heel", or "supplanter". The most popular name for girls was Emily, which means "rival". My own name, Matthew, means "Gift of God".
I have wondered for a long time whether the the meanings of our names actually hold any value. My name means "Gift of God", so am I a gift of God? I would like to think so.
However, the meaning of the name itself is the second most important thing. The most important thing about having a name is that it bestows value upon the named. A name is a sign of value and worth because it separates the named from other things similar to it. In nature, we name the biggest and neatest rocks, but we refer to the smaller, ordinary ones by their familial name (e.g. a piece of shale). We name our pets, but not every dog or cat has been given a proper name. However, every human being has a name. This means that every person is unique and has worth.
I read a sci-fi book as a child where there was a species of intelligent beings who had a very interesting take on names. Translated into human names and ideas, it looks like this: When I was born, I was called Human. When I became an adult, I earned the right to be called Neufeld. By distinguishing myself among my peers, I earned the right to be called Matthew. And when I do something that affects the whole world for the greater good, I will earn the right to refer to myself as "I".
This is an interesting system, although I cannot see it working for humans, but the idea that we would start as all the same, and gradually "make a name for ourself" by doing bigger and better things. In this example, a name is directly linked to self-worth and accomplishment.
Do we need names? I do not know whether humans actually need names, or whether names are strongly desired, but I know that humans are not hive-mind drones - we think and work for ourself. This makes us different from each other, so maybe a name is necessary to reinforce our individuality.
Now, back to meanings in names. Does the meaning of our name speak to the core of who we really are? Does the meaning of our name matter? Can a parent define what their child is going to be like simply by naming their child?
One thing that I remember from my teen emo/existentialist times is how the meaning of my name was always a beacon of hope. In the times where I was feeling down and like I did not matter, I was sometimes reminded of the meaning of my name - "Gift of God". I took this as a reminder that I was valuable, and that I was loved, because I knew that a gift from God was a very precious thing indeed. I know that this is only my example, but the meaning of my name seems to me to be an indicator of what I can be. I am worth something, so I should make a name for myself. I am loved, so I should love in return.
I could go on, but I won't for sake of time. I will, however, leave with this verse. Revelation 2:17 - He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.
Our name now represents who we are. This white stone represents who we can be. Let us overcome, so that we may be worthy of our true name.