I find myself paying less and less attention to titles. My first big job was in a company with only two titles outside the CEO. I held one on my first workday. Internally, everyone knew where I was in the company hierarchy. Externally, the same people who knew I was a plebe, proudly welcomed me to the stage on which they stood.
The early experience left me with the lesson that there are titles one wears and titles one earns. While there are times when the two are the same, there are many where one sounds lofty and powerful and the other, quite real, is the opposite.
I reflect in a dawn where a marine mist is hanging low, a light brown slowly turning into an orange tinted grayness due to the desert sand in the air and the impending arrival of a sunrise. The scene’s title is predictable, a commodity which many would hear and dismiss without imagination. Confronted by the morning’s reality, I cannot ignore what is unfolding. It is strange, beautiful in its own way, and oddly peaceful.
It is an unique experience when one is engaged in a noun beyond the dictionary definition. This dawn is one of them. In my experience, the titles we give each other opens the question of what lies behind the door. Is there something more or will I find only what disappoints? Even when the question shifts to the Divine, the question of definition and reality haunts. What is behind the title?
I know what I found. As much as I want to share, no, tell you my truth, I also know it is something which needs to be your discovery. In experiencing what lies beyond the superficial one discovers the sacred, the special something which changes one’s vision. As much as I love the psalm’s guidance, “Let them praise the name of God – it’s the only Name worth praising. His radiance exceeds anything in earth and sky,” (Psalm 148.13) it only applies when the title is more than a name, it is an experience.
