Benjamin—Hebrew, “son of the right hand,” the youngest of Jacob’s sons, Rachel’s son, Joseph’s little brother. Arguably the littlest of the little in the Hebrew Bible.

Actually, I haven’t always been good to my name. When I was seven years old, I came home from school with my work for the day, and I had just written “Ben” on it. My mother asked me why. I said the full thing was too long. In effect, I shortened my name out of laziness or efficiency—and my mother was not impressed.

But to this day, I like three things in particular about my name and nickname.

First, as “Ben,” the name is pretty universal. This is a legitimate name in Thai (derived from Pali or Sanskrit for the number “five”). Benedict is another possible European origin for the shortened name. And the number of times someone from another country has told me about Ben 10 is not nothing. I feel like I can connect to many people with my name, and it’s not particularly hard to get familiar with or remember. It helps to be relatable in small ways.

Second, if someone calls me “Ben,” it’s kind of like they are just calling me “son.” For a moment, I’m small. Spiritually speaking, this is much better than “son of the right hand.” I’m just a small person—hopefully respected, but small.

Third, I actually share my name with two people very important to me, Thérèse of Lisieux and Marcel Văn. The former called herself a Benjamin, i.e., the youngest, in correspondence with extended family (and early versions of this Story of a Soul used this word in places where the author of the autobiographical manuscripts herself did not). The latter got this nickname at the presbytery of Hữu Bằng, though he lost the nickname in the aftermath of the first wave of abuse he suffered there.

The third reason is arguably the best one. If Văn couldn’t keep the name, maybe I can do it for him.

Although this is in some sense a spiritual reflection and hopefully a bit deeper than one might expect for this WordPress daily prompt, I’ll be back with slightly more substantive content tomorrow…