Liking Notbell

Daughter calls the other night. Katharine. Wants to know what the word is for the meaning of the names. The meanings of all names. Entomology. Entomology, she wants to know. No. No, I’m thinking. That would be insects. Etiology. Etiology, I’m thinking. No. No, that would be causal. Etymology. Etymology, I’m thinking. No. No, that would be words. Yes words. So we’re in the right ballpark. But history. The history of all words. Ethnology. Ethnology, I’m thinking. No. No, that would be cultural. That would be human cultures. And certainly words would be. Well. Involved. But. Then there’s. Well. I go blank.

I can’t think of what she wants to mean or thinks she means. I can’t bring the word up out of the chaos of my brain. If there is a word. And maybe there isn’t a word for this. I don’t know.

What she wants to know are the meanings of the characters’ names in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A lovely play. A play about spirit beings and love’s triumph, which is quite simply a tour de force. Which always is a tour de force aided by spirit beings elsewhere both in life and literature. And so I bring out the baby name book that’s been around our house for decades and played a role in Katharine’s naming. And so she tries out a name. Puck, she says. The book has no idea. And so I’m useless. So we end the conversation.

And today, I’m thinking. What’s in a name. What’s in a name. What meaning’s in my name for example. But none’s apparent. Bill Elkington. Who knows what it means. But what if. What. Well, suppose I take the letters and. You know. Scramble them around a bit. See what I get. Anagram type of deal. Open up the name to a little spirit work. A little cosmic rearranging.
So here’s one possibility. One possible incarnation of the name that may have some meaning, is what I’m thinking. Is what I’m hoping. And it seems. Oh. It satisfies to a point. I mean. It feels like I’ve discovered something, you know. Like it rings a bell, if you know what I mean. Like it strikes a chord. Like it. Corresponds. Rings true. Pick your cliché.

Liking Notbell. Liking Notbell. Rolls off the tongue, does it not. Sounds. Sounds. Not bad, is what I’m thinking. After all. I am like. And I do like. As a normal mode of being. I do resemble and I do have affinity for rather than am repelled, for example. Rather than differentiate myself from the rest. No. I am more like than I am unlike. I do like more than I do not like. And then there is the Notbell part. And this seems wise. I mean. I’m not your bell ringing Christian. I’m not your swing from the clapper. Swing in the belfry. Swing for the stars type of noisy loud obnoxious ludicrous silly pathetic chest-beating boorish imbecile chimpanzee monkey Christian.

No. I’m more one of your. Oh. One of your more quiet types of Christians. One of your more silent types of Christians. One of your listen to the wind types of Christians. Your tasteful listen to the wind in the trees. Your tactful listen to the wind over the water. Your understated listen to the wind in the mountains types of Christians.

I’m one of those Christians who goes to a church for example without a belfry. Without any bells whatsoever. Without even a recording of bells that is played over a loud speaker for the edification of all those within earshot. Within pistol shot. Within rifle shot.

I seek a presence in the absence, if you know what I mean. If you’ve done your obligatory Zen reading. Your obligatory Desert Fathers type of reading. Your obligatory weird Saints type of reading. I seek his presence in the absence of what I came many years ago to think of mostly as noise. Mostly as the world. As bruiting. Of a boisterous kind of a yelling all about. An artificially amplified bit of clanging. A worldly sort of bling-blanging.

Smug. Smug and a bit self-satisfied. A bit shy and standoffish. A bit too sensitive in the eardrums, for example. A Liking Notbell. I like things. I like a lot of things. Just not fond of bells. That’s all. Just not into the regulatory, Roman, coercive, commercial, crashing, creeping, craven business of the bells. Is all. The millennia long whacking of the bells.